RTE No 20 Interior - Road to Emmaus Journal

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Road to Emmaus Vol. V, No. 4 (#19)the astonishing missionary journeys of the apostle andrewcarrying a great staff. He only saw him for a few moments, but he wasshocked because it was the living image of the same person he had seen onthe wall. When I came, he told me the story.A little later, by chance, I bought a book about the local history of BovaMarina. We were amazed when we read there that several centuries agoCatholics had taken small pieces of relics of St. Andrew from the OrthodoxChurch of Bova and thrown them into the fields. (We had no idea that St.Andrew’s relics had ever been there.) The Catholics did this because St.Andrew is the patron saint of Constantinople and they wanted to cut the tiesbetween Constantinople and this Greek-speaking area of southern Italy sothat people would become Catholic. No one knows where they threw therelics. It could have been in any of the fields around the village.RTE: Perhaps it was even your own field.GEORGE: Yes, perhaps. Only God knows.RTE: Do you feel close to St. Andrew?GEORGE: Sometimes he is very close. I often have impressions to look upthings I would never have thought of on my own, and almost always findmissing pieces or new evidence.As I was researching this book a very close relative of mine had a dreamin which she saw a monk we know from Valaamo Monastery in Finland withthe abbot of Valaamo. My relative was surprised because the abbot ofValaamo in her dream was a very different man from Igumen Sergei. Hewas a big man with a large nose, very tall. I had been working on the book,but had told her nothing about St. Andrew’s looks, but the man in herdream fit precisely with the descriptions of the apostle in all the early traditions.The most incredible thing, though, is that in her dream this man wasthe abbot of Valaamo, but she saw him in Sebastopol of the Crimea (theancient Cherson) and she knew (as you know things in dreams) that he wasalso the Metropolitan of Thrace. What she had no idea of at the time wasthat St. Andrew was the enlightener of Thrace, that he had been inSebastopol-Cherson, and you might say that he was the abbot of Valaamobecause he first brought Christianity there.Of course, all of this could be coincidence, but the thing that makes mebelieve this was more than a dream is that when I called our monk-friend inValaamo to tell him about the dream, the monks told me that he had recentlyleft for the Skete of St. Andrew on Mt. Athos!RTE: Wonderful. What do the early sources say St. Andrew looked like?GEORGE: In all the world traditions, and in the book by Max Bonnet 7 , whodid a commentary on the “Acts of Andrew” by St. Gregory of Tours, he isdescribed as being very tall, a bit stooped, with bushy eyebrows that meetover a large nose, curly hair and a beard that is mixed black and grey andwhich separates into two parts at the bottom. In her dream, my relative sawhim with blue eyes, short-necked and very, very strong. We know he wouldhave had to have been strong because he traveled and lived in verydifficult places. He went from -40 C. in Valaamo and the Caucuses to +50 C.in the deserts of the Middle East and Central Asia. You can imagine whatkind of a man he was. You can even see this in his martyrdom. He was crucifiedfor three days, but still couldn’t die, although he was very old.RTE: How has your feeling for St. Andrew changed since you began writingabout his journeys, and how has the book changed you?GEORGE: I’m still a sinner. Nothing can change me. I’m just very happy thatI’m writing this book and I’m also very shy about it. I want to write it and atthe same time I want to avoid writing it, because this is a high obligation andI’m afraid. It’s something I am obliged to do, and when it’s finished I willleave it quickly because it’s too much for me.RTE: Like Peter saying, “Lord, let us put up three tents.”GEORGE: Yes, like this. I’ve been thrilled by St. Andrew’s life. He was sohumble, so completely unimportant socially, but he was the first man onearth called by Christ Himself to be His disciple. What was it that the Divineeyes saw in his soul? He had an exceptional soul because God Himself cameto him. If Mother Mary is for the women, then St. Andrew is for the men.7M. Bonnet, Monumenta Germaniac Historica, Greg. Turon. II, pgs. 821-475455
Taybeh’s Pleafor the LastChristians ofthe Holy LandIn 1995, after college and graduate studies, Greek-American Maria C. Khoury, (B.A., HellenicCollege, A.L.M, Harvard Univ., Ed.D. Boston Univ.), left Boston for her Palestinian husband’snative village of Taybeh on the West Bank, where she has been a constant spokeswoman fornon-violence in the Holy Land and an advocate for Palestinian Christians struggling to remainin their ancestral homes. Her international witness has made her one of the most prominent andrespected Orthodox Christian voices for a just and peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Arab conflict.As an educator and lecturer, Dr. Khoury is the author of the “Christina” series of Orthodoxchildren’s books, proceeds of which go towards raising scholarships and housing opportunitiesfor the Orthodox Christians of Taybeh. Last December, Dr. Khoury was named one of the top fourHuman Rights Champions of 2009 by the D.C. Human Rights Examiner, along with His Holiness,Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.RTE: Dr. Khoury, we’ve heard of your work for peace in the Holy Land fora decade and are honored to finally meet you. Can you begin by telling usabout your background and what led you to Palestine?DR. KHOURY: Thank you. I was born in Tripoli, Greece to Greek Orthodoxparents. My very first childhood memory is standing in front of the Church ofProphet Elias in Tripoli at midnight, with my father holding the Resurrectioncandle and telling me, “Christos Anesti!” That memory is now more importantto me than ever as I work to keep native Palestinian Christians living in theHoly Land; there must always be Orthodox faithful with indigenous Christianroots to receive the miracle of the holy fire and hear, “Christ is Risen!”When I was a child my family moved to Denver where, like many Americans,I didn’t even know that Christians lived in Palestine; at school and onthe news we only heard of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims. In 1979,Opposite: Taybeh, Palestine.3
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Orthodoxy in IndonesiaAn Interview
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…Krom, he who has been born in yo
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RTE No 20 Interior - Road to Emmaus Journal

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