Posts Tagged ‘city’

Life going nowhere …

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

Meaningless_life-picture

Seems, My life is going nowhere. Today I drinked half of a bottle of Wine and 1 beer. I was out with Alex. We drinked in the city park. Through the day I started my first bsd jail using a tutorial online. I smoked a lot of cigarettes and I want to stop them again. Most of the people I met are not a good company for me that's what I'm thinking more and more. Also I'm thinking more and more I have to change my living place. If only I could find the love of my life … We moved bookshelf and stuff from our room ( My mother again has decided to make repairs in our room. ). I'm asking myself why shall I live a meaningless life. At least my interest into computers and computing started to appear again (this is cool). My faith is really going away since I pray and pray for something .. and I don't receive it ( Or at least I don't see it). I'm tired of waiting. I need to have this physical healing to continue my normal life. I'm not proud of me I was a little aggressive when we was in the Mino's coffee before an hour or so … Now I intend to watch another episode of stargate SG1. And to go to the DreamLand. If only I could live into a Dreamland all the time. I'm starting to realize I should change the music I listen, I should change a lot of my behaviours If I want to have a new and happy life. Autumn is a beautiful Season 🙂 The autumn rain shall come and restore us :)END—–

Some of the most important Symbols for Orthodox Christians in The Eastern Orthodox Church – Symbols in the Eastern Orthodox Christian Faith (Eastern Orthodox Symbolism) and Christian Symbolism in the Roman Catholic Church (Symbolism in Western Catholicism)

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Some-of-the-most-important-symbols-for-orthodox-christiains-in-the-eastern-orthodox-church-symbols-in-eastern-orthodox-faith.

Yesterday, while browsing randomly I came across an interesting Roman Catholic webpage.
The website is created by Catholics with the idea to better explain the Catholic religion and Symbolism.
Though as an Orthodox Christian, my interest towards Roman Catholicism is only scientific, it's really interesting to see the common symbolism surrounding Roman Catholicism and compare with the Orthodox Christian symbolism. Many of the Roman Catholic Symbols are equal symbol with the one we nowadays used in the orthodox church.
I presume this common symbolism between Orthodox and Roman Catholic church,has stayed the same from the time before Roman Catholics split from the Only Holy Apostolic Church  to become the Church of the West Roman Empire, that's how the naming Roman Catholic came forward.

To find out more about Roman Catholic symbolism please see the following links I've mirrored the information from Fisheater's website which is btw is a great website targeting Roman Catholic layman. Everything on the website is explained in a simple everyday language without too much terminology which makes it a great resource for Roman Catholic Christians and people like me who who like to take a look in Roman Catholicism.

It's really a strange and intriguing fact let's call it a "co-incidence" that the inverted cross (upside-down) cross,also called "Peter's cross" on which saint Peter was crucified is also a symbol of Papacy .
It's a popular fact that nowadays Satanist use a similar inverted cross to the one said to be symbol of papacy for their "Black Masses" (Satanic Masses). Maybe some Roman Catholic priest or Cardinal has to explain, how comes that the Roman Catholics ended with such a significant symbol used nowdays in anti-christian satanic religion to be also a symbol of their beloved Pope??

I will skip forward to the heart of this article, which is to explain the Christian Symbolism which is important for us the Eastern Orthodox Christians. Many of the symbols might have in common, also with other Christian early Churches like the Coptic Oriental Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Churches and other Chruches which somehow are closer to the One Holy and Apostolic Church – the Orthodox Church but officially are not in communion with us the Orthodox Christians.

Here I'll share only the most notable Christian Symbolism which is also used in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Many of this symbolism was always bothering me while in Churches or Monasteries and was always pushing me to more and more questions without answers, thus I finally did some research on this symbols in get a better understanding on my Orthodox Christian faith.

Since I don't have a Theologian education and many of us the ordinary layman's in the church doesn't have such education I hope this orthodox Christian symbolism shared here and it's meanings will be of interest and will help you fortify your good faith in God and our Orthodox Christian faith.

Lamb of God Christian Symbol
Lamb

Lamb: symbol of Christ as the Paschal Lamb and also a symbol for Christians (as Christ is our Shepherd and Peter was told to feed His sheep).

This symbol is also presented in Bulgaria on the little yellow book they sell in our Bulgarian Orthodox Churches.
This tiny book contains the Divine Liturgy compiled by God's inspiration by st. John Chrysostom
If you're coming from an Catholic Background and you hold interest for Orthodox Christianity, as historically East Orthodox Christianity Symbol of Faith as well as basic doctrines were kept untouched, you might consider reading online here The Divine Liturgy by St. John Chrysostom
It's really important to say that the Divine Liturgy by St. John Chrysostom is the "backbone" of the church life, since it's the main and most served Liturgy in the eastern Orthodox Churches around the world.

Dove and Russian Patriarch
Dove: symbol of the The Holy Spirit and used especially in representations of our Lord's Baptism and the Pentecost. It is also used to recall Noe's dove, a harbinger of hope.

Chirchoao, Chi-Rho Sigla
"Chi-Rho" or "sigla": the letters "X" and "P," representing the first letters of the title "Christos," were eventually put together to form this symbol for Christ ("Chi" is pronounced "Kie"). It is this form of the Cross that the Emperor of Byzantia Constantine saw in his vision along with the Greek words, TOUTO NIKA, and which mean "in this sign thou shalt conquer.

Orthodox Tau Cross
"thau" or "tau": the T-shaped cross is mentioned in the Old Testament and is seen as a foreshadowing of the Cross of Christ.
Ezechiel 9:4:
"And the Lord said to him: Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and
mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof."
I've noticed that the tau_cross is often worn by Orthodox Monks as "a badge" on their clothes somewhere in the right of their chest

Greek Orthodox Cross
The Greek Orthodox Cross This symbol is one of the earliest Christian symbols which emerged right after Christ's resurrection.
The Greek Cross has all fours members the same shape and form (crux quadrata) and usually suggests the Christian church rather than a symbol of Christ's suffering.

Jerusalem Cross
Jerusalem Cross: also called the "Crusaders' Cross," it is made up of 5 Greek Crosses which are said to symbolize a) the 5 Wounds of Christ; and/or b) the 4 Gospels and the 4 corners of the earth (the 4 smaller crosses) and Christ Himself (the large Cross). This Cross was a common symbol used during the wars against Islamic aggression. (see less stylized version at right)

Baptismal Cross
Baptismal Cross: consisting of the Greek Cross with the Greek letter "X", the first initial of the title "Christ," this Cross is a symbol of regeneration, hence, its association with Baptism. Usually the Orthodox priest dress is decorated with a sign like this.

Red Orthodox Egg
The Scarlet red Egg:
Church tradition has it that St. Mary Magdalen went to Rome and met with the Emperor Tiberius to tell him about the Resurrection of Jesus. She held out an egg to him as a symbol of this, and he scoffed, saying that a man could no more rise from the dead than that egg that she held could turn scarlet. The egg turned deep red in her hands, and this is the origin of Easter eggs, and the reason why Mary Magdalen is often portrayed holding a scarlet egg.

Ichthus an early Christian Symbol
Ichtus (Ichthys) – The Fish:
Fish: the fish — ever-watchful with its unblinking eyes — was one of the most important symbols of Christ to the early Christians. In Greek, the phrase, "Jesus Christ, Son of God Savior," is "Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter." The first letters of each of these Greek words, when put together, spell "ichthys," the Greek word for "fish" (ICQUS ). This symbol can be seen in the Sacraments Chapel of the Catacombs of St. Callistus. Because of the story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the fish symbolized, too, the Eucharist (see stylized fish symbol at right). Important note to make, here is that nowdays this sign's variations is not too often to be seen in Orthodox Churches. It's highly adopted by protestant Christians, seeing this sign on somebody's car or inside his home is a sure sign that probably he adhere's to Christian teachings different from orthodoxy.

