Russian forces have advanced several tens of kilometers from the city – Ukraine’s government will ask the UN cultural watchdog to add the historic port of Odessa to the list of protected world heritage sites as Russia’s invasion continues.
Russian forces have advanced several tens of kilometers from the city, which flourished after Empress Catherine the Great decreed in the late 18th century that it would be Russia’s modern gateway to the Black Sea.
Analysts believe Russian President Vladimir Putin may soon direct a Russian advance on Odessa to completely block Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea, possibly with heavy bombardments like those that destroyed the Mariupol port.
In late July, the commercial port and other areas of the city were hit by missiles just hours after Russia agreed to allow Ukrainian grain to be shipped from it.
“On July 24, 2022, part of the glass canopy and windows of the Museum of Fine Arts, opened in 1899, were destroyed” by the impacts, UNESCO’s cultural agency said after its director Audrey Azoulay met with Ukraine’s culture minister Alexander Tkachenko in Paris.
It said UNESCO experts already on the ground would provide technical assistance so that Odessa could be urgently added to both the World Heritage List and the list of heritage sites in danger.
She will ask the World Heritage Committee to include the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv and the historic center of Lviv, which are already recognized as UNESCO sites, in the list of endangered sites.
The addition of a remarkable site or traditional activity to the UNESCO list aims to mobilize attention to ensure that they are preserved against threats to their existence.
The agency said 175 Ukrainian cultural and historical sites have been damaged since Russia began its invasion in February, including monuments, museums, libraries and religious buildings.
Many have suffered despite being marked with the distinctive “blue shield” that indicates they are protected by the 1954 Hague Convention on Culture in Armed Conflict, to which both Russia and Ukraine are signatories.
“The agency has already mobilized nearly 7 million dollars and provided several aid measures and experts to advise the specialists” working to protect the sites or to move the works of art to safer places, UNESCO said.
In July, Ukraine also won recognition of the beetroot soup, known as borscht, on its list of intangible cultural heritage, which it says is under threat from the Russian invasion.
The average person spends a third of their life on earth sleeping. Although this may seem like a lot of sleep in your life, studies show that 1 in 3 adults still do not get enough sleep, and almost 30% of those people report that their lack of rest is caused by difficulty falling asleep.
These sounds will help you sleep like a baby:
1. Nature
Sounds from nature, such as steady rain, rustling leaves, wind, and a beating heart, are known as pink noise. Pink noise is a classification of sound that can be picked up by the human ear regardless of the frequency of the sound. Studies show that these environmental sounds slow down our brain waves and can help us fall asleep faster and more deeply. Yeah, they’re like that:
Running water
Light but constant rainfall
Fresh wind
Heart palpitations
Soft waves crashing on the shore
2. Balanced and consistent tones
More commonly known as white noise, these sounds have been found to effectively put fussy babies to sleep faster. White noise is spread in equal amplitude frequencies that are picked up by our ears, allowing the brain to maintain focus and concentration. This is helpful for people who have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep because these sounds can cancel out other noises and help the brain focus on sleep.
Some forms of white noise you can try listening to in bed include:
Radio or TV static
The whirring sound of an electric fan
Humming radiator
The quiet hum of an air conditioner
3. Low sounds
Some people find lower frequency sounds more soothing when it comes to falling asleep. These sounds are called brown noise. Compared to white and pink noise, brown is bold, deep and strong, like the rumble of thunder or crashing waves. Although the effectiveness of these deep noises has yet to be scientifically proven, there are a number of claims that brown noise has helped people with their sleep.
Types of brown noise you may hear include:
Ocean currents and powerful waterfalls
Crashing waves
Rumbling thunder
A soft roar or tremor
4. Kitchen noise
There are various noises in the kitchen that can actually help you fall asleep. The sizzling of food cooking in a pan is a form of pink noise, while the constant hum of a stove hood is a form of white noise. Even the motor of a running fridge or freezer can help you or a fussy child fall asleep.
5. Personal playlists
One of the main reasons we can’t sleep is caused by stress, and one way to relieve that tension is through music. Music has been shown to have a powerful effect on stress and emotions. By listening to a set of your favorite tunes before bed, you may be able to let go of your worries and clear your mind for a better night’s sleep.
6. Nothing
Sometimes all you need to fall asleep is some peace and quiet. Black noise or the sound of nothing is the complete silence you may need to get a good night’s sleep.
Therefore, it should be known that man, being dual ¬ composed of soul and body, also possesses dual sensations and accordingly ¬ their virtues; with five being the soul and five the body. And the perceptions of the soul, which the heathen philosophers call possibilities, are the following: reason, thought, opinion, idea, and sensation. The bodily ones are: sight, smell, hearing, taste and sensation. Whence their virtues are double, vices also double. So it is necessary for every man to know clearly how many are the passions of the soul and what are the passions of the body.
Of the virtues of the soul we say that there are four most exalted, which are the following: manliness, prudence, prudence, and justice, and from them arise those virtues of the soul: faith, hope, love, prayer, humility, meekness, longsuffering, endurance of evils , goodness, non-anger, divine knowledge, dispassion, simplicity, equanimity, unpretence, non-vanity, low-mindedness, unenvy, guilelessness, unselfishness, compassion, charity, charity, fearlessness, non-sorrow, contrition, respectability, fearlessness, desire for future good, aspiration for the kingdom God, desire to be adopted and [by God].
The bodily virtues are the following (or rather the means of the virtues), obtained in knowledge and from God, leading man out of all pretense and gratification, into the progress of humility, and to dispassion. And these are: abstinence, fasting, craving, staying awake, standing at night, kneeling unceasingly, not washing, wearing a single garment, eating dry food, eating scanty food, eating fast, drinking water and not wine, lying on one’s bed on the ground, poverty, impoverishment , neglect, non-coquettishness, unselfishness, seclusion, tranquility, sitting at home, scarcity, self-sufficiency, silence, doing work with one’s own hands, and all forbearance of evil, exercise of the body, all of which are precisely the most necessary and useful, in a situation, that the body is healthy even when it is disturbed by carnal passions. And if he is sick and has survived with God’s help from them, they are not so necessary, since holy humility and prayer fill everything.
