Vladimir Solovyov gave a new impetus to the development of Russian philosophical and theological thought, setting himself the task of “justifying the faith of the fathers” before the reason of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, he made a number of clear deviations from the Orthodox-Christian way of thinking, many of which were adopted and further developed by his followers.
Here is a brief exposition of these moments in Solovyov, which stand out because of their difference and even their clear deviation from the creed professed by the Church.
1) He presents Christianity as the highest stage of the overall sequential development of religions. According to Solovyov, all religions are true, but one-sided, and Christianity synthesizes the positive aspects of previous religions. He wrote: “Just as external nature is revealed to the human mind gradually, in consequence of which we must speak of the development of experience and natural science, so the divine principle is gradually revealed to the human mind, and we must speak of the development of religious experience and religious thought … Religious development is a positive and objective process, it is a real interaction between God and man – a God-human process. It is clear, wrote Solovyov, that none of the stages and none of the moments of the religious process can be in itself a lie or a delusion. “False religion” is contradictio in adjecto”*.
2) The doctrine of the salvation of the world in the form in which it was given under the apostles is cast aside. According to Soloviev, Christ came to earth not to “save the human race”, but to elevate it to a higher level in the order of the successive manifestation of the divine principle in the world – the elevation and deification of man and the world. Christ is the highest link in the series of theophanies (epiphanies), crowning the previous theophanies.
3) Solovyov’s theology focuses on the ontological side of being, that is, on the life of God Himself in Himself, and due to the insufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, thought resorts to arbitrary constructions – rational or based on imagination.
4) A being named “Sophia” is introduced into the Divine life, standing on the border between the Divinity and the created world.
5) A distinction between male and female is introduced in the Divine life. With Solovyov, this moment is obscured. Father Pavel Florensky, following Soloviev, presents Sophia as follows: “This is a great Royal, Feminine Being, who, without being either God, nor the eternal Son of God, nor an angel, nor a holy man, receives veneration both from the finisher of the Old Testament and from the Progenitor of the New” (“Pillar and affirmation of truth”).
6) An elemental beginning, an elemental aspiration, is introduced into the Divine life, forcing God the Word Himself to participate in a certain process, a beginning that subordinates the Logos to this process, which must elevate the world from the state of pure materiality and limitation to the most perfect forms of being.
7) God as the Absolute, God the Father, is presented as distant and inaccessible to the world and man. Despite what is said in the word of God, He separates himself from the world in an inaccessible area of being, which as absolute being has no contact with relative being, with the world of phenomena. Therefore, according to Solovyov, a mediator between the Absolute and the world is necessary. Such a mediator is the “Logos”, who became incarnate in Christ.
8) According to Soloviev, the first Adam united in himself the divine and the human nature, similar to their relationship in the God-manhood of the incarnate Word, only that he violated this relationship. If it is so, then the deification of man is not only a gracious sanctification of man, but is a restoration in him of the divine humanity, a restoration of the two natures. But this does not agree with the entire teaching of the Church, which understands deification only as beneficence. “There has not been and there will not be another person, says Rev. John Damascene, consisting of Divinity and humanity, except Jesus Christ.”
9) Solovyov writes: “God is the all-powerful Creator and All-Sustainer, but He is the Ruler of the earth and the creatures that come from it.” <…> “Deity is incommensurable with earthly creatures and can have a moral-practical relationship (power, dominance, management) towards them only through the mediation of man, who as a divine being is commensurate with both Deity and material nature. In this way, man is a necessary basis for true Divine rule” (“History and Future Theocracies”). This position is unacceptable from the point of view of the glory and power of God and so to speak contradicts the word of God. At the same time, it is disproved by the simple observation of the existing. Man subjugates nature to himself, not in the name of God as a mediator between God and the world, but for his own selfish needs and purposes.
The points noted here, where Solovyov’s views diverge from the teachings of the Church, show that Solovyov’s religious system is completely unacceptable to the Orthodox consciousness.
Note:
* contradictio in adjecto – (lat.) contradiction in definition, such as “round square”, “dry moisture”, “wooden iron”, etc.
Source: Protopresbyter Mikhail Pomazansky. Orthodox dogmatic theology. St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood Press, 1992.
