tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687886961771238263.post3911551896789412932..comments2023-12-28T14:51:34.281-05:00Comments on Notes on Arab Orthodoxy: as-Safir on the Plight of Orthodox in the Patriarchate of JerusalemUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687886961771238263.post-23636431713068631772014-10-24T06:50:41.250-04:002014-10-24T06:50:41.250-04:00Russia s weight in the Middle East must not be for...Russia s weight in the Middle East must not be forgotten. It is true that Russia saved the Orthodox in Syria and Lebanon. Sayedna Rephail Hawaweeny, now among the blessed, is a speaking witness of this. Equally eloquent in this sanse are the missionary enterprises of Russian missionaries, St. Stephan of PErm in the 14th century, among finish tribes in the North, creating an alphabet for them and - like SS Cyrill & Methodius - translating the liturgical books for them, or in the 19th century the very successfull Russian mission among the Aleuts and Inuits in Alaska lead by St. Innocent, later Metr. of Moscow, using the same principles as the afore mentioned Saints. Yet the forced annexation of Georgia/Iberia by Russia in the 19th century leans towards a contrary experience equally present in Russia s Church history. Russia russified the entire Georgian Church life, even the liturgical language was replaced by Church-Slavonic and the Katholicosate was suppressed; Russian Bishops replaced Georgean ones, Georgia becoming s aimple province within the Russian realm in every sense of the word. The Catholicosate resurrected only with the Revolution of 1917, just as the Patriarchate of Moscow, causing today a wrong ranking of the Georgian Katholicos in the liturgical Dyptika, counting the date of reestablishing and not true date of it s foundation, 1000 years before before Moscow and the other later national patriarchates.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com