Randy bo Bandy☦️

My slightly filtered thoughts, kinda like Greek coffee and good cigarettes🚬 ☕️ proud Western Rite Orthodox Christian ☦️ Crist aras! Crist sodhlice aras!

[Declaration of Memes @LibertyCappy]

Every single time

[David Black @Dawkinizer]

“Yo bro can you bring the Church so we can do compline?”

“Yeah bro I gotchu”

[seraphim (richard) rohlin @richardrohlin]

Today, we celebrate icon of Our Lady "Axion Estin." This icon and its associated celebration commemorates the time the Archangel Gabriel came to a monk on Mt Athos and taught him how to honor the Mother of God the way she is honored by the Heavenly Hosts. With them we sing:

It is truly meet to bless thee, the Theotokos, ever blessed and all blameless and the Mother of our God.

More honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, thou who without corruption gave birth to God the Word, true Theotokos we magnify thee.

[Trad West @trad_west_]

June is not the month of pride.
June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.

[Wendigoon @Wendigoon8]

Well

[Dr. Maalouf ‏ @realMaalouf]

Nadia was kidnapped, raped and sold by ISIS.

Her brothers were killed for refusing to convert to Islam. Her mother was killed for being too old to be a sex slave.

Her event to share her story was canceled in Canada because the local Muslim community deemed it “Islamophobic.”

[Randy bo Bandy☦️ @Randy2k00]

@ZKobani90 @WolfofX @NeonFilament Was literally just talking about him last night.

[Randy bo Bandy☦️ @Randy2k00]

@lovinqthelord May her memory be eternal ☦️

[MSLFilms ☦️🇬🇪🇺🇸 @mslfilms]

Barbara was the name of St. Gabriel Urgebadze’s mother. She was a lukewarm Orthodox Christian, content with pushing the faith aside under Soviet society. She feared and hated Gabriel’s open love and dedication to the Faith, and through love, pleaded with him to “just live a normal life.” These conflicts ended with Gabriel running away from home at the young age of 12, he eventually returned after Barbara tracked him down.

Towards the end of Gabriel’s life, after becoming a hieromonk and being heard of all across Georgia, his mother visited him while he was on his deathbed. She said to him, “What kind of life did you lead, Gabriel? Full of suffering and nothing else?! You never had a proper childhood. It would have been wiser to heed my advice and take better care of yourself."

Barbara was completely correct. She loved her son, and wanted the best for him. Not to see him beaten and persecuted by Soviet authorities, be destitute, labeled a drunkard and an adulterer by society, and so on. Even when Gabriel was just a child, she knew that’s what would’ve come from his decision to faithfully pursue Orthodoxy. I’m sure that Barbara loved Gabriel greatly.

However, what she failed to comprehend, even up until her son’s death, was that Gabriel did not care about what would happen to him on this Earth. Barbara’s attachment to the material present, hurt her relationship with Gabriel. And this is seen across the Orthodox world, many parents love clergy but would never want their child to join the priesthood, or be a monk or bishop.

I understand their perspective, and my heart aches for both the children and the parents in such a difficult situation. After Gabriel’s death, Barbara entered monasticism and became a Nun, now they’re buried near each other. Neither existing in the material present anymore.

If any of you have issues with your parents, whether that’s with them accepting your conversion to Orthodoxy, or anything else, please pray to St. Gabriel and his mother Barbara (Nun Anna).

[THE ORTHOCHAT @THEORTHOCHAT]

Saint Paisios was visited by Saint Ephemia from heaven… soon before his passing away🙏🏽🇬🇷☦️

One day Father Paisios was going through a very difficult phase. A problem was created in the Church at that time and many bishops had gone to him to ask for his help.

However, it was a very complicated problem and even if he wanted to, he was unable to assist; as he said, no matter from which side you look at the problem, you come face to face with a spiritual impasse. So, he decided to turn his efforts to solve the problem with prayer.

During that time, Father Paisios constantly prayed for God to give solution to the Church’s problem; he prayed especially to St. Ephemia:”St. Euphemia, you who miraculously solved the serious problem the Church was facing then, take the Church out of the present impasse!”