Alpha Omega orthodox symbol
The Alpha-Omega symbol
Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, became a symbol for Christ due to His being called "the First and the Last." The roots of symbolizing these attributes of God go back further, all the way to the Old Testament where, in Exodus 34:6, God is said to be "full of Goodness and Truth." The Hebrew spelling of the word "Truth" consists of the 3 letters "Aleph," "Mem," and "Thaw" — and because "Aleph" and "Thaw" are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the ancients saw mystical relevance in God's being referred to as "Truth." At any rate, the Greek Alpha and Omega as a symbol for Christ has been found in the Catacombs, Christian signet rings, post-Constantine coins, and the frescoes and mosaics of ancient churches.

IC XC Nika Orthodox Symbol
The "IC XC Nika":
comes from Ancient Greek and was a widespread ancient Christian Symbol which is nowadays still present in the Eastern Orthodox Churches. IC XC Nika literally translated to english means "IC XC = Jesus Christ, NIKA = Glory to". In other words translated to modern english IC XC NIKA means Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Many Protestant Christians, nowdays falsely believe and claims this fish Christian symbol preceded the Crucifix as a symbol of veneration of Jesus and his Cross sufferings in the Church. This kind of belief is a falsely spread along many Protestant or "Evangelical" Christian denominations and Methodists. to be seen in many ancient Christian Church buildings is a Christian symbol. Today, some ancient Orthodox Churches still contain the "Christian fish" symbol. The reason why this symbol was used by early Christians is as a remembrance of the great miracle of Jesus to feed 5000 with 2 fishes and seven breads.

Holy Eucharist Cup, Bread and Wine

The Holy Eucharist vessels used by Orthodox Priests This is the cup of salvation as also called during the Divine Liturgy each time, the Wine and the Blood that the priest prepares in that Holy Cup is transformed by The Holy Spirit into a veracious flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Orthodox Byzantine Coat of Arms
The byzantine coat of arms
is an ancient Christian symbol used in the early Byzantine Church, nowadays it can be observed only in the Orthodox Churches.
It symbolizes the power of the Byzantian empire under the guidance of the the Holy Lord and the Gospel Truths.

Orthodox Bishop Crown
The Orthodox Bishop Crown is only worn by Bishops in the Orthodox Church. This crown indicates the Bishop's Church and spiritual (rank) and dignity.

Byzantine Orthodox Cross
Byzantine Orthodox or Russian Orthodox Cross
Is used most often by Eastern Catholics and Russian Orthodox, this Cross is the Byzantine Cross with the footrest at a diagonal. This slant is said to represent one of a few things:
– the footrest wrenched loose from the Christ's writhing in intense physical suffering; lower side representing "down," the fate of sinners, while the elevated side represents Heaven;
– the lower side represents the bad thief (known to us as Gestas through the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate" ("Gospel of Nicodemus") while the elevated side to Christ's right represents the thief who would be with Him in Paradise (St. Dismas);
– the "X" shape of the slanted "footrest" against the post symbolizes the cross on which St. Andrew was crucified.

Megaloschema a dress of a schimonk
The Megaloschema is a dress worn by schimonks. This monk rank is actually the highest possible rank an orthodox Christian monk can achieve. The symbolism on the dress is a brief form of:

  • IC XC (IECOYC XPICTOC) "Jesus Christ"
  • IC XC NIKA ("IECOYC XPICTOC NIKA") meaning: "Jesus Christ is Victorious"

The letters below IC XC Nika has a meaning – The Light of Christ shines on all.

  • XX. X.X letters. – means "Christ bestows grace on Christians"
  • The 4 Thitha (called) signs are a symbol for: Vision of God Divine wonder

Then the

  • T. K. P. G – Means "The Place of the Skull becomes Paradise"
  • The text placed in the lowest translated to English is "AdamThe First Man" and also is a symbol for the Place of the Skull (Golgotha).
  • In the Orthodox Church and the Church fathers teaches us that Golgotha or the Place of the Skull is the Place where the first man (Adam) was buried, and by God's divine providence coincides with the place where our Saviour Jesus Christ was crucified.

Orthodox Bishop Dress
Orthodox Priest dress / robe
This dress is only worn by Orthodox Christian Bishops.

Bulgarian Orthodox cross with 4 lights
The Cross with four lights emitating near the center of the cross This cross is actually used in more modern times as a Christian Orthodox symbol, The four lights coming out of the cross are added,
as the gospels speak that Christ is the Sun of righteousness
I've had quite a long time trying to figure out why exactly this cross is made with this 4 lights. It was a real joy when one time a priesttold me the meaning.
It's interesting fact that most of the Roman Catholic's crosses nowdays have the four lights radiating from Christ's Crucifix or the Cross symbolizing the Crucifix.

This is all I will say for symbolism for now. I hope this Christian symbolism will shed some light on the matters of Symbolism in both the Orthodox and the Catholoic eastern Church. I'll be glad if somebody out there more literate on the subject comment on my post and correct me if I'm wrong with smething.

Nessebar – Ancient Christian city and a wonderful rest resort

Wednesday, April 9th, 2014

nessebar-an-ancient-Christian-city-a-great-resort-place
Last Friday together with my best friend Mitko together with an old-school good friend Samuel and another friend Geоrgi travelled to Pomorie Monastery. The reasons to go there was to have a short pilgrimage journey and to baptize Samuil who had the good desire to receive Baptism. As always it is a God's blessing to spend time in monastery and this was time it was not different. We started the trip from Sofia to Pomorie in about 08:15 and with a few little breaks we reached theMonastery about 12:30. Before we start journey I call Pomorie Monastery's abbot father Ierotey to ask if he will bless our pilgrimage (for those who never was in monastery's everything  happens wtih a blessing and it is best before a monastic trip to ask a blessing). Once arrived the novice monk Milen met us and accomodated us in two of the monastic rooms.

On next day, there was the standard morning prayer service and the bells rung to wake us up, after the service we had a small talk with father Sergiy, met some of the brothers and with abbots blessing together with father Sergiy, we went for a few hours pilgrimage journey to Nessebar.

Nessebar (the town ancient name is Mesambria) is an ancient city situated 16 km from Pomorie (known in ancient times as Anchialo / Anchialo). Both Pomorie and Nesebar was a great historical Christian sites from very ancient times, a cities where first civilization started before Christ. Here according to excavation Christianity started somewhere in the early II-nd century and undergoes а bloom until the XI, XIII century. Here in those places according to some historic datas used to even have an archibiship seat. It is less known fact that Nessebar is one of the most ancient cities in all Europe and started its existence about 3200 years B.C.!
In ancient times before Christianity Mesambria used to be inhabited with Thracians.
On the road to Nesebar we passed through Aheloy (Achelous) – a town where occured the Battle of Achelous (y. 917) which is the biggest battle in medieval European history (120 000 troops participated in battle).

Bulgarians_defeat_the_Byzantines_at_Anchialos_battle_biggest-battle-of-10-th-century-medieval-times

Nesebar is a significant historical city and thus part of UNESCO's world heritage world site. It is divided in new and old city, whether new city's doesn't shiny with architecture, the old town architecture is preserved and absolutely unique. The fact that Nessebar used to be a important Christian center is still evident as even though the town area is situated in peninsula (consisting of only 850 meters width and 350 meters hight), it has 12 Churches !