1. To be able to successfully fight against evil, you must have order in your thoughts. This is achieved by more silence, solitude and prayer.
2. Always keep in mind and remember that every word in your mouth is important and therefore do not burn yourself so as not to become a traitor to yourself. Close your mouth and tongue so as not to bring suffering to your loved ones and to yourself. Be kind and gentle to everyone, and then they will cover your every mistake with the words: “Well, he is good.”
3. Remember that when you allow yourself to be very close and intimate with those who are your superiors and depend on them, they will inevitably hate you. Your relationship with them should be businesslike, polite, kind and considerate.
4. Arm yourself with good against your enemies. Do not allow yourself to condemn them under any circumstances.
5. Joy is not a voluntary feeling. It is proportional to your desire to be in contact with God and feel His benefits. Joy is a gift from God.
6. Defeat your enemies by praying for them. Through enemies, the devil incites us to anger and evil, but when you do the opposite of his desire, he goes against them and restrains them.
7. To make a good beginning, this means to stop the bad thoughts that incite you to do something bad.
8. When they prompt you, or ask you a question sharply and immodestly to provoke you, immediately counter them with: “Why are you asking?!”
9. When they incite you against someone, telling you – he did this or said about you that, or when someone starts to anger you and provoke you, do not rush like some stupid cock to fight, because you may come out with a bloody comb , from which your blood will flow and you will die.
10. Begin with humility and silence. To everything they ask you, answer: “I don’t know.” This is how you will know things spiritually. Take it easy. Whatever they say to you, say one thing: “Okay!”. Against that which provokes you most strongly, oppose the simple and all-conquering silence.
11. When you receive joy, humble yourself and know that it brings with it sorrows, against which you must fight, not despair.
12. Seal in your mind that with just one inappropriate word you can drive away the grace, and then with many prayers you have to get it again. If you feel that you are starting to say something wrong, say that you have lost your mind and stop.
13. Just leaving your house already puts you in contact with many demons, so be careful, don’t go back and forth too much, go out only for the most pressing needs and with great self-control and prayer.
14. Just when you most want to say something or when you are challenged and you feel that you are starting to get angry or excited, just then arm yourself with patient silence or with mandatory flight if you are faced with an inflaming kind image. Silence and flight are given to us just for these occasions. Everyone can keep quiet when they are calm and undisturbed. The winning silence is that which manifests itself when you are given an opportunity to speak.
15. Take prayer seriously. Success is only from her!
16. Humility consists in self-reproach, but in yourself, and not in front of people who will take you for a sheep’s soul and destroy you. Keep silent and don’t judge anyone for anything.
17. If you find yourself alone with a woman and begin to seduce yourself, keep silent and begin to repeat the most effective prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!”.
18. Learn some rules, but always have them in front of your eyes.
19. Temptations are given to overcome, not to fall before them. But for this purpose, it is necessary as soon as a temptation appears, especially if it is related to anger or fornication, to realize your weakness and diligently ask God for help with the words: “Lord, I am weak, so show me Your strength, because without Your support I cannot stand.”
20. Silence is simple and therefore in it is strength and victory. With power comes responsibility. Let them be annoyed more often by your silence than by your words. And often repeat: “Please!”, “Forgive!”.
21. Always raise the will to fight against sin and exalt yourself above sin, not above people. As Pushkin says: “Accept praise and slander indifferently and do not challenge the fool.” Whether they are praising you or scolding you, keep calm and remain silent. Never speak on your own initiative.
22. In the pursuit of perfection, be like a hound that, despite obstacles and injuries, chases the rabbit down the hole.
23 The insults you give to others, whoever they are, spin, spin, and fall on your head again. Say when they concern you, but meekly, politely and with dignity, without obscene insults and screams that only betray your weakness. To have anything to do with the Manger, you have to endure the humiliations calmly.
24. The day depends on the evening, i.e. from the prayer performed in advance for the next day, from which follows an early bedtime, a restful sleep and a timely early rise the next day.
25. Prodigal rage is curbed by avoiding the occasions for it, i.e. by refraining from exaggeration, verbosity and especially judgment (maliciousness).
26. Be careful in your relations with the baptized, do not be cunning, because their guardian angel, whom they received at baptism, learns from your guardian angel about your bad moods towards them and warns them.