One morning, at nine o’ clock, when Father Paisios was reading the service of the third hour, he suddenly heard someone discreetly knocking on his door. The Elder asked from inside:

“Who is it?” Then, he heard a woman’s voice answering:
“It is me, Euphemia, Father.”
“Which Euphemia?” He asked again. There was no answer. There was another knock on the door and he asked again. “Who is it?” The same voice was heard saying:
“It is Euphemia, Father.”

There was a third knock and the Elder felt someone coming inside his cell and walking through the corridor. He went to the door and there he saw St. Euphemia, who had miraculously entered his cell through the locked door and was venerating the icon of the Holy Trinity, which the Elder had placed on the wall of his corridor, on the right hand side of the church’s door.

Then the Elder told the Saint: “Say: Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” St. Euphemia clearly repeated those words and immediately Father Paisios knelt and venerated the Saint.

Afterwards, they sat and talked for quite a while; he could not specify for how long, as he had lost all sense of time while being with St. Euphemia. She gave the solution for all three matters he had been praying for and in the end he said to her: “I would like you to tell me how you endured your martyrdom.”

The Saint replied: “Father, if I knew back then how eternal life would be and the heavenly beauty the souls enjoy by being next to God, I honestly would have asked for my martyrdom to last for ever, as it was absolutely nothing compared to the gifts of grace of God!”

Towards the end of June, the doctors informed [Elder Paisios] that he had about 2-3 weeks left. On Monday, July 11, on St. Euphemia’s day, Father Paisios received Holy Communion for the last time, kneeling in front of his bed. During the last 24 hours, he was very serene, and even though he suffered, he did not complain at all. He did not wish to take any more medication. The only medicine he accepted was cortisone, because, according to the doctors, it would not prolong his life span, but it would only give him some strength.

On Tuesday, July 12, Elder Paisios humbly and peacefully rendered his soul to God, whom he had deeply loved and served since his early childhood.

[OrthoTexan @OrthoTexan70]

“Hell can’t be made attractive, so the devil makes attractive the road that leads there” - St. Basil the Great

[Trad West @trad_west_]

Reminder:

[Catholic Manhood ❤️‍🔥 @bethecreed]

Without God, what am I but a guide to my own destruction?

St. Augustine

[Randy bo Bandy☦️ @Randy2k00]

@ZKobani90 I don’t necessarily agree with the pope on this matter but jeeeeeeez. Basically a threat to overthrow the Catholic Church by military force. Don’t blame him for not wanting to come here. He went to the Middle-East with less hesitation.

[Randy bo Bandy☦️ @Randy2k00]

@ZKobani90 @DeadBug15 I don’t know about Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure but know that series it doesn’t surprise me.

[Samantha Smith @SamanthaTaghoy]

“JESUS WASN’T WHITE!”

Duh.

He also wasn’t Chinese, Indian, or Armenian. But those communities have still made Jesus look like them.

Christians around the world have ALWAYS created depictions of Jesus to mirror their own communities.

Jesus IS mankind. All of mankind. The entire point is that Jesus lives in and represents all of us.

White Jesus isn’t some reflection of an outmoded Eurocentric view. It isn’t a case of “whitewashing”.

Since the 2nd century, societies have been moulding Jesus’ image to reflect their own. The ancient Romans made him beardless and dressed him in the clothing of a Roman rustic, to represent his eternal youth.

Egyptians in the 6th century depicted Jesus with a long beard and distinctively Semitic facial features — the strong nose, the dark hair, the olive skin.

Early Ethiopian carvings show a dark-skinned Jesus with Afro-textured hair and dressed often in a tribal-printed loincloth.

Armenians in the 14th century favoured a traditional “father figure” — a stockily built man with bushy eyebrows, eye bags, and a considerably aged face.

We live in the West. In a society grounded in European culture and heritage. Of course, Jesus was depicted in the image of European people. That doesn’t make it “racist” or “ahistorical”.

It is a reflection of the theology behind His existence. He is all of us. He looks like all of us. Until recently, his “historically accurate” appearance has been immaterial around the world.

Only now are we constraining centuries old religious practices to the modern social construct of “racism”.

Jesus is God made Flesh.
Black, white, and brown.

He is all of us.