We are obliged, therefore, to speak of both spiritual and bodily passions. And the passions of the soul are these: forgetfulness, ignorance, from these very passions the eye of the soul, i.e. the mind, darkened, is governed by all passions, such as these: impiety, wrong opinion, i.e. every heresy, blasphemy, anger, wrath, malice, short temper, hatred of man, spitefulness, slander, condemnation, unreasonable despondency, fear, apprehension, quarrelsomeness, jealousy, envy, vanity, pride, pretense, falsehood, unbelief, desire for more, desire for material gain, partiality, attachment to earthly things, indifference, narrow-mindedness, ingratitude, murmuring, vanity, prejudice, haughtiness, boasting, lust for power, people-pleasing, deceit, shamelessness, insensibility, flattery, dissimulation, mockery, duplicity, habituation to the sins of the passionate part [of the soul] and constant preoccupation with them, wandering of thoughts, love of self ¬ parent of all evils; and the root of all evil is covetousness, and malice, and wickedness.
And the passions of the flesh are: gluttony, gluttony, luxury, drinking, eating in secret, every lust for pleasure, fornication, adultery, licentiousness, moral impurity, incest, corruption of children, bestiality, evil desires and all unnatural and shameful passions, theft, robbery of shrines, robbery, murder, bodily indulgence and enjoyment of the pleasures of the flesh (when the body is stronger), divination, sorcery, incantations, bird-divination, gossiping, coquettishness, ear-ringing, idle talk, adornment, massaging the faces, reprehensible idleness, wandering of the mind, gambling, addiction and abuse of worldly pleasures, living for the sake of the body, which fattens the mind and makes it earthly and animal, and never allows it to rise to God and to the perfection of virtue.
Roots of all passions and as some would say ¬ riots ¬ are love of pleasure, love of fame, love of money, from which all evil is born. But a man commits no sin unless, as Mark, the wisest of ascetics, says, he has been overcome and subdued by these mighty giants; namely: forgetfulness, carelessness and ignorance. They give them pleasure and relaxation, this ¬ to love fame among people, anointing. And the primary cause of all these, and in the capacity of the most evil mother, as has already been said, is self-love, or unreasonable love of the body and strong excitement, because the dissipation and release of reason by jokes and shameful thoughts are the hosts of many evils and downfalls, such as recklessness and laughter.
In addition to all this, it must be understood how diverse and diverse the passionate love of pleasures is and that many pleasures deceive the soul when it is not sober according to God, does not behave from the fear of God and from the love of Christ, occupied by work on the virtues. Precisely because a thousand pleasures are brought about, drawing the eyes of the soul to themselves: these are [pleasures] of the body, of money, of luxury, of fame, of carelessness, of anger, of social position, of avarice, of excess. And in the guile they appear with a look of splendor and pleasing; they are apt to attract those who look with reverence on such things, and do not particularly love virtue, and cannot endure its hardness. Any association with anything earthly and attachment to any of the material things causes useless and [even] harmful pleasure and enjoyment of addictions. The passionate libido of the soul in him shows how because of this [he], oppressed by deprivation of what is desired, throws himself into anger, wrath, sadness, and bad memory.
But if by means of predilection, and whatever established habit, it seems that one imperceptibly and incurably drifts to the end of the unreasonable predilection, which prepares the one caught by the hidden pleasure in himself. For, as was said before, the pleasure occasioned by desire is diverse; and it is filled not only with fornication and other bodily pleasures, but also with other passions. Therefore, to be wise is not only to abstain from fornication and subliminal pleasures, but also to be outside of other pleasures. Because of them the lover of money, silver and luxury is insatiable. Just as he loves the body, so this one loves money. But this one is more insatiable, inasmuch as there is no such force of nature to repel it.
So we must clearly understand that the love of pleasures does not consist only in licentiousness and enjoyment of the bodies, but also in every manner and deed of the soul’s personal choice because of predilection. But in order to understand more clearly about the passions according to the trimerium of the soul, we decided to briefly state the following.
On the tripartiteness of the soul
The soul is divided into three: rational, sensual and instinctive. Of the sensible sins are the following: unbelief, heresy, imprudence, slander, ingratitude, and approval of bodily sins, which arise from the passionate portion [of the soul]. The cure for these evils is unshakable faith in God, true and firm and orthodox dogmas of piety, unceasing care for the thoughts of the spirit, pure and unceasing prayer, and communion before God.
For the sensual
On the sensual side, the sins are the following: cowardice, hatred, hard-heartedness, malice, envy and murder, constant concern for such things. The treatment and therapy of these is humanity, love and kindness.
For the drive
On the instinctive part, the sins are the following: gluttony, gluttony, excessive drinking of wine, fornication, adultery, impurity, unrestrainedness, love of money, passion for empty fame, and for gold and wealth, and for carnal pleasures. Their treatment is: fasting, abstinence, longsuffering of evils, non-suffering, distribution of personal means to the poor, striving for those future immortal goods, seeking the kingdom of God, and earnestly desiring to be adopted by God.
We need to write something also about the judgment of the thoughts born of passion, through which every sin is committed.
Eight are all the thoughts that encompass evil: the thought of gluttony, that of fornication, that of avarice, anger, sadness, carelessness, vanity, haughtiness.
Illustration: V. M. Vasnetsov, St. Virgin and Child (Kyiv), fresco, XIX c.
But still evil exists and it is obvious how much it is spread throughout the world. Therefore, they say: “Whence is it, if it is not without beginning and not created?” Investigating this, we will ask where do diseases come from? Where did the bodily harm come from? Disease is not something unborn, but it is not a creature of God either. On the contrary, animals are created with a constitution which resembles them according to their nature, and are introduced into life as perfect organisms; they get sick when they deviate from what is natural for them: either from bad food or from some other disease-causing cause. Therefore, God created the body, not the disease. The soul has become damaged, deviating from what is natural for it. And what was the most important good for her? Abiding with God and being united with Him through love.
Falling away from Him, she began to suffer from various infirmities. Why is she even susceptible to evil? By reason of a free striving, more than anything peculiar to the rational nature. Not being bound by any necessity, given by the Creator a free life as created in the image of God, she understands the good, knows how to enjoy it, is endowed with freedom and strength, residing in the contemplation of the beautiful and in reasonable enjoyment, can observe the natural for her life; but there is also the freedom to deviate from the beautiful at times. And this happens when, satiated by the blissful pleasure and as in a kind of slumber, falling from her exalted state, she enters into communion with the flesh for vile pleasures of voluptuousness.
Adam was once high, not by habitation, but by good will; high was he when, receiving a soul, he saw heaven, admired its beauty, loved the Benefactor, who granted him the enjoyment of eternal life, placed him in the midst of heaven, gave him a rulership in the likeness of the angels, made him similar to the archangels and able to listens to the Divine voice. Despite all this, being under the protection of God and enjoying His benefits, he soon became fed up with everything and, being blinded by spiritual beauty, preferred what appeared pleasant to the carnal eyes and placed the filling of the stomach above the spiritual.