27. If you are facing many fronts, tackle one of them and you will see how to deal with the others as well.
28. No matter how kind your colleagues and those you deal with, do not give in and do not leave the position of seriousness and respectful cold demeanor. Remember that the slightest of your looseness, intimacy, familiarity and free behavior will make you a fool, will deprive you of all authority, dignity and weight.
29. If your evening is difficult, be silent and patient, knowing that Christ was crucified in the evening and rose again in the morning.
30. Do not curse, do not condemn even the devil, because you will fall under the blows of your own curses and condemnations, because you yourself have many of the devil’s traits.
31. When you have to defend yourself, don’t write whole reports. Defend yourself only in the specific case and do not wait for other questions. Be human to everyone. Don’t pay attention to choir talk and gossip. Don’t leave your place or your job and try to make your way there.
32. God and you – there is no other. What you make yourself, it will be. If something happens, don’t blame others and don’t judge them, but only hold yourself responsible and you will be at peace both on earth and in heaven.
33. If the superiors refuse you their favor for what you ask, no debates and discussions, but keep silent, as if it does not concern you, and respectfully withdraw. Otherwise you lose the battle.
34 Be neat, clean, respectful, but not sugary. Be smiling, but in moderation. Be moderately polite, but with a cold stare. Do you know how to count to 10, stop at 3. Don’t be like a child who gets scalded and then shouts: “Ow!”. Be sober and aware of the wages of sin, which is death.
35. The first condition for any ascent is humility, i.e. to feel your powerlessness and to place all your trust in God.
36. When you have to ask someone for something, do not crawl, but behave with marked dignity. Present your request briefly, to the point, without obscuring and diluting words, explanations, etc., and immediately to the goal. Imagine that the person you are addressing is the one on whom your future depends. Be tight as a string. No relaxation and contraction, keeping constant attention. Answer the questions you are asked after careful consideration and above all, don’t forget to ask God to give you the right answer. Exude respect and seriousness. No familiarity. No orders, but always say the words: “please”, “thank you” a hundred times. Kind and polite to subordinates as well. Short, without wasting people’s time. When you talk to someone, never with your hands in your pockets. Don’t nag, don’t argue, don’t contradict even jokingly. For difficult questions, promise that you will answer the next time after you prepare. In relation to everyone, always in the polite form of “Vie”. Always stand with reverent fear and heartfelt attention, remembering that God is always with you. Any unnecessary word can send you to hell. They will challenge you and [pre]dispose you to [behave inappropriately]. But you spoke softly and remained firm and respectful to the end.
37. God loves the brave and the humble.
38. Do you see something painful and hopeless? Are you depressing? Are you despairing? Or do your circumstances seem insurmountable? Know that in all these cases the devil is on the other side, and for this reason, immediately start repeating the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” repeatedly.
39. Keep your distance and don’t let anyone get so close to you that if you refuse and don’t give him something, he might get angry with you.
40. It is a man who suffers and does not respond to an insult, especially if it comes from an older man and from a woman.
41. Evil must be countered with good. But not with half means and half good, not with something slightly better than evil, but with complete, unreserved good. Only then there are chances to defeat evil with good.
42. If you get caught in indecent and sinful thoughts, immediately remove them with prayer and do not allow them to come to feelings, words and deeds. You cannot stop the winds that blow, but hide yourself in a covenant.
43. You will be happy if you consider every misfortune that befalls you as the will of God, aimed at your good and that of your loved ones. And let them send you to hell, and there hold on to God. There are three degrees of salvation: 1. Not to sin. 2. You were wrong – repent. 3. You repent badly – then endure the coming sorrows.
44. And Judas repented, but did not repent. That is why we are asked to have the will and determination to fight.
45. Do not participate in any slander, denunciation or slander. Cover your enemy – only then will God cover you. Nice and firm, remember something cardinal, and that is that until you shut your mouth and stop judging and insulting, you will always be unsuccessful. Know for sure that to whatever insult and teasing or whatever evil comes to you from others, meek and Christian behavior is the only response that will cause the least shock and harm to you and your loved ones! !! Remember, this is a basic and life-saving thing!
