www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology St. Charbel in Russia

There seems to be quite a bit of devotion to the hermit-Saint, Charbel, in Holy Russia. I found this site of interest: http://www.mari.org/JMS/january00/Saint_Sharbels_Phenomenon.htm
Enjoy!
Silouan, monk

Thank you. That looks interesting. I've only recently heard of this Saint, and that was through a book in our Church library. I'll plan to check out this article.

Thanks for the wonderful article. Among the people at St. Georges in Birmingham, this saint is very popular.

Rose

This is very interesting.

One downside I saw while reading this article was that people seem to be using St. Sharbel and his image for the sole purpose of obtaining physical healing, as if this great Maronite saint were some sort of heavenly MD!

Spreading devotion to a saint is good; telling people he's a quick fix for all that ails ya' is bad (like all those little notes that tell you to pray to Saint Jude and Saint Anthony and all your problems will cease).

I hope that people will gain an appreciation for the saint for his great life and witness.

Dave

There is a very beautiful icon of Saint Sharbel at Saint Ann's Melkite Church in West Paterson, NJ. He's dressed more like a Byzantine monastic (what do you expect, the icon was painted in Greece ) and holding a Cedar of Lebanon.

Dave

Dear Friends,

The good thing is that Russian Orthodox do have veneration for Eastern Catholic and other Saints.

The bad thing is that when I found my akathist to Our Lady of Guadalupe - also honoured by Orthodox - on a Russian Orthodox site for akathists - it was soon deleted and I received a nasty note about how the Orthodox Church was the only true Church and this is a site for Orthodox devotions etc.

Oh, well!

Alex