Soon he was out of heaven, out of the blissful life, becoming evil not out of necessity but out of recklessness. Thus he, having sinned by wrong choice, died by sin. God is life, and the deprivation of life is death. Adam himself prepared death by moving away from God according to what is written: “Those who move away from You perish” (Ps. 72:27). God did not prevent our destruction, for reasons explained above, lest he should preserve the defect itself in us as immortal, any more than the potter would put into the fire a vessel of clay which leaks, until he had corrected the defect in question.
But they will say, “Why is not infallibility built into our very constitution, so that we cannot sin even if we would?” Therefore, because you also do not recognize your servants as good as long as you keep them bound, but when you see that they voluntarily perform their duties before you. Therefore, God is pleased not with compulsion, but with virtue. And virtue comes from good will, not necessity. And good will depends on what is in us; and that which is in us is free. Thus, he who reproaches the Creator for not having made us naturally sinless, he actually prefers an unreasonable nature to a rational one, an immovable and desireless nature to a nature endowed with free will and action.
This is said as a necessary deviation, so that a person who has fallen into the abyss of thought, by losing what he desires, may not also lose God. So let’s stop correcting the Wise. Let’s stop looking for something better than what He created. Although the reasons for its private provisions are hidden from us, let us affirm in our souls that no evil proceeds from the Good.
Related to this question about concepts is another – about the devil. “Where is the devil from, if evil is not of God?” What shall we say to that? In such a matter the same reasoning which we have presented concerning the cunning of man is sufficient. Why is a person cunning? Of his own will. Why is the devil evil? For the same reason, because he also had a free life, and he was given the power to dwell with God or to depart from the Good. Gabriel is an angel and is always before God. Satan is an angel who has completely fallen from his rank. Good will preserved the former in the heights, and freedom of will overthrew the latter. But the first was preserved by the insatiable love of God, and the second was made to be denied by moving away from God. That which is alienated from God is evil. A small movement of the eye causes us to either look at the sunny side or to be on the shadow side of our body. And there enlightenment is ready for him who looks straight on, obscuration is necessary for him who turns his gaze to the shadow. So also the devil is cunning, having his cunning according to his will, not that his nature is contrary to good.
“Why is he at enmity with us?” Therefore, becoming the receptacle of every vice, he took in himself the disease of envy and envied our honor. Our happy life in paradise was unbearable for him. Deceiving man with treachery and cunning and using as a means of deception precisely the same desire that man had – to be like God, he showed the tree and promised that by tasting the fruit man would become like God. Because he said: “In the day you taste of them, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Therefore, he was not created as our enemy, but out of envy he was brought to enmity with us. For, seeing that he himself was cast down by the angels, he could not indifferently watch how the earth-born, through success, was elevated to angelic dignity.
And inasmuch as he became an enemy, God preserved our resistance to him, when, referring a threat to himself, he said to the beast that served as his weapon: “I will sow enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed” (Gen. 3:15). It is really harmful to get close to vice, because in those who get close, such a union of friendship arises usually as a result of simulating one another. It has been rightly said: “Do not lie, evil talk corrupts good character” (1 Cor. 15:33). As in countries with an unhealthy climate the air inhaled even for a short time is bound to cause disease, so bad society brings great disturbance to the soul. That is why the enmity with the snake is irreconcilable. If the cannon is worthy of such abhorrence, then should we not be at war even more with the wielder of the cannon?
But they will say, “What was the tree in Paradise for, by means of which the devil could succeed in his malice against us? And if there was not that tempting bait, how could he draw us into death by disobedience?” It was because a commandment was needed to test our obedience. Therefore, it was a plant bearing beautiful fruit, that we, abstaining from what is pleasant, might show the excellence of abstinence, and rightly be honored with crowns of patience. After the tasting followed not only transgression of the commandment, but also knowledge of nakedness. “She ate and gave to her husband, and he also ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked” (Gen. 3:6-7). And it was not necessary to know the nakedness, so that the mind of man would not be distracted, inventing clothes and protection from the nakedness, and in general, with cares for the flesh, to divert his focused attention in pursuit of God.
But why was he not provided with clothes immediately after creation? Because neither natural nor artificial clothes were decent. Natural clothing is characteristic of the speechless: such are feathers, fur, and rough skin capable of protecting against cold and enduring heat. And in this one animal does not have the slightest advantage over another, because in all nature is of equal dignity. And it was proper for a man according to the love of God to receive excellent gifts and goods. Exercises in art would produce a scarcity of time, which was chiefly to be avoided as injurious to man. That is why the Lord, once again calling us to a heavenly life, removes care from our souls, saying: “Do not worry about your soul – what you will eat and drink – nor about your body, what you will wear” (Mat. 6:25) . Therefore, it was not necessary for man to have both natural and artificial coverings. On the contrary, if he had shown his prowess, other coverings would have been prepared for him, which, by the grace of God, would have beautified the man and would have shone upon him in the form of bright garments, similar to those of angels, surpassing the variegated colors, lightness and radiance of the stars. For this reason, garments were immediately given to man, because they were intended for him as a reward for virtue, but the malice of the devil prevented man from receiving them.
And so the devil became our adversary in consequence of the fall to which we were brought by his malice. And according to God’s house-building, we are in a struggle with him in order to defeat him with obedience and triumph over the adversary. Another thing, if he had not become a devil, but resided in the rank in which the Chief had first placed him! But inasmuch as he became an apostate, an enemy of God and an enemy of men, created in the image of God (he is a man-hater for the same reason that he is a God-fighter: he hates us as God’s creations, he hates us also as God’s likeness), then the wise and the benevolent Master of human affairs availed himself of his cunning for the training of our souls, as the physician uses the poison of the echidna in the composition of a salutary medicine.
“Who is the devil? What is his rank? What dignity does he have? And why is he actually called Satan?