Nesebar_Church-of-Christ-Pantokrator
Nessebar Church of Christ Pantokrator

Some of the ancient Churches in nessebar are dated from around VI to VIII century. Many of the Churches are in a style specific for Bulgarian empire build in analogy with the  Tarnovo capital of Bulgaria at that time architecture, such architecture is very common for Bulgaria and Byzantine empire in the XIII and XVI centuries. Churches dated from the XIII c. is St. Parascheva, (XIII c.) St. Theodor (XIV c.), St. Archangel Michael and Gabriel (XVI).
По това време са построени църквите “Св. Параскева (XIII в), “Св. Теодор” (XIV в), “Св. Архангели Михаил и Гавраил” (XIV в), имащи преки аналогии в столичната търновска архитектура.
 

ancient-church-in-Nessebar-1

Unfortunately though there are many Churches in Nessebar, many of them are just historical monuments nowadays and others are turned into Painting Galleries. In all ancient city only 1 Orthoox Church – The Dormition of Virgin Mary is functional with regular Holy Liturgies served. The Church has a miracle making of the Theotokos. Many people have found relief and cure or fast help from God after praying in front of the miraculous icon.

miracle-making-holy-icon-of-Virgin-Mary-Nessebar-Bulgaria
Nessebar Miracle Making Icon of Holy Theotokos

To give thanks to Mother Mary many people who received cure or whose prayers came true by praying in front of the miraculous icon deliberately left their gold earings, necklaces and even war medals.
In the Church there are holy relics of number of Christian saints – saint Cyprian and Justina, saint Tatyiana, st. mrtr. Marina, st. Vlasij, st. Macarious

Father Sergij walk us through the city telling a bit of history of each of the Churhes one of the Basilicas was much bigger the rest and fr. Sergius explained that this used to be a Church where a Metropolitan or a Bishop was serving.

We learned that in Nessebar was a very desired king region a place, a highly spiritual place with an overall of 40 Churches!
On the entrance of old nessebar there are remains of the old city fortress walls, the whole city houses and architecture is renessance with a lot of wooden houses.
fortifications_in_entrance_of_Nesebar
Nessebar city entry fortress remains

Nesebar_-_Wooden_Houses
Wooden Houses in Nesebar

Besides the beautiful Churches the sea side is breath taking and from sea shore you can in the distance another resort city Sunny Beach.

nessebar-hills picture
Nessebar winter sea coast view

In Nesebar there are plenty of souvenir shops, caffeterias, small ethnographic styled restaurants assuring a great time for every touries.Very neart to Nessebar is situated also a beautiful rest resort village Ravda.
About 13:00 we left Nessebar and headed back to Pomorie with fr. Sergij who told us a what of Christian faith stories rich in wisdom. On next day Sunday after the end of Holy Liturgy the Abbot of Pomorie Monastery (fr. Ierotey)  baptized Samuel and we had a lunch together with the brotherhood.In early afternoon we  headed back to Sofia. As always father archimandrit Ierotey and fr. Sergius presented us with Christian literature as a gift and a CDs with faith related movies.

2 Wonderful days in Belgrad Serbia / Belgrad a city you should see! – A trip to KaleMegdan, ZooPark War museum and Kaona monastery

Monday, July 7th, 2014

Flag_of_Serbia-days-in-Serbia-Beograd-must-see-place-zoopark-and-military-museum.svg

Me and my wife Svetlana, spend our weekend in Beograd (or BeoGreat! as it is also famous among English speaking). I was sceptical about Serbian, always thinking Serbians are living poorer and that we Bulgarians have better living standard. What I saw in Beograd convinced me Serbs lives at least half or 1 time better than us Bulgarians. Starting from Road Infrastructure and coming to the prices and ending with buildings, people live and mood and everything is just amazing!
serbian-tram-beograd-city-nice-infrastructure

serbian-tram-beograd-city-nice-infrastructure

Serbs as people have deeply impressed me, they are one of the best people, I've seen really. Serbs have respect for their Church, know how to enjoy their life much more than us. Also the culture in Serbs as they are more western oriented than us. The language is not so easy to understand as a I though, generally you can understand with a serbian as its slavonic similar language. The whole 2 way sleeping car train ticket from Bulgaria ( Sofia ) to Serbia ( Beograd ), costed us about 55 euro per person – which is a bit expensive because the real distance between Sofia and Serbia is only 400
km
, but as it is international ride it is a bit overcosted.

bdz_slipenwagen-sleeping-old-car-of-bulgarian-national-railways
bdz_slipenwagen-sleeping-old-car-of-bulgarian-national-railways

The sleeping car were inscribed with the words (Liegen Wagen – in German Sleeping Car) and were an old wagons left from communism – produced in Bulgaria.
Though the wagons were old the were clean and warm, the sleeping sheets were clean and generally it was confortable as we were only 2 people in compartment (this was so because not too many people travel from Beograd to Sofia and vice versa). Also the service in the train is on a high level, the woman who was accomodating us in the train was very affable. In train we were checked twice once by and once by Serbian border control and by Bulgarian border police and customs. On our way to Serbia the train come late with a delay about 2 hours we started from Sofia at 20:30 on 5th of July, Friday and we were supposed to be in Beograd in 05:00 Serbian time (which is 06:00 BG Time).
However the train arrived in Beograd just about 07:00 (Serbian time).
Belgrade_railway_station
Belgrade_railway_station

We had the great blessing to have a very warm and dry days which was quite nice (especially after the heavy floods that hit Serbia and Bulgaria less than a month ago. The central train station in Beograd is much smaller than Sofia's central station but it looks much beatiful as it is an old-fashioned building probably 100 years old. What striked me right after our arrival is the public transport trams, were very new and clean. Also the cars Serbs drive seem to be newer than Bulgarians, Serbians drive second hand bought cars from West Europe approximately produced in 2006, while the avarage cars we drive here in BG is from 2001 or 2000. There are few buildings in the city center which seemed abondoned and seemed like they need renovation but besides that everything looked quite well looking for a city that was bombed in 1998 – 1999. Later I learned from Galin bombing conducted by Americans was done only on few government and military buildings – and were done in a very "human" way – everything was clear earlier what will be bombed etc. etc.
serbia-belgrade-bomb-damage-building-in-beograde
Serbia-Belgrade-bomb-damage-building

Can you believe, there might be a "human way of bombing?", well according to Americans and UN, there could be! On our arrival merrital god-father Galint took us from train station and brought us to their living apartment located on str. Maršala Birjuzova, Beograd. Andrea (Galin's wife) and our merriage god-mother received us warm harted as always. We met also Andrea's mother Milenka (Serbian equivalent of Bulgarian name Milena) … Andrea's mother Milenka Perolo is owning a small an English to Serbian and Serbian to English translation angecy called "Perolo". Andrea and her mother are by linkage Croation, it is very interesting that genetically Croatiaons are very close to Bulgarians just like we Bulgarians are genetically close to Italians and even according to some researches Italian nation originated from Bulgarian. There is probably something true in that because it seems we can very easily interact with Croations … 23 days old cute baby girl Boryana
23 days old cute baby girl Boryana (which got baptized – becoming a young Orthodox Christian 🙂 )