46. In order not to fall into fornication and anger, what is even more valuable than fasting is silence, and that is not to not speak at all, but to hold back your tongue from condemnation and slander. Remember a thousand times that our most deadly enemy and a malignant tumor from which we must get rid of at any cost is slander, condemnation, many stories – this is what eats away at us and leads to certain destruction.
47. At confession, promise that you will improve and try with all your might to fulfill these promises of yours, and then God Himself will help you.
48. Do not wander and do not travel from church to church, from monastery to monastery, from city to city and from country to country, because piety is not in this. Stand your ground and fight the dark forces there. Don’t splurge.
49. No matter how hard your life on earth is, here only one demon torments you, and if you kill yourself, everything will be much harder for you in the next world, and there you will be tormented by many and more cruel demons than this one, who torments you here. If passions attack you, pray against them and you will overcome them.
50. If you hear disagreement with your words, shut up! Even Pythagoras taught like this.
Note: The soul-beneficial teachings of Archbishop Seraphim Sobolev were recorded by his spiritual child, Nikola Mutafchiev, and were published in the book “The Sofia Wonderworker Seraphim for the Secrets of Victory”, Sofia, 2003.
About the author: Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) of Boguchar is one of the most prominent clergymen of our time. Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose episcopal ministry is almost entirely in Bulgaria. He was solemnly glorified as a newly canonized saint – Unfathomable joy overwhelmed the souls of thousands of Christians who filled the patriarchal cathedral “St. Alexander Nevsky”, to become part of this significant spiritual celebration ¬ the glorification of St. Seraphim, Archbishop Bogucharski, Sofia Miracle Worker, which took place on February 26, 2016.
Source of Revival NGO -
Critical infrastructure and residential area heavily damaged in the northeast region of Ukraine following 2022 Russian invasion.
Six months after the Russian invasion, Ukraine is the scene of the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the Second World War. Almost a third of those displaced by the conflict come from the region around the country’s second largest city of Kharkiv, in the east. To bring aid to Ukraine’s displaced population is dangerous work.
Before dawn on 24 February, Kharkiv took a fierce hit. Within 24 hours, Russian troops had reached the northern suburbs, just 30 kilometres from the Ukraine-Russia border. Despite outnumbering the Ukrainian forces, the invading army was unable to enter the city.
“I am from Kharkiv, from the largest residential area in Ukraine – Saltivka, where about 400,000 people lived before the war,” says 21-year-old Tania, who has found a temporary home in Ivano-Frankivsk Region and participated in a Summer school run by the UN migration agency (IOM), for young leaders among displaced persons and members of hosted communities.
“For two weeks, my family and I did not leave the underground metro station, even for a minute. The metro became the main bomb shelter for the locals. I did not want to leave the city, because my grandparents remained behind. But when they came to us in Kharkiv, I decided to flee from the war.”
According to a recent IOM survey, around 28 per cent of the estimated 6.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine fled from the Kharkiv Region. The humanitarian needs of those who chose to stay, or were unable to flee, are immense.
Source of Revival NGO – NGOs delivers IOM’s assistance not only to communities, but also directly to especially vulnerable people.
In May, the city received the first humanitarian convoy from IOM with much-needed items for people staying in shelters and hospitals, as well as hard-to-reach communities in areas under Ukrainian control.
“Locals need solar lamps as there is no light, mattresses and blankets as it is damp and cold in shelters, tools for minor repairs for their damaged houses, and hygiene kits,” explains Serhii, the head of Source of Revival, one of the biggest non-governmental organizations in the region and IOM’s implementing partner in the Kharkiv Region.
In the first months of the war, the Source of Revival team’s working day began at 6am and ended at 3pm, when a curfew was set and any movement around the city was forbidden. The location of the warehouses had to be changed several times due to heavy shelling, missiles, and air strikes.
Not all drivers agreed to go to this dangerous area. The situation has since escalated, the number of casualties is growing, but no one in the team has left Kharkiv. They put on bulletproof vests and protective helmets to deliver IOM’s assistance to those in dire need.
Source of Revival NGO – Nadia (r) found out that she was pregnant during the heavy shelling of Kharkiv oblast, eastern Ukraine.
Nadia, who is currently living on the outskirts of Kharkiv, fled her home in the city of Derhachi due to heavy shelling shortly after discovering she was pregnant in March.