– Because it is an opponent of good. Such is the meaning of the Hebrew word, as we know from the book Kingdom. “And the Lord raised up an adversary for Solomon – Adera the Idumean, of the Idumean royal family” (3 Kings 11:14). He is a devil because he is both an instigator and an accuser of our sins, he rejoices in our destruction and makes a mockery of our deeds. And his nature is incorporeal according to the words of the Apostle: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness” (Eph. 6:12). The place of his leadership is in the air, as the same Apostle says: “The prince of the power of the air, that is, of the spirit that now works in the sons of unbelief” (Eph. 2:2). That is why he is called the prince of this world, because his authority is in the heavenly realms. Thus the Lord says: “Now is judgment upon this world; now will the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). And also: “The prince of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30). When talking about the host of the devil, that these are “the heavenly spirits of malice” (Eph. 6:12), it should be known that the Scriptures usually call the sky air, for example, “the birds of the air” (Matt. 6:26) – and “ascend unto the heavens” (Ps. 106:26), that is, rise high into the air. That is why the Lord saw “Satan fall from heaven like lightning” (Lk. 10:18), i.e. removed from his power, thrown down below, so that those who trust in the Lord will defeat him. Because He has given His disciples “power to tread on serpents and scorpions and on every power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19).
To the extent that his evil oppression has been defeated and the earth has been purified through the redemptive sufferings of the Peacemaker of “all that is in Heaven and that is on earth” (Col. 1:16), then the Kingdom of God is already preached to us. Thus John spoke: “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Mat. 3:2), and the Lord everywhere preaches the “Gospel of the Kingdom” (Mat. 4:23) and from the beginning the angels exclaim: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.” (Luke 2:14), and those rejoicing because of our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem exclaim: “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38). In all, thousands are the victorious voices testifying to the final overthrow of the enemy; therefore, that there may remain no struggle and no feat in the heights, no one opposes or diverts us from the blessed life, but we may calmly go forward to enjoy the tree of life for ever, to join that which hindered us at first the cunning of the serpent, for “God set a Cherubim and a flaming sword… to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). By completing this path without hindrance, let us enter into the grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion forever!
Amen!
Source: Works of Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea Cappadocia. Ed. 4, h. 4. Holy Troitskaya Sergieva Lavra, 1901 (in Russian).
On 30th of August, the Russian Prosecutor’s Office requested 24 years in prison for the journalist and specialist in military affairs Ivan Safronov, who was accused of treason and has been arrested since 2020, reported France Press.
“The prosecutor’s office requested that Safronov be found guilty of treason and sentenced to 24 years in prison,” said the Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office, quoted by TASS. The information was released after a closed court hearing.
Thirty-two-year-old Safronov is a defense expert and was arrested in July 2020, amid increasing pressure on the independent press in Russia.
According to Safronov’s colleagues, the trial against him is revenge for his articles, which described existing gaps in the armed forces and cases that put the army in an embarrassing position.
Since the following April, the hearings in Safronov’s case have been held behind closed doors, since it is about accusations of espionage and treason. When the trial began, the journalist declared his innocence and criticized the “incredible cynicism” of the Russian justice system.
Safronov worked for two Russian dailies – Vedomosti and Kommersant. After he was forced to leave Kommersant in 2019, in May 2020 he became an adviser to the former director of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin.
According to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSS), Safronov is suspected of “handing over state secrets related to Russia’s military-technical cooperation and security to an intelligence service of a NATO country.”
The Kremlin assures that the arrest of Ivan Safronov has nothing to do with his activities as a journalist
A Russian rapper who opposes the war in Ukraine can also be declared an extremist.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office asked a court to declare the work of the rapper Oxxxymiron, one of the most popular musicians in Russia, who publicly opposed the invasion of Ukraine, as “extremist”, reported Reuters.
A spokesman for the Moscow prosecutor’s office said the rapper was being investigated for “justifying violence” because of the content of one of his songs, Interfax reported. According to Russian law, any content declared “extremist” is banned, BTA reported.
Oksimiron, whose real name is Miron Fedorov, became known for his politicized song lyrics, often targeting the Kremlin and its policies. Shortly after the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, he canceled a planned tour of Russia, saying: “I can’t entertain you while Russian missiles are falling in Ukraine.” He then left Russia and gave a series of concerts in Istanbul, London and Berlin under the title “Russians against the war”. Proceeds from these events go to Ukrainian refugees.
Photo: Ivan Safronov stands in a defendant’s cell during a court hearing in Moscow on August 30, 2022 / Press Office of the Moscow City Court
In the science of the Bible, including New Testament research, assumptions and hypotheses are often expressed, and great efforts are made to defend opinions that differ from traditionally accepted facts about biblical personalities or events. The motives for efforts of this kind could be different, but very often they are related to the desire of certain authors to offer solutions that satisfy their personal ambitions in science (and not just in science). Usually there is a desire to prove something that, according to the authors, will increase the authority of their homeland or their country. But a motive could be not only that, as is the case with the Dr. Heinz Warnecke’s study of the site of the Apostle Paul’s shipwreck on his way to Rome[i].
We see such an example in the aspiration of some ambitious Bulgarian scholars to redraw the path of the preaching activity of the apostle Paul on the Balkan Peninsula. Similar attempts have been made with regard as well to other historical figures outside of biblical history.
And now specifically to the examples. In connection with the story of the Acts of the Apostles about the preaching of the apostle Paul in the city of Philippoi, Macedonia, some Bulgarian scholars have been seduced by the possibility that he went not to the city of Philippoi, but to the city of Philippopolis.[ii]
The reason is that at thе time of apostle Paul’s visit Philippoi was a “small town” inhabited by Roman military colonists – veterans, while Philippopolis was a large city with a developed economic, cultural and religious life, including a synagogue building. The city of Philippopolis is on the banks of the big river Hebros (today called Maritsa), which at that time was navigable.[iii] Dr. Asen Chilingirov from Berlin in his book “Apostle Paul, Philippoi and Philippopolis” and in a number of other related publications tries to refute the traditional perception of the testimony of Acts and the Paul’s epistles, and his position gained considerable popularity, especially among non-specialists. Guided by unscientific criteria, many ask themselves: why should we accept that the apostle was in the city of Philippoi and not in the city with the similar-sounding name of Philippopolis? In addition, Dr. Chilingirov points to a significant number of scientific literature that he has studied and on whose information he relies. But, of course, he interprets the information in his own way and is definitely biased.
Such a statement is confronted above all with the repeated mention of the name of the city of Philippoi outside the story in Acts 16. Here are the examples:
In Acts 20:6 the author notes: “we sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we joined them in Troas” (ἡμεῖς δὲ ἐξεπλεύσαμεν μετὰ τὰς ἡμέρας τῶν ἀζύμων ἀπὸ Φιλίππων καὶ ἤλθομεν πρὸς αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν Τρῳάδα ἄχρι ἡμερῶν πέντε). Of course, they started from Neapolis, which served as a port for the important city of Philippoi.[iv]
At the beginning of the Epistle to the Philippians (Philippians 1:1), the name of the city of Philippoi is mentioned: „Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi” (Παῦλος καὶ Τιμόθεος δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ πᾶσιν τοῖς ἁγίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις).
