Posts Tagged ‘fortress’

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

Palm Sunday day feast in Bulgareevo (Bylgareevo) – A Pilgrimage Journey to venerate a particle of the life giving cross

Sunday, April 17th, 2011

palm sunday cvetnica orthodox icon

I’m just coming back from the Bulgareevo (a small village cituated nearby Kavarna).
Bylgareevo is a middle size bulgarian village situated near the sea and is not famous with anything significant.
The village has two Orthodox Church temples and a serving Priest (an Archimandrite, father Metodii).
Father Metodii is one of this priests that is a person to remember as he is a truly devoted to Christ monk. Since about two years of time he has reconstructed his local village house and the yard nearby the house into something which hopefully in the short future will become a fully monk inhabited spiritual fortress (A Monastery).
Father Metodii lives and believes part of his service to God constitutes in rising this small monastery and gathering together Bulgarian believers in order to further rise up the Bulgarian faith in Christ and to become a center for spiritual pilgrimage.

The monastery already has a monastery bell, a monks cells and the small chapel (parakles/paraklis) prepared to be as a place for monks pilgrimage.

Father Metodii’s efforts to make the monastery an attractive place for future candidate novice Monks and Monks are truly genuine!
All he has done by so far is a good example for all us the Christians to follow. Most of the expenses related to the Monastery building are being paid by the Father himself as he has donated all his possession to the Church.
As part of this efforts to rise up the place as a place for spiritual pilgrimage by God grace Bylgareevo’s monastery has been granted the honour to contain a particle of the Holy Live giving Cross Tree on which our Lord Jesus Christ has been crucified.. By God’s mercy the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the local national museum has donated two particles of the Holy Cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ was Crucified and suffered for our sins.

Now the holy crucifixion cross remains particles are being kept in the Monastery’s small chapel for pilgrimage. Thus the opportunity for a pilgrimage journey to Bylgareevo on this day of great spiritual joy Palm Sunday was a huge blessing for me and the few more brothers and sisters with whom we traveled to Bulgareevo
Below I present you with a picture on which you can see Father Metodii (Methodius) holding in hands the small particle of the Crist’s Crucifixion cross tree (embedded in the center of the wood cross on the picture).Father Methodius holding a cross containing a particle of the cross on which the Lord Jesus's Christ was crucified

The name of the village Bulgareevo is also really interesting as it’s a direct direvative from the word Bylgariq (which translates as Bulgaria).
Along with the two particles of the Holy life giving Cross where the saviour Jesus Christ was crucified, father Metodii has collected some great saint relics, just to name a few of the relics which are in the newly built monastery in Bulgareevo; holy relics of saint Panteleimon, holy Relics of Saint John of Rila etc.

Now going back to Palm Sunday‘s feast essense, Palm Sunday is among the 12 Church feasts in the Orthodox Churches, we use to call (The Lord’s feasts [Gospodski Praznici]), and thus is one of the 12 feasts which are most spiritually richful for Bulgaria as an Orthodox Nation and for all other national Orthodox Churches around the world.

Palm Sunday is always celebrated on the Last Sunday before the beginning of “the passionate week”, the week in which we who believe in Christ’s name remember the great trials and suffering our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has carried for the salvation of all Christians.

Palm Sunday is the feast in which we as we read in the Gospel readings in the Church, commemorate Christ’s entrance in Jerusalem on a small donkey.
Here is a small chunk of the Gospel reading for the day:

They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel!"

In this scripture text as we read above the people were glorifying God and Christ as the son of the God in accordance to the Old testament scriptures in which it was prophecised that the Saviour of Mankind (The Messiah) would walk in through the entrance doors of Jerusalem riding a donkey.
People who were present observing the Lord’s entrance were witnessing the fulfilment of the old testament psalms prophecies by glorifying the Lord.

This were the same people which just a week later were screaming “crucify” him …

On Palm Sunday it is a Church tradition in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church that willow branches are being blessed by the priest and then distributed among layman as a blessing and a remembrance of the Palms which were layed upon the Lord’s entrance in Jerusalem.

Later on we took the willow branches in our homes and place it in our home icon-stands (the place with the icons we use for a prayer to God).

The use of willow branches in our Church has been established through the years as a Palm Trees substitute as the Palm tree does not grow in the Bulgarian lands

In Bulgaria Palm Sunday is known as Tsvetnitsa. People with flower-related names, (for example Tzviatko, Margarita, Lilia, Violeta, Yavor, Zdravko, Zjumbjul, Nevena, Temenuzhka, etc.) has a name day on that date.
It’s a pity that many bulgarian people who are baptized in our Bulgarian Orthodox Church, fails to understand the symbolic meaning of the willow branches and doesn’t really understand the essence of the Church feast but just go to Church to light up a candle “to have a good fortune and health”., usually mostly missing the spiritual importance for us the Christians of this feast.. but I hope things would get better with time and more Bulgarians who lost their roots during communism will come back to their ancient faith the Orthodoxy.

I recommend to all Orthodox Christian believers from Bulgaria, Romania and Russia who has the oportunity to visit Bulgaria as a tourist destination or on any other occasion to visit Bylgareevo and do a pilgrimage journey to Bylgareevo newly constructed monastery containing the holy relicts.

You will receive the great spiritual blessing of venerating the particle of the cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ’s most holy body was hanging on!
The cross on which the redemption of mankind was achieved by God’s son 2010 years ago!
The cross on which we have received a forgiveness of our sins!
I thank the Lord for having this good blessed day and I pray that we all who believe in his name come to the understanding to know his as he knows us!