“Now, there is nothing left alive in Derhachi,” she recalls. “There is also shelling here, but not as fierce as in my hometown; then, when a missile hit a nearby school, we moved once again.”
Source of Revival brought tailored humanitarian aid from IOM directly to her temporary home as it was especially challenging for a pregnant woman to move around the unsafe city.
https://youtu.be/riM6Crw27Iw
The hardest part of the team’s work is delivering aid to communities that survived the Russian occupation. Although it takes time to de-mine the area after Ukrainian forces recovered it, NGOs endeavour to reach people in critical need as quickly as possible.
“Some settlements were razed to the ground. There are many local Irpins and Buchas in our region”, a Source of Revival staff says, referring to two cities in Kyiv oblast occupied by Russia at the start of the war where evidence points to significant human rights abuses being committed against the civilians. Exploitation, kidnapping for ransom, robbery, bullying, torture, rape, and sexual abuse of women, children, the elderly, and men.
Source of Revival NGO – IOM assistance is reaching affected communities across Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine.
‘Everything has changed’
Humanitarian workers are helping local residents and identifying victims of conflict-related violence. All of them can go to the IOM centre for physical and psychosocial rehabilitation.
Lately, Kharkiv has been receiving increasing numbers of displaced persons fleeing neighbouring Donetsk and Luhansk regions. And, despite the security situation, even Kharkiv residents are returning to their homes with high hopes.
“They want to rebuild this place, but everything has changed”, says Serhii, whose house was damaged by shelling. “The infrastructure is damaged, houses are destroyed, there is no work, and part of the region is still occupied. Russian troops are trying to move closer to the city, so the threat remains, and chaotic shelling continues.”
According to authorities, over 1,000 civilians in Kharkiv Region were killed in the last 181 days, including 50 children, and this figure may rise. Calm is deceptive here, and the situation can change in the blink of an eye.
In one single night, on 18 August, 21 civilians died, and 44 were injured as a result of a missile attack on a residential area. Nevertheless, as was the case 79 years ago, locals believe in their land and justice, revealing the same strength and character as their ancestors.
“I draw power from my team. I understand that most of them could leave Kharkiv, but they stayed. They are the first to put on vests, helmets and go to help others,” says Serhii.
Source of Revival NGO – Kharkiv oblast, eastern Ukraine, is still suffering from chaotic shelling
The Baha’i International Community has received news of a shocking and outrageous new propaganda ploy to incriminate the Baha’is in Iran through a staged video production filmed in a kindergarten.
On 31 July, the same day as intelligence agents were invading Baha’i homes and arresting pre-school teachers, agents also entered a kindergarten in a major city in Iran and distributed Baha’i books and pamphlets to its teachers, none of whom were Baha’is. The agents then instructed and forced the kindergarten staff to say, on camera, that Baha’is had brought these materials and distributed them to the teachers.
“This shameful act of fraud and pretense, carried out in a kindergarten, once again reveals the true motives of the Iranian government in persecuting Baha’is only for their faith,” said Simin Fahandej, the BIC’s Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. “As the Iranian government has found no shred of evidence for their ludicrous accusations against the Baha’is, they have now resorted to fabricating evidence themselves, using Baha’i materials to accuse Baha’is of attempting to influence and convert Muslim children to the Baha’i Faith.”
Although the Iranian government attempts to frame the Baha’is as converting Muslim children, numerous official government documents testify to Iran’s plans to, in fact, convert Baha’i children to Islam.
In 1991, a confidential government memorandum, brought to light at that time by a United Nations Special Rapporteur, prepared by Iran’s Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council and signed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself, instructing that Baha’i children be enrolled in schools which have “a strong and imposing religious ideology” and that Baha’is be treated in such a way that “their progress and development are blocked”.
“The Iranian government not only attempts to distort history in school textbooks in order to remove the Baha’i Faith from Iranian history, and to force Baha’i children to change their faith,” continued Ms. Fahandej. “But it is now producing fake materials to advance its already baseless allegations against the Baha’is.”