At the end of the same epistle (4:15), the apostle called the local Christians by the name of their city, associating them with the province of Macedonia: „You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia…” (οἴδατε δὲ καὶ ὑμεῖς, Φιλιππήσιοι, ὅτι ἐν ἀρχῇ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, ὅτε ἐξῆλθον ἀπὸ Μακεδονίας…).
The First Epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 2: 2) speaks of what happened to the apostle in the city of Philippoi: „but though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition” (ἀλλὰ προπαθόντες καὶ ὑβρισθέντες, καθὼς οἴδατε, ἐν Φιλίπποις ἐπαρρησιασάμεθα ἐν τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν λαλῆσαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν πολλῷ ἀγῶνι).
Even assuming that an error was made in one of these places and the name Philippoi was recorded instead of Philippopolis, it is difficult to accept that in all places the information about the city of Philippoi is wrong,[v] and it must be understand the other city named after the Macedonian ruler Philip II – Philippopolis. On the other hand, if the apostle Paul intended to go to Philippopolis, which is still in the province of Thrace, and not in the province of Macedonia, then from Troas he would easily cross the Hellespont Strait (now the Dardanelles) and travel north first and then northwest to Philippopolis. It was not necessary to sail to the island of Samothrace, from there to the port of Neapolis (now Kavala), and only then to look for a way on the river Hebros to Philippopolis. A separate issue is that sailing against the current of this river was not easy. In some places the depth is small and was sailed mainly by rafts, which were pulled upstream by horses. In any case, the apostolic route drawn by the author of the Acts through the island of Samothrace and Neapolis naturally leads to the city of Philippoi.
The history of the apostolic work of St. Paul, as can be seen from the description of his missionary journeys, witnesses that his goals were mainly the larger cities on the Mediterranean coast, in which there were also Jewish synagogues, i.e. Jewish communities. The apostle always sought to preach first among them, as he himself points out in his letter to the Roman Christians: „to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Ἰουδαίῳ τε πρῶτον καὶ Ἕλληνι – Rom. 1:16; 2:10). He did this both because of the Jews’ familiarity with the expectation of the Messiah and because of their knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.
It is true, that in Asia Minor the apostle Paul went into the mainland, but because of its geographical proximity to Palestine, there was a Jewish community in every major settlement. Nevertheless, the apostle did not go very deep into the land of the peninsula of Asia Minor. While the problem with Philippopolis is that the city is too far (about 300 km) from the Mediterranean coast, and respectively, from the usual route of the apostle, traveling west or east.
The other ancient city that is claimed to be a biblical site is the town of Nicopolis ad Nestum in the middle reaches of the Mesta River in southern Bulgaria. Strange as it may seem, some researchers claim that this is the city where apostle Paul wished to spend the winter months, as he wrote to his disciple Titus: „When I send Artemas to you, or Tychicus, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there” (Ὅταν πέμψω Ἀρτεμᾶν πρὸς σὲ ἢ Τύχικον, σπούδασον ἐλθεῖν πρός με εἰς Νικόπολιν, ἐκεῖ γὰρ κέκρικα παραχειμάσαι (Tit 3:12).
A few kilometers from the current Bulgarian town Gotse Delchev can be seen excavated remains of Nicopolis ad Nestum[vi]. According to archeological finds, the city existed in the second millennium BC. As a Thracian settlement during the Hellenistic era, it was known by the Greek name Alexandropolis, and was called Nicopolis by Emperor Marcus Ulpius Traianus in 106, when he conquered Dacia and established it as a Roman province. Trajan gives the name Nicopolis („city of victory”) to two cities in Thrace, located along the rivers Ister (Danube) and Nestos (Mesta).[vii] In any case, this did not happen until the beginning of the second century AD. or about half a century after the apostle Paul’s supposed wintering in a town called Nicopolis.
Titus 3:12 is the only place in the New Testament where the city of Nicopolis is mentioned. The text of the epistle to Titus does not specify exactly where this city was. In fact in ancient times there were many cities with recurring names such as Nicopolis, Neapolis, Caesarea, Antioch and others. It is known that Octavian Augustus founded two cities named Nicopolis, both dedicated to his victory at Actium in 31 BC: one in the region of Epirus, on the Ionian Sea coast, not far from the present-day Greek city of Preveza, and the other in Egypt.[viii] Nicopolis of Epirus was founded in 31 BC, and Nicopolis in Egypt – in 24 BC.
Nicopolis in Epirus with its double port was the largest city on the west coast of Greece at that time. Augustus built and organized it as a Greek polis, using the existing settlements around,[ix] and formed a new capital of the province of Epirus. From Nicopolis to Brindisi(um) by sea is about 200 miles, and from there on Via Apia the traveler reaches Rome. As a capital city and a port of contact with Italy and Rome, the city could have been a natural destination for apostle Paul traveling west.
Unlike the Nicopolis Epirus, Nikopolis ad Nestum is still more than 100 km from the sea coast, and the road to it passes through high mountain saddles, because in the valley of the river Mesta the terrain is impassable in places. And perhaps most importantly: from Nicopolis ad Nestum there is no easy access to other large settlements that would be of interest to the missionary Paul. Therefore, it seems pointless to choose such a place for a winter break.
However, these considerations do not prevent some authors from insisting that the apostle remained in Nicopolis ad Nestum during the winter months. They even point out as evidence the hot mineral springs in the vicinity of the city, as well as modern churches and chapels dedicated to apostle Paul.[x]
The reasons for the interest in such hypotheses are clear: everyone is seduced by the thought that his place or his country had a glorious but already forgotten history; that only more famous countries and cities are considered to be the centers of events in world history, including Christian history. But history is a memory of truth, not of imaginary events.
It is natural that such stories and tales as the mentioned hypotheses about Philippopolis and Nicopolis ad Nestum have a place in world literature, but when we talk about the truth and exactly the truth about important events in the life of the Church, we can not get carried away and trust unprovable fabrications.[xi]
Note: Published with consent of the author, first publication: Philippoi or Philippopolis, Nicopolis Epirus or Nicopolis ad Nestum. – In: Sacra Scripta XIX, 1-2 (2021), p. 14-20. (ISSN 1584-7624).