Galin and Andrea are having only 23 days born baby called Boryana, its their 3rd child after Georgi and Konstantin. After having a good braekfast from fast food like Bulgarian famous Banica (from Pekara – a place where they sell fast food equivalents to Banica) and we bought Yogurt which is something like the Bulgarian Soar Milk (Kiselo Mlijako) with this difference that Serbian Yogurt is not so good for health as Bulgarian Yoghurt (Kiselo Mlijako). After the morning meal Galin brought us to the city center where we enjoyed a lot the Serbian language writtings in shops and buildings. The words are similar to Bulgarian. However cyrillic writting in Serbia is not so common as they tend to write a lot of their words in Latin letters being highly influenced by western culture. After the main city center street full of majestic buildings of significance to Serbian history, the national bank, the national museum, theatres etc. We came to KaleMegdan a very beautiful green park full of statues of Serbian revolutionaries, Kings and national heroes, very much in the spirit of Sofia's Borisova garden (gradina) – Sofia's central park. What striked me is the fortress situated in the middle of the park. KaleMegdan fortress is probably one of the best preserved and biggest early age (12/13th century) fortress and medieval times renewed fortress in Europe. It is the biggest I've seen in my wife so far, in the middle of the fortress there is a tennis court! a basketball field, volleyball field etc. etc. In very middle of KaleMegdan fortress there is a an exposition of tanks and warfare items and heavy anti-tank weapons left from I-st and II world war. There are also a boats and even submarine missles and underwater mines exposed, along with war boats. I was never seriously interested in warfare technology but seeing all this complete took up my attention. Continuing further the fortress one ends to a fortress walls and park continuation from where you see the two rivers Savva (Sava) river and Dunabe mixing beatifully together their blue and green waters, along with a sideview to whole Beograd 
city! Again amazingly beuatiful!

Sava_river_in_Belgrade,_view_from_Kalemegdan_fortress
Sava_river_in_Belgrade,_view_from_Kalemegdan_fortress

The air of course is very wet and there is humidity everywhere as there is a big river nearby. And in summer in Beograd you feel like being on the beach except there are no beaches. There is an improvised beach on the river, but as I heard from Beograd locals, beaching ont he river is much less enjoyable as going to a real sea beach. In the fortress there are two Churches as well one used to be a military church and interestingly its lusters are all made of war bullets. The otherChurch Saint Petka is historically very famous as it was temporary holding the holy relics of Saint Petka and even today in the Church there is small part of holy relics from Saint Petka. On Dunabe river there is a view of many boats and river resturants beautifully ordered on the river shore so it is perfect for people to relax from heavy stressful daily life. On the city park there is also a large children playground, where children could have a great fun and very near the fortress is situated Beograd 
National – City ZooPark!

  Beograd-city-center-national-zoo-white-lion

Beograd-city-center-national-zoo-white-lion

The Zoo is fantastic and has even more animals though situated on less space than Sofia Zoo. We went to Famous Beograd Zoo on Sunday 06.07.2014, after being for a holy liturgy in the main cathedral Church of Beograd – St. Archangel Michael (the Church building is situated opposite to Serbian Orthodox Church Holy Synod, and very nearby to a iconographic academy and the patrierchal residency.

  Saborna-Crkva-Beograd-city-center

Saborna-Crkva-Beograd-city-center

The Church service was quiet understandable as big parts of the service is in Church Slavonic and as I'm adjusted to understanding big part of the Church slavonic and understand a bit of serbian speech, I was feeling in Serbian church almost like in a service here in Bulgaria. Serving Holy Liturgy in Church in Church slavnic is a big blessing for us slavonic people as we can understand the service in Serbia, Bulgaria, Monte Negro, Croatia, Bulgaria 🙂 After the Church service we went for a coffee in a Serbian coffee nearby the iconographic academy in Beograd. One thing to note here is always in all ex-Yugoslavia, if you order coffee you get a cup of free fresh water with the coffee – a great coffee drinking habit of Serbs. In the street I've seen a car under the brand Yugo which is pretty much like the small old Fiat cars, but it used to be produced in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the coffee we went back home have a another coffee with a small dinner and a cake with Serbian Coca-Cola which has a little bit of a different taste than the coca-cola in BG and other countries I've been (note I usually hate Cola and I don't drink it but here I dеcided to give it a try with experimental aim 🙂 What impressed me on the Coca Cola plastic bottle was written "This Cola doesn't contain conservants or any chemical substances" – I LOL-ed (Laughted Out Loud ) to this non-sense. We all know cola is one of worst conservant of modern man so such a writtings is a big non-sense.

Pljeskavica - Serbian Traditional most popular food meal
Pljeskavica – Serbian Traditional most popular food meal

For a lunch I ate the most famous Serbian (food) meal called "Pleskavica" a very, very big meat ball – talking about food Serbian are crazy about meat. They probably are the nation with biggest meat consumption in Europe! – I heard for Serbs and Croations, a kilo and a half of meat eaten a day is something very usual!
Monastery-kaonana-putusaba-serbia-monastery-near-Beograd-70-km-monastery-from-Beograd

Monastery-kaonana-putusaba-serbia-monastery-near-Beograd-70-km-monastery-from-Beograd

Kaona Monastery Serbia Monks living cells
Kaona Monastery Serbia Monks living cells

After lunch time on Saturday, around 14:00 serbian time, we jumped in our god-fathers Opel car and travelled to Kaona Monastery where was arranged to happen baptism of 23 days new-born baby Boryana. The archimandrite Philimon (which is very young 30 years old) received a us hospitably in Kaona Monastery – a monastery nearby the Serbian village Kaona. The monastery is a true heavenly garden. It has a small monastic property – sheeps, ducks, chickens 🙂  
Crkva kaona Monastir
Crkva Kaona Monastir

There is a miraculous water spring like in most monasteries, a baptisterium, two beautiful Churches (a Church school) and lake with a boats where you can have rest sailing with a small rowing boat. My wife Svetlana became the spiritual mother of the 23 days baby Boryana, making our bond with our marriage god-parents family even stronger. We had a safe travel from Beograd to Kaona and vice versa by God's grace. By an old tradition after batism there was small gathering and we ate same biscuits, baklava and drink a little of Rakia, coffee tea etc. After that by Abbot's blessing Philimon we went to the small monastic lake and sailed on the small rawing boat, where I had the chance to oar the boat for a second life in my life (btw rowing is quite pleasurable and healthy thing to do).

Kaona monastery paradise lake
Kaona monastery tiny monastic lake

The Abbot Philemon very much in the monastic spirit of good willness and love invited us to have a dinner together with a few of the other people who was on a pilgrimage journey to the monastery.

Kaona Monastery sheeps
Kaona Monastery sheeps

Eating in a monastery is a true blessing as always. Before eating a prayer is said by the abbot and the food is blessed during the dinner. There was a person reading the sayings of the Holy Church fathers, letting the monks remember even when they eat that the spiritual food is more important and should not be forgot even when physical food is eaten.
Church for funeral services nearby Kaona monastery
Church for funeral services nearby Kaona monastery  

Kaona Monastery entrance Church side door
Kaona Monastery entrance Church side door

Paraklis (Small Baptismal Chapel Kaona Monastery)
Parakles (Small Baptismal Chapel)

Going back from the monastery on late Saturday we had the plan to go outside with Galin and enjoy a bit the night life of Beograd but, we were very tired so we went sleeping almost immediately. On the next day after the Church service, we went to the Zoo and we had 2 hours and a half of great time, and I have the opportunity to see a lot of animals I saw for a first time in my life by God's grace 🙂 Here are some pictures from the zoo-park.