This incident has occurred within a larger context of mounting attacks against the Baha’is in Iran in recent weeks. Since 31 July, the BIC has received reports of over 196 separate incidents of persecution against the Baha’is in Iran, including arrests, imprisonments, confiscation of homes and properties, closure of business and exclusions from university.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence released a rare statement on 31 July, in which it alleged that members of the Baha’i community were “propagating the teachings of the fabricated Baha’i colonialism and infiltrating educational environments,” including kindergartens. A number of Baha’i kindergarten and pre-school teachers were arrested on that day under the pretext offered by the Ministry’s statement. Filming the staged readings now also demonstrates that the authorities want to potentially use video footage to substantiate their false claims and seek to incite the general public against them.
Efforts to spread hate propaganda against the Baha’is are government policy. The 1991 memorandum by Iran’s Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council also said that Iran’s “propaganda institutions … must establish an independent section to counter … the Baha’is.”
And in March 2021 two human rights groups, League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran and the International Federation for Human Rights, published an official Iranian directive which instructed local authorities in the city of Sari, in the northern province of Mazandaran, to “conduct strict controls” on the Baha’is in the city by “monitoring their operations,” and to introduce measures to “identify Baha’i students” so as to “bring them into Islam.”
“The Iranian authorities have spread hate propaganda against the Baha’is for 43 years,” said Ms. Fahandej. “But Iranians of good will, who number in their millions, see through these lies. The incident at the kindergarten is the latest in a shameful litany of brazen deception, propaganda and hate speech, but these efforts do not go unnoticed by the international community and only work against Iran’s interests, showing its true motives of persecuting innocent people only for their beliefs.”
Researchers built a “light trap” around a thin layer using mirrors and lenses, in which the light beam is steered in a circle and then superimposed on itself – exactly in such a way that the beam of light blocks itself and can no longer leave the system.
A “light trap” was developed in which a beam of light prevents itself from escaping. This allows light to be absorbed perfectly.
If you want to use light efficiently, you have to absorb it as completely as possible. This is true both in photosynthesis and in a photovoltaic system. However, this is difficult if the absorption is to take place in a thin layer of material that normally lets a large part of the light pass through.
Now, have found a surprising trick that allows a beam of light to be completely absorbed even in the thinnest of layers. They built a “light trap” around the thin layer using mirrors and lenses, in which the light beam is steered in a circle and then superimposed on itself – exactly in such a way that the beam of light blocks itself and can no longer leave the system. Thus, the light has no other option but to be absorbed by the thin layer – there is no other way out.
This absorption-amplification method, from research teams from TU Wien and from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will be presented today (August 25, 2022) in the scientific journal Science. It is the result of a fruitful collaboration between the two teams. The approach was suggested by Prof. Ori Katz from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and conceptualized with Prof. Stefan Rotter from TU Wien. The experiment was carried out in by the lab team in Jerusalem and the theoretical calculations came from the team in Vienna.
The “light trap” setup is shown, consisting of a partially transparent mirror, a thin, weak absorber, two converging lenses and a totally reflecting mirror. Normally, most of the incident light beam would be reflected. However, due to precisely calculated interference effects, the incident light beam interferes with the light beam reflected back between the mirrors, so that the reflected light beam is ultimately completely extinguished. The energy of the light is completely sucked up by the thin and weak absorber. Credit: TU Wien
Thin layers are transparent to light
“Absorbing light is easy when it hits a solid object,” says Prof. Stefan Rotter from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at TU Wien. “A thick black wool jumper can easily absorb light. But in many technical applications, you only have a thin layer of material available and you want the light to be absorbed exactly in this layer.”
Attempts have already been made to improve the absorption of materials. For instance, the material can be placed between two mirrors. The light is reflected back and forth between the two mirrors, passing through the material each time and thus having a greater chance of being absorbed. However, for this purpose, the mirrors must not be perfect – one of them must be partially transparent, otherwise, the light cannot penetrate the area between the two mirrors at all. But this also means that whenever the light hits this partially transparent mirror, some of the light is lost.
The light blocks itself
It is possible to use the wave properties of light in a sophisticated way in order to prevent this. “In our approach, we are able to cancel all back-reflections by wave interference,” says Prof. Ori Katz from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Helmut Hörner, from TU Wien, who dedicated his thesis to this topic, explains: “In our method, too, the light first falls on a partially transparent mirror. If you simply send a laser beam onto this mirror, it is split into two parts: The larger part is reflected, a smaller part penetrates the mirror.”