Photo: “Doubting-Thomas”, Byzantine icon.
References
[i] Cf. Heinz Warnecke und Thomas Schirrmacher. War Paulus wirklich auf Malta? Neuhausen, 1992. In fact, Dr. Warnecke’s theses pitted not so much the scholars among themselves as the inhabitants of Malta against the inhabitants of the Greek island of Kefalonia.
[ii] One such is the Bulgarian art historian Asen Chilingirov. Since 1965 he has specialized and then worked in (East) Berlin, teaching History of Arts at the University of Leipzig and at Humboldt University. He is known for often supporting the so-called “fringe theories” that differ from those accepted in science in a given field. It is probable that his scientific pursuits were influenced by his passion for the esoteric teachings of the „White Brotherhood” sect in Bulgaria. In Germany he published the books: 1. Assen Tschilingirov. Die Kunst des christlichen Mittelalters in Bulgarien. Beck Verlag München, 1979; 2. Bulgarien. Kulturgeschichte im Prisma. Vom Altertum bis 1878. Leipzig 1987. In the last three decades he has published in Bulgaria books on the history of the country and the Bulgarian people, which, however, are met very critically by the scientific community. Among his publications is the book that interests us in the concrete case: Apostle Paul, Philippoi and Philippopolis. Sofia, 2019 (in Bulgarian: Апостол Павел, Филипи и Филипопол. София, 2019).
[iii]Valkan Valkanov. Maritime history of Bulgaria. Sofia, 2000, p. 73 (in Bulgarian: Вълкан Вълканов. Морска история на България. София, 2000, с. 73).
[iv] St. Ignatius of Antioch also speaks of this in his Epistle to Polycarpus, 8, 1 (Ignatius Antiochenus. Epistle ad Polycarpon. PG 5, 728).
[v] Unserious sound the following words of A. Chilingirov: „At the end of the 4th and during the 5th century all liturgical literature, including the four Gospels, was basically re-edited and supplemented with new texts, as very clumsily and without elementary knowledge of the history and topography of the holy places, stories were written, which have nothing to do with the truth” (Apostle Paul, Philippi and Philippopolis, p. 114).
[vi] Or Nicopolis ad Mestum, as the name is written in Greek on coins from antiquity (see Holger Komnick. Die Münzprägung von Nicopolis ad Mestum. Griechisches Münzwerk. Berlin, 2003, pp. 4, 90).
[vii] Named Nicopolis ad Istrum and Nicopolis ad Nestum respectively. See V. Velkov. Development of urban life. Road system. – In: History of Bulgaria I, 1979, p. 307. D. Boteva. Name and foundation of Nicopolis on the Mesta River. – In: Numismatics, Sphragistics and Epigraphy 3, Part 2, Sofia, 2007, p. 196 (in Bulgarian: В. Велков. Развитие на градския живот. Пътна система. – В: История на България І, 1979, с. 307. Д. Ботева. Име и основаване на Никополис на р. Места. – Нумизматика, сфрагистика и епиграфика 3, част 2, София, 2007, с. 196).
[viii] Josephus Flavius in his work „De bello Gallico” (4, 659) notes the name of the Egyptian Nicopolis: μέχρι Νικοπόλεως, εἴκοσι δὲ αὕτη διέχει τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας σταδίους. He also mentions the inhabitants of Nicopolis (apparently Nicopolis of Epirus): ἀλλ᾽ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ Λακεδαιμόνιοι Νικοπολῖταί τε (Ibidem, 1, 425). See also Strabo. Geography, 7.7.5-6; 10.2.2 and more details in Dio Cassius, Roman History, 50.12.1-8; 51.1.2-3.
[ix] According to Dio Cassius (Roman History, 51.1.2-3).
[x] This is used as evidence of a possible memory of apostle Paul in the area. See for this hypothesis: Todor Sabev. The missionary work of St. Paul the Apostle and his first disciples on the Balkan Peninsula. – In: Duhovna kultura, 7-8 /1967, p. 34 (in Bulgarian: Тодор Събев. Мисионерското дело на св. апостол Павел и неговите първи ученици на Балканския полуостров. – В: Духовна култура, 7-8/1967, с. 34).
[xi] Because very often these are “statements of unproven knowledge and emotions” (Prof. Plamen Radev. Let’s be careful with the life of St. Hermas. Vestnik „Plovdivski universitet”, issue 5-6 / 14.6.2011, pp. 18-19. In Bulgarian: Проф. дпн Пламен Радев. Да бъдем внимателни с житието на св. ап. Ерм. Вестник „Пловдивски университет”, бр. 5-6/14.6.2011 г., с. 18-19).
Ukraine: EU donates five million potassium iodide tablets to protect Ukrainians from potential radiation exposure amid increased nuclear risk
On 26 August, the EU received a request for potassium iodide tablets from the Government of Ukraine as a preventative safety measure to increase the level of protection around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The potassium iodide tablets would be used in limited scenarios to avoid that inhaled or swallowed radioactive iodine is absorbed by the thyroid.
In response, the European Response Coordination Centre swiftly mobilised 5.5 million potassium iodide tablets via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism for Ukraine, including five million from the rescEU emergency reserves and 500,000 from Austria. With a total financial value of over €500,000, the brunt of the assistance will be delivered to Ukraine from the rescEU reserve hosted by Germany.
“No nuclear power plant should ever be used as a war theatre. It is unacceptable that civilian lives are put in danger. All military action around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant must stop immediately. The EU is pre-emptively delivering five million potassium iodide tablets to Ukraine from the rescEU strategic reserves to offer people protection in case of exposure to high levels of radiation. I want to thank Austria for donating an additional 500,000 tablets to Ukraine. We will continue to be on the lookout and stand ready to act, because preparedness saves lives.”
Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič said:
Nobody has the time to look into everything, so people often have to take some things which we know are common knowledge for granted. Unfortunately, not every bit of information you pick up along the way is factual. Read on to have 10 of your beliefs disproved.
Myth #1 – Chimps have more hair than humans
If you put a picture of a chimp next to one of a human, you would be forgiven for thinking that the chimp is much hairier. However, that’s not the case. Humans have between two and five million hair follicles spread around their bodies, which is about the same number as other primates. Our hair is just much less coarse and less visible. While primates are furred, humans have two types of hair: terminal and vellus hair. Terminal hair makes up the hair on our heads and in our armpits and pubic area, and vellus hair is found everywhere else. Vellus hair is much finer, shorter, and lighter than terminal hair, and is not connected to any glands below the skin. No one knows for sure why we have evolved this way, but it’s likely[1] that, when our ancestors moved out of the shady forests and onto the hot savannah, they grew this type of hair as a way to protect their brains while keeping their bodies cool — through sweating — as they hunted and foraged in the sun.