Beograd-National-Zoo-Lamma
Beograd-National-Zoo-Lamma

hip0-and-a-Lion-in-Beograd-Zoo
hip0-and-a-Lion-in-Beograd-Zoo

My-wife-and-a-Camelopard-in-Beograd-Zoo
My-wife-and-a-Camelopard-in-Beograd-Zoo

hipos in Beograd Zoo
hipos in Beograd ZooPark 🙂

Grandmother Camel in Beograd Zoo
Grandmother Camel in Beograd Zoo
In the afternoon after the zoo I went to the Military museum. It is the first war museum visitation in my wife so again quite an interesting experience.

Military-museum-belgrad-voenen-muzei-Belgrad
Military-museum-belgrad-voenen-muzei-Belgrad

Among the machine-guns there was even Bulgarian. It is interesting too see that a big part of history of Serbs is in their war history, there war weapons from all ages starting from pre-medieval times, going through the mediaval, the renessance the Serbian liberation war, the Ist and II-nd world war and ending in the just recent war
in Kosovo and conflicts in Monte Negro (Cerna / Crna Gora)

.
Military Museum within fortress wall Belgrad

To end up the great time, few hours before we had to go Galin and Andrea brought and left the two kids for a birthday party and brought us for a drink of few beers in boat-restaurant anchored on the river shore of Savva river.

Rabbit drink / Zaicharsko Serbian beer
Zaicharsko Serbian beer / Rabbit drink 🙂

An interesting fact is Savva river is named after Saint Savva (who was the first Serbian Archibishop, the creator of Serbian Church and partially the creator of Serbian state), St. Savva is considered the greatest serbian saint of all times and protector saint of all Serbian.  
Saint-Archibishop-Sava-creator-of-Serbian-Orthodox-Church
Saint-Archibishop-Sava-creator-of-Serbian-Orthodox-Church

A curious fact is saint Savva's dormition happened in nowdays Tarnovo Bulgaria.
As a closure I would say I enjoyed Serbian land a lot and I recommend it to anyone who want to have a great rest time. I think it is a big blessing for Serbians to not be in the European union, and one can feel the difference even spiritually when he is out of EU. In being not yet officially part of European Union though they have put their candidature Serbia reminds me somehow to Belarus.

Serbia just like Bulgarian is a land very rich in saints and martyrs throughout the long history, they're our brothers and we have one faith. One of the ways for a growth and well being for us as Bulgarians is to keep tight connections with our Serbian brothers and sisters. Just as an interesting fact for those who like monastic tourism near Beograd there is a mountain with 17 monasteries! Serbia is also among the countries still having relatively big number of monks, as of my knowledge Serbia has about 2000 monks

Trip to Troyan Bulgaria and Troyan Monastery – Third monastery by size in Bulgaria

Tuesday, August 12th, 2014

Troan Monastery Church - Trip to Troyan Monastery from 16th century Bulgaria - 3rd monastery by size in Bulgaria
This weekend I went with my wife for a Trip To Troyan monastery from Sofia – bus ticket currently costs 12 lv (6 euro) and the distance is rawly 160 km.

Troyan is a remarkable mountain city situated in the center (heart) of Bulgaria, famous with being one of the main places where opposition and preparation for the Turkish Bulgarian war occured. Troyan monastery situated near Oreshaka village was one of the places where the idea of liberation of Bulgaria originated. Troyan was often visited by the remarkable revolutionaries and greatest Bulgarian heroes of all times like Vasil Levski and Hristo Botev.

Troyan Monastery - ancient orthodox monastery in Bulgaria from 16th century

Here in Troyan there was existing one of the many secret commitees in period (1869 – 1876) – Central Secret Revolutionary Committee (BRCK – as widely known in Bulgaria), creation of this commitee become reality thanks to the Deacon Vasil Levsky who saw there is no awakened Bulgarians to fight for national freedom.
Efforts of CSRC later lead to Liberation of Bulgarian from 500 years Bulgarians being under the yoke of Turkish Slavery.

Eco path in the steps of the Apostle of Freedom Vasil Levsky Bulgaria

Our first impressions from Troyan were quite negative, the bus station looks post communistic and a little bit like a horror movie, near the bus station there was a lot of criminal looking gipsies.
Just 5 minutes walk from there is a small beautiful park with children playground, what impressed me most in the park is a bush cutted in the form of ancient amphora and next to the park is the city center surrounded by a river Beli Osym, all from the city center you can see the beatiful mountains all around. There are two historical museums filled with archaelogical remains from early ages, national dresses, weapons from the Liberation war, explanation with chunks of history and Bulgarian national heroes connected to Troyan, there are beautiful expoisitions on how locals used to live through the ages museums, famous paintings original of local artistsBulgaria is a unique country, because of it combines outstanding nature and rich history remains of which is well preserved and standing firm testifying about the Bulgaria glorious past.

Entrance door of The Troyan Monastery - Troianska sveta obitel uspenie Bogorodichno

After taking a walk in the city center, we went to a local city bus station to take a bus to Oreshaka village – at the end of which is located Troyan Monastery. His Beuaitutide Patriarch Maxim who passed away 98 years old was born in Oreshaka village and become monk in Troyan monastery and was a brother of Troan monastery. Currently his holy body is buried in the monastery which is titled "The Dormition of the most Holy Theotokos".  One can feel the place is graceful even from reaching near Oreshaka village, the near view is also stunningly beautiful. The bus from Troyan has a bus stop right in front of the monastery and is cheap (costed only 1.90 lv per person 0.80 euro cents). Bus to the monastery travels 4 times a day, so it was convenient to reach the monastery.
Oreshaka and Troyan region is well famous since ancient times with its skillful craftsman and all kind of crafts developing.

Tryoan monastery mamut and lion - monuments from ancient God creation

Near the monastery there is small chapel from which the monastery started, the history of Troyan monastery, all revives around the miraculous icon of Holy Theotokos (Troeruchica – The Tree Handed Virgin).

Miracle making icon in Troyan Monastery Holy Virgin (Theotokos) Troeruchica - Tree Handed

The monastery story revives around this icon, a monk from holy Mount Athos was travelling to Vlashko (nowadays situated in Carpathians – Romania near border with Moldova), on his way he heard about a hermit with his pupil living near Oreshaka region and spend some time in fasting and prayer with the hermit local people heard about the miracle making icon and come from near and distant regions to venerate the Holy Virgin and pray. When the time come and he decided to move further in his trip to Vlashko he put the icon on his settled horse, made the sign of the cross and walked after few steps the horse stumbled and break his leg, in this event the monk understand it is not God's will to travel and he returned back to the hermit. After spending some time with the hermit, he settled again his horse but on exactly the same place the horse fall again – in that the monk understood this happens because the icon wants to stay on that place. The hermit offered to the monk that he stay there and they service God together, but traveling monk rejected, he venerated the holy icon for a last time and continued his travel to Vlashko. A small brotherhood formed by God's providence near the hermit and they decided to make a small wooden Church for Troeruchica and started servicing God there. This is how Troyan monastery started in the XVI century. The Glory of the Holy icon of Virgin Mary (Troeruchica) quickly spread all around enslaved Bulgarian lands and people come from all regions to pray to the Virgin to cure them, grant them good fortune, good health, solve spritual and family problems … The notes over the last 400 years shows that everyone that come with faith and prayed in front of the Virgin icon found confort, healing, numb started talking, deaf started hearing, paralytics walked.

