Category Archives: Rerun
Parishioner Brings Home Paschal Greeting in New Language
Plum Creek, Michigan, USA — Marsha (St. Joanna the Myrrhbearer) Winthrop brought back the Paschal greeting in a new language, which she learned on a spring vacation in Idaho.
She told fellow worshipers that she attended Holy Week and Pascha services at All Saints of Middle Earth Church in Mystic Lake, Idaho, a town of about 4,000, whose residents live in four ethnic neighborhoods.
“The priest of All Saints, Father Fred (Frodo the Ringbearer) Higgins, was a nice little guy with a deep bass voice and really big feet,” she said of the church where she spent Holy Week during her vacation in a largely Mormon section of Idaho. “He told me that their grandparents were immigrants, but I wasn’t clear where they were from, somewhere in Europe I think, because he kept referring to their new home as the Western Havens. I got the impression they were escaping from a war or something. Maybe World War II.”
She said she found the Paschal banquet entertaining, with a lot of food and many varieties of beer. She especially liked the fireworks, she said, which reminded her of a display she saw at Disneyland.
Although she was unfamiliar with the ethnic groups in Mystic Lake, she said that their affectionate rivalry reminded her of her home parish, St. Anthony of the Desert here, which is a blend of Russian, Greek, Lebanese and Romanian, with some American converts mixed in. The different groups there were almost as distinctive as the ones in her home parish, with two tending to be short and more heavy-set and another tending to be thinner and more fair-skinned. One ethnic group seemed more like the people she saw in Boise, she said.
The townspeople work mostly in mining and forestry, and one couple are philology professors at the University of Idaho in Moscow.
At the banquet, she asked for the text of the Paschal greeting, which was this: “Si Cuielen na i hiro o coi!” and the response is “Ele, Si Cuielan!”
The priest of her home parish, Father Herman (of Alaska) Whiteside, expressed surprise at the new greeting. “I’ve never heard of Sindarin,” he said, “but it’s easier to pronounce than Tlingit.”
Thanks to Barbara Eng.
Copyright © 2004-2013 Jan Bear. All Rights Reserved.
This report was first filed by Onion Dome rambling reporter Jan Bear in April, 2004
Saint Invites Early, Late, and Unbelievably Tardy to Feast
A statement released from Heaven this week invites a number of unexpected guests to the Banquet. Speaking on behalf of the Host, spokesman St. John Chrysostom lists the following guests:
- The 14-year-old who thought he would die of fasting;
- the catechumen who has been checking the fine print on everything in the grocery store;
- the recently chrismated mother of three who has been giving her kids cheese sandwiches because they hate peanut butter;
- the retired golf enthusiast who discovered it was Lent on the Monday after the Sunday of the Cross;
- the business traveler who just got home two weeks before Pascha
- the Prodigal suddenly drawn by the memories of Holy Week.
The Banquet will be served in a variety of venues around the world. Check local listings for times and locations.
Copyright © 2004–2013 Jan Bear. All Rights Reserved.
This report was first filed by Onion Dome rambling reporter Jan Bear in April, 2004.
Ask Father Vasiliy
Fr. Vasiliy Vasileivich is official spokesman for the Church Overseas of Russian Orthodox Christians (COROC), as well as being pastor of Saints Boris and Gleb and Olga and Vladimir Russian Orthodox Church, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. On occasion (when the fit takes him) he condescends to answer questions posed by Onion Dome readers, which pile up in a special “in-box” dedicated to the purpose here at the offices of Onion Dome Publications. We are pleased to announce that the fit has once again taken the good priest, and thus we present for your edification yet another round of, “Ask Father Vasiliy.” (NB: This column was first posted in December, 2003)
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The Nuns of New Monastery Publish First Book
first published November, 2009
Small Brown Books is pleased to announce that the famous Nuns of New Monastery have published their first book, a guide to selecting and raising cats, titled, The Science of Raising a Kitteh.
“We have been rescuing, raising, and training cats for 20 years now,” said Mother Columba, abbess of the monastery. “We felt it was time we shared our vast knowledge with the world at large, and made a little green.”
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New Schism Developing in Orthodox Church
Now that ROCOR and the MP are talking about reuniting, SCOBA continues to talk about unity, and even the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Pope are glad-handing, a new schism is threatening to rock the Orthodox world to its foundations: dog people vs. cat people.
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