Myth #2 – The Earth revolves around the Sun
Strictly speaking, the Earth is revolving around the solar system’s center of mass, also known as its barycenter[2]. This is the balancing point around which the combined mass of every object in the solar system is evenly distributed. Due to the planets’ constant motion, this point is always shifting. Because the Sun has over 99% of the solar system’s total mass, the barycenter of the solar system is located near its surface, and sometimes within the Sun itself. But when the barycenter is outside the Sun, our planet is just orbiting an empty spot in space.
Myth #3 – A wet phone should be put in rice
Believing that rice will dry a wet phone is perfectly reasonable — after all, rice is known to absorb moisture. However, despite what you may have heard, experiments[3] have shown that not only will rice not help, it probably will work more slowly than fresh air. In fact, rice may even do more harm than good; grains can get stuck in headphone jacks or charging ports, and the starch in the rice may even speed up the corrosion process. Instead, just leave the phone out to dry in an area with some airflow, or, if you don’t want to wait a week or two, you can try using things[4] like silica gel packets or vacuum bags.
Myth #4 – Widening highways helps traffic
When you’re stuck in traffic, it’s easy to imagine how much faster you might be able to go if only someone had had the foresight to add more lanes to the highway you’re on. But research[5] shows that widening a highway often just leads to worse traffic problems, thanks to a phenomenon known as “induced demand,” which describes how an increase in supply results in a decline in price and, therefore, an increase in consumption. In the case of roadways, adding capacity decreases travel time, which lowers the “price” of driving and results in more miles being traveled because people who currently aren’t using a car decide to drive. So the new lanes fill up very quickly and traffic chokes up, again.
A great example of this effect is the Katy Freeway in Houston. In 2011, this highway was widened to a massive 23 lanes, making it the widest in the world, but travel times have actually increased during the morning and evening commutes by 30 percent and 55 percent, respectively.[6]
Myth #5 – Mount Everest is the world’s highest mountain
At 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) from its base to its peak (plus or minus 6.5 feet/2 meters), Mount Everest is generally considered to be the world’s highest mountain. But that depends on your definition of “highest.”[7]
If you define highest as “closest to the moon,” the honor must go to Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. The thing is, the Earth is not a round sphere, it bulges in the middle, much like one of those ergonomic ball chairs when someone is sitting on it. From base to peak, Chimborazo is 20,548 feet (6,263 meters). But it also sits on a bump on a bigger part of the Earth’s bulge than Everest, meaning that it’s actually 35,826 feet (10,920 meters) from the center of the Earth.
And if you define “highest” as the tallest mountain from base to peak, then the award for “highest mountain” must go to Hawaii’s Mauna Kea: it measures over 32,808 feet (10,000 meters) from its base in the Pacific Ocean to its peak, which is almost a mile taller than Everest.
Myth #6 – There is zero gravity in space
We’re all familiar with footage of astronauts floating around the space station, so it’s easy to believe that there is no gravity up there. But gravity exists everywhere in the universe — without it, everything would simply fly apart and cease to exist. The reason astronauts on the space station look weightless is because both the space station and the astronauts are in a continuous state of free fall toward the earth. Because objects of any mass fall at the same speed, the space station, and the astronauts fall together, creating the illusion of zero gravity. Luckily, though they keep falling, they never actually fall to the Earth because the space station is traveling at around 17,150 miles (27,600 km) per hour, keeping it and the astronauts in orbit.
Myth #7 – Water conducts electricity
While it may be true that dropping a toaster in your bath will not end well for you, the fact is that pure, distilled water is a bad conductor[9] of electricity because its molecules do not have free electrons to transfer electrical current. Pure water consists of an oxygen molecule that is chemically bonded to two hydrogen molecules. Oxygen has six electrons in its outer reactive shell and room for two more, and hydrogen atoms have one electron each, meaning that a perfect chemical bond forms.
Water is, however, a superlative solvent; the free ions from impurities like salts and minerals dissolved in the water enable it to conduct electricity. Interestingly, when water contains a large amount of these ions, it conducts electricity so well that the electricity will ignore less efficient conductors — like human bodies — and stick to the better pathway; the multitude of ions in the water.
Myth #8 – There are seven colors in the rainbow
ROY G BIV is a lie that goes back to Sir Isaac Newton and his superstitious beliefs. Unlike his contemporaries, Newton believed that clear, white sunlight was made up of all the colors of the spectrum. He proved this in the 1660s in a series of experiments that refracted sunlight through a prism, breaking it into smaller wavelengths. Initially, Newton saw only five colors. But he believed in the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras’ vision of a harmonious universe in which the number 7 was a magical number that connected all kinds of natural phenomena, from the heavenly bodies (seven of which were known at the time) to the musical scale. Therefore, when Newton published his original color wheel in 1704, he added orange and indigo to the colors he had already identified.
That said, what we call color is perceived by our minds. The light spectrum contains a continuous distribution — and therefore an infinite number — of colors, and the colors we see depend on how much each of the cone-shaped photoreceptors in our eyes, which see red, green, and blue, is stimulated. So the colors of the rainbow may be different for everyone.
Myth #9 – The QWERTY keyboard was designed to keep keys from jamming
Unlike what you might have heard, the QWERTY keyboard probably did not end up with its current layout because the inventor was trying to make sure the mechanical keys on his typewriter wouldn’t jam, by placing the most frequently used letters as far apart as possible. Instead, according to Kyoto University historians Koichi Yasuoka and Motoko Yasuoka, it owes its current layout to 19th-century American Morse Code.[11] This is because, when the layout of the keyboard was being designed, the primary users of typewriters were telegraph operators who needed to transcribe messages written in Morse code as quickly as possible, so the letters they used the most were put where they could get at them most easily.
Myth #10 – Bagpipes are Scottish
No, they’re not. Although the bagpipes may now be synonymous with the Scottish Highlands, they probably originated much farther East.[12] Ancient references to bagpipes have been found in both Turkey and Egypt. A possible sculpture of bagpipes, dated to 1000 BC, was found on a Hittite slab at Euyuk in Anatolia. A more substantial link pointing to early Egyptian bagpipes made of dog skin and bone has been documented by the fifth century BCE Greek playwright Aristophanes in his work “The Acharnians,” in which he writes, “You pipers who are here from Thebes, with bone pipes blow the posterior of a dog.”