Sveta_Bogorodica-Troeruchica-Holy-Theotokos-miracle-making-icon-Troyan

Monastery chronicles say that thanks to the Theotokos Troeruruchica in year 1837 the icon saved the locals from the black death which was taking its toll in the region, nobody that came to the monastery to ask for protection from the plague didn't suffered plague, everyone that decided to stay in the monastery during the plague survived, even though people from all around were coming to confess and take the sacraments, no one in the monastery wasn't infected by plague.

We arrived in Troyan Monastery around 16:30 and by arriving were hospitally accepted by our marriage godfather Galin and his sister Denica and were threated with fresh watermelon and even 50 grams of Bulgarian traditional drink Rakia. They're currently painting walls in the monastery dining room in 18:00 we had the blessing to attend the evening Church service. The service was deep and unique experience that moves you to the Kingdom of heaven. After the Church service we went to nearby Mehana Kaizer (Old Bulgarian Dining Inn – Krychma whole made to look in Old Bulgarian Style – there is plenty of traditional food to choose and food was super delicious 🙂

kaizer-krychma-traditional-inn-pub-near-Troyan-monastery

On Sunday 10.08.2014 we were for the Holy Liturgy service and after that we walked through the monastic Church and saw near the Church the bell tower and next to it the old monks monastic graveyard. We visited also the museum of the monastery which contains various religious use objects dating back from year 1700+, old  craftmen instruments, old icons, potirs, priest clothes, old coins from all around the world and Bulgaria. There was a lot of information about historical facts regarding the monastery brotherhood, as well as some chronicles and documents explaining participation of the monastery in the fight for national freedom of Bulgaria. The musem is made of two rooms one of which was the same room where the Apostle of Freedom Vasil Levsky – one can see there the exact hiding place which Vasil Levsky was using to sleep secretly – the hiding place looks like a normal wardrobe.

Scyth saint Nicolas near Troan Monastery Oreshaka Bulgaria - revolutionary city led to freedom of Bulgaria

After seeing the museum, we went to see the monastic Scyth – "Saint Nicola", which was used earlier by the monks, whenever they wanted to have period of seclusion to raise their spiritual life. The Scyth has a large Church in honor of Saint Nicolas, most likely this Church was visited by people from the village, in times when Christians in Bulgaria was forbidden to attend Church services by Turkish Empire – and this is why it was build in such a secluded place. Near the scyth is the grave of a famous rebel for Bulgarian Freedom, and there is a cave with a spring.

Graveyard and skeleton of haidut - rebel Velko fighter for Bulgarian freedom Schyth near Troyan Monastery

Then we walked back the road to Troan Monastery and near the monastery, we went to see workshop of a carpenter lady who makes wooden ornaments for Churches in the region and the monastery.

The lady give us some herbs as a blessing. We had the chance to also take the blessing from the current Abbot Biship Sionij who was earlier rector of Sofia's Seminary Saint "John of Rila".

Venice Italy – An Ancient Church city and San Marco’s and saint Lucia Holy Relics – Travel impressions from Venezia

Thursday, October 9th, 2014

Venice_Italy_ancient_Church-city-san-marcos-square-and-santa-Lucia-overall-impressions-from-Venezia

I’m on a honeymoon with my wife Svetlana in Italy our first stop from our 16 days trip through out Venice, a root governing region of the Holy Roman Catholic empire. We’re staying in CA Fortuny hotel, which I warmly recommend to anyone willing to visit Venice (Venezia). We had a flight to Vienna and from Vienna we took another flight to Venice. My first impressions from Italy was the Venice airport which is simple and the snacks and coffee from the coffee machines were on affordable price. As we flight from another EU country member of the Schengen zone, there was no need to do any passport check so we just had to wait 15 minutes and pick up the luggage from bag platform. Once there we looked forward for the information which is located nearby a Change Buro. We were told to go to the nearby ticket office where we learned, to travel to Venezia we had a few options, one was to travel by bus to Venice and walk by 30 minutes to the hotel costing only 6 euro per person and the other was to travel by boat transportation but this was exceesively expensive 15 euro per person!!!. The lady on the tickets office in Airport tried selling us a tickets each 15 euro automatically in responce to my question to give us tickets for transport to San Marco square / Piazza San Marco, good that my wife asked about an alternative transportation and we knew about the cheaper bus. The bus is pretty straight forward to find it is right infront of airport exit. The bus led is directly to Venice, as we didn’t know how to go to San Marco square, we answered a kind Italian who explained us in fluent English. Another lady nearby in the bus heard, where we wanted to go and told us we’re in her direction so we can follow her. As it was raining heavily, she said whe might pick up the Vaporetto (a transportation boats used through out all Venice like a bus :). We had a small chat with the kind lady Gabriela, who explained us she is an English teacher and she is coming back from England for a weeks study exchange seminars and she knows well CA Fortuny hotel which is a 10 room Romantic hotel in the heart of Venice. As we walked by about 30 minutes we talked about various stuff ranging from life in Venice, English study, the current state of education in Venice, the state of Christianity nowadays etc. Once being in the Hotel, we were warmly received by the porter a young man probably age 20-25. I was schoked by the door-man piercing which was scary looking like a just hammered nail in the center of a spider crawling. I asked the portier what is this and he answered this is a micro-dermal implant or something alike. I’ve noticed that people living in western europe have started to get crazy on tatoos and piercings. It seems it is exceptionally modern among youngster people in western europe to Tattoo their right hands or do piercings on various places. It seems less and less people know what does the Holy Hible says about Tattoos and piercings?, I quote literally from the scriptures on tatoos and piercings
Leviticus 19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.King James Version Bible (KJV). There is also even an old testamental holy bible instruction against the so popular nowadays skinning of head hair (the so called) skin-head movement.

Leviticus 21:55 They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.King James Bible Version (KJV). Actually for me it is no strange that so many western people tatoo, their right hand as in the advertisements and throughout our daily lives there are hidden messages trying to convince us to accept the 666 future mark of the beast that will appear in the times when the enemy of Christ the antichrist appears publicly and tries to deceive everyone to accept his 666 mark on the right hand. From the saints and holy fathers we Christians know that this 666 mark will stand up for his name …

st-Marks-basilica-cathedral-church-where-are-kept-holy-relics-of-saint-Mark-San-Marco-basilica

Venice-Piazza-San-Marco-Piazza-The-Center-of-Venezia-and-one-of-4-evangelists-holy-relics

In Venice we had truly a great time, we were close to the city center so logically we went to see the most important place in Venice St. Marc’s Square, the square is called like this because it is infront of a Basicila (Roman Catholic Cathedral Church), which is keeping the holy relics of Saint Evangelist Apostle Marc who wrote the New Testament Gospel of Mark.
St_Marks_Burial_basicila-with-holy-relics-of-saint-Mark

The Holy relics of St. Apostle Mark are kept in a stone sarcophagus in the Church alter. It is interesting fact that holy relics were stolen from Alexandria with help of two greek monks to save them from muslim desacration and destruction.

Because the whole city is “living on a water” in venice there is no public transportation (no land bus, land taxi etc.), all transportation is on water. There is water bus / taxi – Vaparetto
Venice_water_bus_transportation-Vaparetto
, there are boat-markets selling fruits and vegetables, water-police, water-ambulance and even water catafalque

italy-Venice-water-yacht-resized

People interested in history and particularly Christianity will definitely enjoy venice as the whole city is full with Roman Catholic Churches in various types of architectures some medieval some from the 11-th century and some started even in more ancient times. Orthodox Christians would be happy to know there is even a Russian orthodox Church in Venice San Zan Degola (In English Saint John the Baptist).

