Dear Catholicos,
You ask a lot of questions, Big Guy . . .
My vacation is continuing work on our new home. I put in six hours of demolition yesterday and am convalescing today. I get a rush from these things
.
I didn't know St Kyrillos was canonised! When did that happen? I just hate it when I miss a canonization!
And you raise an excellent hagiographical question.
More often than not, we can find out so much when we examine the full range of possible reasons behind a saint's canonization. These invariably do include political reasons of one sort or another.
In the case of the Alexandrian Popes, that Oriental Orthodox Church is simply following the ancient Christian tradition of inscribing one's bishops into the calendar of saints soon after their repose.
As the Orthodox theologian, Fr. Michael Pomazansky wrote on this subject, the bishops were charged with the responsibility of continual prayer for their flocks and their local canonization after their repose underlined the belief that they were not only holy but also that they continued in their prayer for their flock in Heaven.
And there will always be those who will be against the canonization of a given saint because they don't see them in a good light or other reasons.
The beatificaton of Pope John XXIII was put off, as I understand from a member of the papal delegation that was here for WYD, because there were some who just didn't like him or who had worked under him etc. And this despite the fact that there were more than 300 miracles through his intercession "cleared" by the Church!
A "Thaumaturge" is a miracle-worker. I thought I'd try to impress Stuart.
As he hasn't rushed back to acclaim me, I guess I failed
Or it could be that he didn't appreciate my pointing up that stuff about the Trisagion.
O.K., so I know a few things about you Oriental Orthodox guys.
He knows stuff about the Assyrians and he knows way more than me about almost everything else.
So what's the problem?
God bless, Catholicos, and I hope you are getting out there into the "swim of things."
How's your love life, by the way? Don't mean to pry . . .
Alex