However, the first notable enthusiast was the Roman Emperor Nero, who even had a coin minted showing himself playing the bagpipes. He used to play them to inspire his troops before battle. Several theories exist as to how the bagpipe reached Scotland from its original birthplace, but one of the most popular (and plausible) ones is that the Romans brought it with them when they conquered Britain.
This year, many vasectomy patients are young or single men concerned about unwanted pregnancy at a time when abortion care may not be as available as before.
In any given year, about half a million men in the United States undergo a vasectomy. Although the percentage of men getting them had been dropping for the past two decades, it looks like those numbers are going up in the wake of the June 24, 2022, Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Appointments up
It’s too early for official numbers, but as a urologist and microsurgeon specializing in vasectomies, I can personally report that more new patients are coming to see me. We used to typically perform about 20-25 vasectomies a month in our Miami clinic. Since the Dobbs v. Jackson decision came down, however, we’re now fully booked at 30 vasectomies scheduled each month through next year. I’m also seeing about 30% more online queries about vasectomies. In my 15-year career, it’s the first such increase I’ve seen.
Young or single men make up the majority of our clinic’s new vasectomy clients. They say they are concerned about getting a woman pregnant when abortion care isn’t as available as it was before. They also inquire about freezing their sperm first in case they want biological children in the future. Frozen storage is a viable option, and some patients have even successfully frozen their own sperm.
Vasectomies generally take 15- to 20-minutes and 98% of them are performed in an outpatient clinic.
Only 2% of vasectomy patients get them in a hospital under anesthesia. That’s usually because of anatomical issues or previous surgeries complicating the procedure – or the personal preference of the patient to go to sleep.
To start, the urologist makes a small opening in the scrotum. Then the doctor pulls out the vas deferens, the tube that delivers sperm out of the testes and to the ejaculatory duct. After placing permanent clips on the tube in two places, the doctor removes a small piece of the tube between the clips. The clips remain in place, closing and permanently sealing the cut tube ends. Now there is no longer any connection between the testes where sperm is produced and the urethra, where it once exited the body.
Patients typically go home and recover for about four hours with some ice on the area. Most can go back to work just a day or two later if their job doesn’t involve manual labor. For about a week after the vasectomy, we recommend no sex and no heavy lifting.
The recovery period is a popular excuse for sports fans to plan their vasectomy around major sports events on TV. That way, they can watch the Masters golf tournament, baseball’s World Series, or the bowl games of American football while they heal. In fact, “March Madness vasectomy” promotions timed to college basketball playoffs are among the reasons March is a popular month for appointments.
More concerns than changes
About two to three months after the procedure, the patient returns to the clinic. We take a sample of semen to check the sperm count. That is used to confirm whether his vasectomy was successful. If any sperm are in the ejaculate, we might need to do a second one. This only happens in fewer than 1% of cases. The vast majority of the time, we can give the patient the all-clear that their procedure is complete.
Of course, this is a surgery, so patients naturally have significant questions and concerns. A common one I’ll hear from a patient is that getting a vasectomy will make him “less of a man” because he is no longer able to father children. But that is absolutely not true. It won’t make you less of a man.
Some men fear it will damage their penis because the procedure is so close to it. But a vasectomy will not damage a man’s penis or any other surrounding structures. And he will not have any changes in sexual function or enjoyment after recovery from the procedure.
While everything else is the same as before, ejaculate volume obviously decreases slightly after a vasectomy. This worries some men. But it’s not a noticeable decrease, since sperm is only 5% of semen volume.
However, if patients do change their minds, they can get their vasectomies reversed. About 5% of U.S. patients do.
Most often this involves a man with a new partner who wants to have biological kids. Nearly all vasectomy reversals succeed, with sperm returning to the ejaculate around 90% to 95% of the time. And, depending on the age of the woman, pregnancies follow vasectomy reversals about 50% to 60% of the time.
Written by Ranjith Ramasamy, Associate Professor of Urology, University of Miami.
That is not a short story for the Dutch Scientologists. In 2013, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal recognized Scientology as a genuine religion and also recognized that its activities should be treated as any other religion in the Netherlands, meaning as a Public Benefit entity and tax exempted. Nevertheless, at that time, the tax authorities of the country challenged this decision and, whilst agreeing with the religious character of the Church of Scientology, did not apply the tax exemption, having questions about the activities of the Church and its finances.
That led to an extensive review of all finances and financial flows of the Church of Scientology in the Netherlands, as well as a complete review of all its activities by the authorities. And boy, the review lasted until today! That makes it certainly the most extensive review any religious entity had to undergo in order to be awarded the official Public Utility status in the Netherlands.
And today, August 30, 2022, the tax office rendered its decision: all activities of the Church of Scientology are to be considered beneficial to the public at large. The tax office did not comment on the decision, but the Church of Scientology did. In a press release sent out today, its Dutch Director of Public Affairs stated his gratefulness towards the Dutch authorities who “have properly confirmed our religious activities and practices and our work toward the humanitarian aims of Scientology as of public benefit” and reminded that its founder L. Ron Hubbard had set humanitarian aims to his Church from the outset.
Scientology obtains full public benefit recognition in the Netherlands 24
It’s not the first time that the Church of Scientology struggled to obtain either religious recognition or public benefit recognition. But it looks that each time, they succeed in making their point across. Spanish religious recognition, for example, has been the result of a long struggle, but the Spanish authorities finally abided by a decision of the Audiencia Nacional (a national competency court in Madrid) in 2007, and in 2015, a ministerial decision recognized that promoting the teachings and practices of Scientology is of public benefit. In 2013 it was the UK Supreme Court that recognized the UK Church of Scientology as a genuine religion and granted it the right to perform official marriages. These recent years, the Church added several successes in terms of recognition, as in Mexico (yet a very Catholic country), Colombia, and North Macedonia. These recent recognitions add to the numerous dozens of recognitions that the Church has obtained since its inception in the 1950s.
The Netherlands, a FoRB country
The Netherlands is usually considered a pretty good country in terms of respect for freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). And not only its Constitution guarantees religious freedom for all (which is sometimes the same in countries that in fact do not respect it by far), but it also participates in global efforts by democratic countries to promote FoRB all around the world. It has a special envoy for FoRB belonging to its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is part of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, a network of like-minded countries fully committed to advancing FoRB around the world.