By God’s merce we had the chance to venerate the holy relics of Santa Lucia / Saint Lucy of Syracuse (year 283 – 304) whose incorruptable body is kept in a Catholic Church.

Santa_Lucia_saint_Lucy_incorruptable_body_in_Venice_Italy

The saint body is preserved incorruptable for amazingly 1710 years!!! This is a clear proof of a saintship and truthfulness of Christian faith as well is a real miracle before your eyes one can see !!

santa_Lucia_incorruptable_saint-martyr-body

As Venice is an ancient city it is a great site for Christian Orthodox pilgrimage for Russian speking people a very good Russian resource listing most of the Venice related holy relics is here .
Near San Marco Piazza it is worthy to enter Doge’s palace which is currently a museum exposing a great a lot of Venice culture and history. Doge’s palace was the supreme authority of Republic palace, to make an analogue it used to like Kremlin in Russia nowadays.

A ticket for Doge’s palace costed 16 euro per person and ticket allows you to visit another 3 museums in Venice.
Doges-Palace_Doges-Palace-general-view_Venice_Italy

Venice has 177 canals on 177 small islands as there is no public transport and venice is small most of the time we walked in order to save money for Vaperatto (whose ticket costs 6 euro). There are no bus station in Venice but there is a train station (Santa Lucia railway station). Current Venice population is around 270 000 ppl.

Venice_Italy_train_station_nearby_water_canals

As a notable tourist destination unfortunately everything in Venice is quite expensive. Even simple things as ice cream costs 3-4 euro per ice-ball, to have a restaurant dinner usually you will have to spend at least 30 / 40 euro per person. There are also some cheaper Trattorias – a type of less formal restaurant with casual service and less shiny looking but usually with cheaper food. You can eat in Tratoria a full 3 course meal for as cheap as 12 to 15 euro per person. Also in Tratoria you can experience more of an Italian type of restaurant, as the personal there usually doesn’t speak English and most of people to eat there are Italians.

We were in Venice only for one full day in Venice and thus we eat only once in a restaurant type of place recommended by a local the Taverna San Trovaso . A 2 persons meals plus 2 cups of wine there costed us cheap for Venice about 30 euro.

The building architecture in Venice is truly unique and you can see piece of art and beauty on literally any corner of it. The shops are all around the city and every kind of souvenir is quite expensive, though you can usually try to bargain to buy a souvenir for half the price 🙂
A notable traditional souvenirs to buy is beautiful colorful glas souvenirs and ofcourse the famous ball masks

Venice-italy-a-shop-full-of-traditional-masks-and-souvenirs-in-a-small-street

Venice_Italy_Colourful_glass_souvenirs_on_street_shop

Saint Elijah Monastery a Nun monastery in the heart of Sofia suburb Mladost 2 (Dyrvenica)

Saturday, December 21st, 2013

sveti Eliah monastery Church in mladost 2 suburb monastery near heart of Sofia

Sofia (Bulgaria) is a notable city for those looking for spirituality. There are several monasteries situated inside the city. I'm living in Sofia since only 3 months and still I didn't found the time nor had a car to ride in them. So far I was only in one of the monasteries nun Monastery saint Elijah (svet Iliq) 3 years ago when I was guest of  a dear friend one Sunday evening he bring me there. St. Elijah monastery is situated in Mladost 2 city suburb (at the end of Dyrvenica suburb).
Today I rided to the monastery with my girlfriend Svetlana for the Night evening service. We was there about 17:00 but unfortunately the evening service was just over in this monastery evening service begins in 16:00. The serving priest was still there and we had a small chat with them, just to find out he used to be the old Abbot of Shipchenski Monastery. I was earlier in Shipchenki Monastery and I know personally current Abbot there father Ianuarij and was curious to know the priest just met is the spiritual father of fr. Ianuarij (name meaning January). The monastery is very little and I could see only one of the nuns who was very hospitable with us. Before approaching the monastery there is a tiny pine tree forest.

sveti Iliq monastery view to Altar Dyrvenica Mladost 2

St. Elijah Monastery started its existence during the old period when Bulgaria was under a turkish Slavery in year 1595 on a place where Turkish army slaughtered a number of Bulgarian Orthodox Christians refusing to accept Muslim faith.Slaughtered martyr Christians were thought to be part of the small revolt organized by Bulgarian revolutionaries trying to free Bulgarian land from the yoke of Turkish Empire. Short after on place of monastic Church a cross in remembrance of the martyrs was set. Since martyrdom of Bulgarian Christians the place was believed to be sacred and many people went there to pray to God to help them in the various troubles of their daily lives.

Saint prophet Alijah orthodox icon Mladost 2 / Monastery in Sofia

Later on a small chapel was built on place of martyrdom and other small buildings were build soon to become a fully functional monastery. Current Monastery Church and monk cells buildings were re-build next to the remains of the old monastery in y. 1924. In Sofia's st. Elijah monastery are kept many middle aged 15th century Church slavonic books, unique ancient icons present from Russia to Bulgaria at the end of Turkish-Russian Bulgarian liberation war.
Most valuable monastic sanctuary is a big tapestry – The Mother of God with the infant.
As of time of writting the Abbes is mother Matriona which by amazing Gods providence is also Russian.

The Driving Polygon – My adventures of learning to drive a car

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Today the day was pretty normal for which of course I have to thank to Our Awesome God :)I didn’t have much work, I stand up somewhere around 11 o’clock. I did my usual morning exercises.By the way since I started practising everyday exercise I feel physically better. After that I prayed a bit.Afterwards I red the road regulations and laws book (as I mentioned in my previous bloggings I have starteda driving license courses). Somewhere around 12:30 Gery did called and asked me if I’m willing to go outfor a coffee. I accepted and we saw each other infront of the fountain. Because all the tables outside wasoccupied we and in the coffee itself was too hot we decided to move to the Kukla coffee. We coffeed a bittalked about stuff shared how our lifes are going etc. etc. After that I had to go to the college becauseI need a copy of my school completion diploma because my driver lessons teacher requires as well as therest of the documents my ID card, a picture etcetera, etcetera. In the college I met Todor Dyankov who wasteaching me at Statistics and in Marketing II at the college and Ertan also Nina the librarian, I have tosay all of them are pretty cool :). Ertan showed me what he has made using Adobe’s flex product andexplained how convinient it’s usage is for creation of books and various other web based sort of manuals.Later at home I red more some chapters of the road regulations book. After which in 18:45 I went to the stomatology(this is the usual place where driving teachers park their cars and where we met with my instructor), he askedif it’s possible to change the driving lesson to be in Tuesday for 18:30 to be honest I haven’t had much choice since theteacher had some urgent job to do. Right after that I went to my mother and father grocery shop because previously wehad a stipulation that I my father and a close family friend (Georgi a namesake) would go somewhere out of the city becausethe 32 hours for which it suppoed that I had to be ready for the exam were far from enough for me to become a proficient driver.Eventually we went with my father’s car (Opel Astra) to a place which was before used as a Driving Polygon and is a perfectplace for a novice driver like me. The most hard thing for me in governing the car was starting the car from first speed usingthe clutch pedal simultaneously with the “gas” pedal. With some practice there I can say I got better at starting the car on 1st speedalthough still it’s pretty hard for me to move the car on 1st speed from stopped position when the car is on a small hill.After that we went out of the polygon and I drive on the road of Bogdanovo village. Right after we went back to the city.I went to see Bino because I have promised him to go out for a walk together. We had a nice walk in the city park, I came backhome I went to see my grandma just like I often do lately I stood there for 20 minutes and went home, ate and here I’m now blogging :)END—–

Script to Automatically change current MySQL server in wp-config.php to another MySQL host to minimize WordPress and Joomla downtimes

Friday, July 20th, 2012

I'm running a two servers for a couple of home hosted websites. One of the servers is serving as Apache host1 and has configured MySQL running on it and the second is used just for database host2 – (has another MySQL configured on it).
The MySQL servers are not configured to run as a MySQL MASTER and MySQL SLAVE (no mysql replication), however periodically (daily), I have a tiny shell script that is actualizing the data from the active SQL host2 server to host1.

