Обсуждение планов и топиков., Рабочая темка. Опции

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Приглашаю обсудить здесь темы и дни встреч английского клуба.

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Текст для проработки дома на встречу 16.05.2013.

The great martyr George was the son of wealthy and pious parents, who raised him in the Christian faith. He was born in the city of Beirut at the foot of the Lebanese mountains.
Having entered military service, George stood out among the other soldiers by virtue of his mind, valor, physical strength, military bearing and beauty. Having quickly attained to the rank of millenary, an officer in the Roman army in charge of a thousand or more soldiers, Saint George became a favorite of the Emperor Diocletian.
Diocletian was a talented ruler, but a fanatical adherent of the Roman gods. Having set for himself the goal of reviving dying paganism in the Roman Em-pire, he went down in history as one of the cruelest persecutors of Christians.
Once, when he heard in a court the inhuman sentence concerning the anni-hilation of Christians, Saint George became inflamed with compassion for them. Foreseeing that sufferings were also awaiting him, George distributed his property to the poor, freed his slaves, appeared before Diocletian and, having revealed himself as a Christian, denounced him for cruelty and injustice. George's speech was full of powerful and convincing objections against the imperial order to persecute Christians.
After futile persuasions to deny Christ, the Emperor ordered that the saint be subjected to various tortures. Saint George was confined in a dungeon, where they placed him supine on the ground; his legs they confined in stocks, and on his breast they placed a heavy stone. But Saint George manfully endured the sufferings and glorified the Lord. Then George's torturers began to refine their cruelty. They beat the Saint with ox hide whips, subjected him to the wheel, threw him into quicklime and forced him to run in shoes with sharp nails inside. The holy Martyr endured everything patiently. Finally, the Emperor ordered the Saint's head to be cut off. Thus, the holy sufferer departed unto Christ in Nicomedia in 303 AD.
The great ¬martyr George, for his manliness and for his spiritual victory over the torturers, who could not force him to renounce Christianity, and likewise for his wonderworking assistance to people in danger is additionally called the "Trophy bearer". The relics of Saint George the Trophy bearer were placed in the Palestinian city of Lydda, in the church that bears his name, while his head was preserved in Rome, in the church that is also dedicated to him.
On icons, the great martyr George is depicted sitting on a white horse and smiting a dragon with a spear. This depiction is based on tradition and relates to the posthumous miracles of the holy great martyr George. It is said that not far from the place where Saint George was born in the city of Beirut, in a lake lived a dragon which frequently devoured people of that locale. What kind of beast that was, a python, crocodile or large lizard is not known.
In order to appease the wrath of that dragon, the superstitious inhabitants of that locale began regularly by lot to give up to it a youth or maiden to be eaten. Once the lot fell on the daughter of the ruler of that locale. They took her to the shore of the lake and tied her up where she began to await in terror the appearance of the dragon.
When the beast began to approach her, suddenly a radiant youth appeared on a white horse who smote the dragon with a spear and saved the maiden. This youth was the holy great martyr George. By such a miraculous appearance he caused the extermination of youths and maidens to cease in the environs of Beirut and converted to Christ the inhabitants of that country, who until then were pagans.

Copyrihgt: http://www.antiochian.org/saint_george

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Текст для проработки дома на встречу Клуба 30.05.2013.
Напоминаю. Переводить текст на встрече мы НЕ БУДЕМ. Но мы ОБЯЗАТЕЛЬНО приносим с собой словарик незнакомых слов. Даже если мы все слова знаем, всё равно выписываем какие-нибудь слова.
На встрече поговорим немного и по тексту.
Подытоживаю. Читаем. Выписываем незнакомые слова. Готовимся поговорить на встрече по тексту.

Mother Alexandra's Pilgrimage to Syria and Lebanon
Recently, I returned from a pilgrimage to Syria and Lebanon. When embarking on such a journey, we often have expectations. My expectations were simple: I wanted to visit the holy Shrine of St. Thekla and monasteries, gleaning information and experience to provide consistency and to ensure the transmission of the Antiochian ethos within the life of the Convent of St. Thekla in Pennsylvania.
My first expectation was fulfilled immediately, as I had been blessed by the Abbess, Mother Pelagia, to stay at the Convent of St. Thekla in Maaloula, Syria. With the Convent as a base for my pilgrimage, I had monastic stability and a daily rhythm of prayer and community life. To my surprise, the first visit to the tomb of St. Thekla was private – no crowds of pilgrims who visit her tomb daily. I walked up the cascade of stone steps, anticipating what I had seen in photos of the Shrine, and received my first blessing of wide space transformed by the presence of the Saint. There was a depth beyond what any camera can capture. I took photos myself, but they do not communicate my impression. […]
One of the highlights of my stay in Maaloula were the two days I spent with nuns harvesting olives in their orchards. In our Orthodox tradition, monastic work can take many forms, from agriculture and domestic work to hospitality and ministry. What is common in all of these forms of work is the prayer of the heart which accompanies the work of the hands. Sometimes the prayer is the Jesus prayer and at other times perhaps a recitation of the Holy Scriptures.
[…]
This was certainly the case during my visit to Damascus, as I learned more of the history of the Patriarchate of Antioch and visited the sites associated with St. Paul. The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition [al-Mariamiyeh] is breathtakingfrom the architecture, with a spacious layout and ceiling mirroring the heavenly, to the iconography and the stone and wood frames delicately presenting the holy icons. I left the Patriarchate, walking out the Street called Straight, and I could not speak for a moment. In all the years of reading and studying about St. Paul, I never thought I would be walking where he had walked. In my moments of quiet, I thought about St. Paul being led by Ananias and then I was at the House of Ananias. It is small. The stone walls give a good idea of how the house would have appeared even in the first century. I closed and opened my eyes, trying to imagine what St. Paul saw when the scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight (Acts 9:18). I wondered about the face of Ananias. From the House of Ananias, I traveled to the Church of St. Paul and saw the remnants of the ancient city wall where St. Paul was lowered in a basket (Acts 9.25). Finally, I traveled outside the city to the place where the light surrounded St. Paul and he heard the voice of Jesus say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Today the Saint Paul Vision Patriarchal Monastery is built on the site and witnesses to this historic place. After visiting the Church, I walked around the grounds to fi nd the ruins of the Vision Convent, built to honor and preserve the sanctity of the site in ancient times.
History was to be found in all of the churches, sites and monasteries I visited, but in the end, it is the lived expression of the history, the visible and readily available connection with our past lived in daily life or tradition that is most important. In other words, these places are holy sites and live on because of the community of the faithful. Tradition is a way of life and, void of community, it does not exist. Thus, we are connected to these places. In my visits, I experienced this connection and was deeply aware of the place we all hold in the continuity of our Orthodox faith.
This expression of continuity, a translation of tradition into modernity, was boldly evident when I visited the Balamand Monastery and University. From the ancient ruins and buildings of the original Cistercian monastery to the new buildings, such as the Cultural Center, donated by the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, the message is clear: the Balamand University seeks this translation and right ordering of the relation between theology and the modern culture. If this sounds academic and apropos only for a university, then allow me to rephrase: we are all called to translate the theology, the words and revelation given to us by God, into everyday language and action.
Beyond my expectations, I received more than I could have imagined. This is how God works! I did not keep a written diary, but the experience is written on my heart. Thanks be to God for this wonderful pilgrimage.

Источник - сайт Американского Диоцеза Антиохийского Патриархата