Sometimes due to electricity problems or CPU overheats the active MySQL host at host2 gets stoned and stops working causing the 2 WordPress based websites and One joomla site inaccessible.
Until I manually get to the machine and restart host2 the 3 sites are down from the net and as you can imagine this has a very negative impact on the existing website indexing (PageRank) in Google.

When I'm at home, this is not a problem as I have physical access to the servers and if somethings gets messy I fix it quickly. The problem comes, whether I'm travelling or in another city far from home and there is no-one at home to give the hanged host hard reboot ….

Lately the problems with hang-ups of host2 happaned 3 times or so for 2 weeks, as a result the websites were inaccessible for hours and since there is nobody to reboot the server for hours; the websites keep hanging until the DB host is restarted ;;;;

To work-around this I came with the idea to write a tiny shell script to check if host2 is ping-able in order to assure the Database host is not down and then if script determines host2 (mysql) host is down it changes wp-config.php (set to use host2) to a wp-config.php (which I have beforehand configured to use) host1.

Using the script is a temporary solution, since I have to actually find the real hang-up causing troubles, but at least it saves me long downtimes. Here is a download link to the script I called change_blog_db.sh .
I've configured the script to be run on the Apache node (host1) via a crontab calling the script every 10 minutes, here is the crontab:
 

*/10 * * * * /usr/sbin/change_blog_db.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

The script is written in a way so if it determins host2 is reachable a copy of wp-config.php and Joomla's configuration.php tuned to use host2 is copied over the file config originals. In order to use the script one has to configured the head variables script section, e.g.:

host_to_ping='192.168.0.2';
blog_dir='/var/www/blog';
blog_dir2='/var/www/blog1';blog_dir3='/var/www/joomla';
notify_mail='hipo@www.pc-freak.net';
wp_config_orig='wp-config.php';
wp_config_localhost='wp-config-localhost.php';
wp_config_other_host='wp-config-192.168.0.2.php';
joomla_config_orig='configuration.php';
joomla_config_other_host='configuration-192.168.0.2.php';

You will have to manually prepare;;;

wp-config-localhost.php, wp-config-192.168.0.2.php ,configuration-192.168.0.2.php, wp-config-localhost.php to be existing files configured to with proper host1 and host2 IP addresses.
Hope the script will be useful to others, experiencing database downtimes with WordPress or Joomla installs.
 

Saint Abraham the Bulgarian co-memoration in Bulgarian Orthodox Church

Monday, April 2nd, 2012

saint Abraham the Bulgarian, sv. Avramii Bolgarski

Saint Abraham the Bulgarian is an Orthodox Christian saint venerated across most Slavonic Christian dome. His co-memoration in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BPC) is on 1st of April.

What is unique about this saint is that he used to be born and grown in the tradition of the Muslim (Islam) faith and by the great providence of God he converted to the true faith of Christianity.

St. Abraham of (Bulgaria), was born in Volga Bulgaria in a community of Muslim Volga Bulgars (old Bulgarians). Nowdays Volga Bulgaria is located in Tararstan Russia. The saint used to be an islamic merchant and His martyrdom for Christ happened in March 6 (according to old Church Calendar) in year 1229.

He used to live in a very complex situation, when the islamic influence of Arabs in his motherland was quite severe. St. Abraham of Bulgaria used to be a rich man for his time, he was a merchant.
Because of the trade he travelled a lot to the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Christian principalities. This give him an opportunity to get to know Christian faith little by little.

He was accustomed to a wordly life but still always accepted strangers and similar to the Old Testamental father of nations st. Abraham he's been very hospitable to poor people.
By Gods grace he become convinced Muslim faith does not teach a true faith to the one God,  being pointed by God himself towards the right salvation way, he accepted Jesus Christ as a Lord and Saviour being baptized and hence converting to the truthful Christian faith.

His Christian baptizmal was accepted from Russian traders, who lived nearby the place of Great Bulgar.
Being baptized in the Christian faith Saint Abraham of Bulgaria not only confessed Christian faith across his fellow people, but he also led very harsh (ascetic like) life, wearing secretly below his clothes a heavy chains during his worldly travels. The profit he made from trade often he shared with the poor.Once he went for a trade to the city of Great (Bulgar) Bulgar. There he was arrested because there was a rumor, he cursed (islamic faith believed prophect) Mohammed and the muslim faith.


Saint Abraham Avramii Bylgarski Bulgarian Martyr saint old drawing

Muslims catched him and started convincing him to reject Christ, accusing him at a blasphemy. Abraham was not scared of muslim threats of expel and even putting to death. As Muslims failed to force him "by words" to convert back to Islam, they took him and put him in jail because of his denial of (their) Islamic faith.

In jail he was tortured but, they failed to convince him to deny Christ, seeing they have no way to convince him to accept Muslim faith once again, saint tormentors first cut his hands, then the legs and finally disgraced by his boldness and continues confession of Christ they beheaded him.

Soon afterwards the city of Bulgar was captured and burned down by the Mongols, many people in that time saw this is Gods punishment for the innocent shed blood of Abraham the Bulgar.
The local Christians took his body and buried him in the Christian cemetery of the ancient city of (Bolgar) / Bulgar.
On the place, where the saint was buried, a healing water spring emerged. The first man who received healing from this spring by Christ's grace was a muslim.

Miracle Making Spring Well Saint Abraham the Bulgarian

Great healing miracles happened on the saint grave. Local Christians took their relatives and bring them to the saints grave for a miracle healing and a prayer intercession of the saint. A rumour about the saints great graceous grave quickly spread and some people told about the miracle healing grave f st. Abraham to prince Georgi / (George) Vsevolodich.One year later again on 6th March 1230, the body of the saint was carried in the city of Vladimir, where the prince and his family, the Vladimirsk Bishop, the clergy and the local people received the holy relics of st. Abraham (of Bulgaria). The holy relics was kept in the local church "Dormition of Mother Mary" on 6th of March in the year of 1230.

The co-memoration of st. Abraham the Bulgarian is being observed in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, since very ancient times.
Nowdays both Christians and Muslim celebrate the saints feast.

Icon of Orthodox Christian Saint Abraham of Bulgaria and his Holy Relics

Interesgingly, nowdays St. Abraham the Bulgarian is venerated as a saint by both Orthodox Christians and by Muslims. Many Muslims from Turkey and other muslim countries come each year for the saints feast day to pray and ask for healing or prayer intercession to God.

Even to this very day people receive by Jesus's grace through saint Abraham the Bulgarian's prayers – a various incurable disease healings. The healings occur on the same holy spring where the saint was buried. Many people are also healed from incurrable diseases through the veneration of the incorruptable saint holy relics kept in the Church Dormition of Mother Mary.