This part of the light beam that penetrates the mirror is now sent through the absorbing material layer and then returned to the partially transparent mirror with lenses and another mirror. “The crucial thing is that the length of this path and the position of the optical elements are adjusted in such a way that the returning light beam (and its multiple reflections between the mirrors) exactly cancels out the light beam reflected directly at the first mirror,” says Yevgeny Slobodkin and Gil Weinberg, the graduate students who built the system in Jerusalem.
The two partial beams overlap in such a way that the light blocks itself, so to speak. Although the partially transparent mirror alone would actually reflect a large part of the light, this reflection is rendered impossible by the other part of the beam traveling through the system before returning to the partially transparent mirror.
Therefore, the mirror, which used to be partially transparent, now becomes completely transparent for the incident laser beam. This essentially creates a one-way street for the light: the light beam can enter the system, but then it can no longer escape because of the superposition of the reflected portion and the portion guided through the system in a circle. So the light has no choice but to be absorbed – the entire laser beam is swallowed up by a thin layer that would otherwise allow most of the beam to pass through.
A robust phenomenon
“The system has to be tuned exactly to the wavelength you want to absorb,” says Stefan Rotter. “But apart from that, there are no limiting requirements. The laser beam doesn’t have to have a specific shape, it can be more intense in some places than in others – almost perfect absorption is always achieved.”
Not even air turbulence and temperature fluctuations can harm the mechanism, as was demonstrated in experiments conducted at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This proves that it is a robust effect that promises a wide range of applications – for example, the presented mechanism could even be well suited to perfectly capture light signals that are distorted during transmission through the Earth’s atmosphere. The new approach could also be of great practical use for optimally feeding light waves from weak light sources (such as distant stars) into a detector.
Reference: “Massively degenerate coherent perfect absorber for arbitrary wavefronts” 25 August 2022, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abq8103
It’s difficult to imagine that three random words have the power to both map the globe and protect your private data. The secret behind this amazing power is just a little bit of math.
What3words is an app and web-based service that provides a geographic reference for every 3-meter-by-3-meter square on Earth using three random words. If your brain operates more naturally in the Imperial measurement system, 3 meters is about 9.8 feet. So, you could think of them as approximately 10-foot-by-10-foot squares, which is about the size of a small home office or bedroom. As an example, there’s a square in the middle of the Rochester Institute of Technology Tigers Turf Field coded to brilliance.bronze.inputs.
This new approach to geocoding is quite useful for several reasons. First, it’s more precise than regular street addresses. In addition, three words are easier for humans to remember and communicate to one another than, say, detailed latitude and longitude measurements. Because of this, the system is well suited for emergency services. With these advantages, some car manufacturers are even starting to integrate what3words into their navigation systems.
Every 10-foot-by-10-foot square on the planet can be labeled with its own unique three-word label. Credit: Courtesy what3words
Ordered triples
Here’s how three random words in English or any other language can identify such precise locations across the entire planet. The key concept is ordered triples.
Start with the basic assumption that the Earth is a sphere, recognizing that this is an approximate truth, and that its radius is approximately 3,959 miles (6,371 kilometers). To compute the surface area of the Earth, use the formula 4πr2. With r = 3,959 (6,371), this works out to approximately 197 million square miles (510 million square kilometers). Remember: What3words is using 3-meter-by-3-meter squares, each of which contains 9 square meters of surface area. Therefore, working in the metric system, Earth’s surface area is equivalent to 510 trillion square meters. Dividing 510 trillion by 9 reveals that uniquely identifying each square on Earth requires around 57 trillion ordered triples of three random words.
An ordered triple is just a list of three things in which the order matters. So “brilliance.bronze.inputs” would be considered a different ordered triple than “bronze.brilliance.inputs.” In fact, in the what3words system, bronze.brilliance.inputs is in fact on a mountain in Alaska, not in the middle of the RIT Tigers Turf Field, like brilliance.bronze.inputs.
Finding out how many words are used in a language and whether there are enough ordered triples to map the entire world are the next steps. According to some scholars, there are more than a million English words. However, many of them are very rare. Yet even using only common English words, there are still plenty to go around. Many word lists are available online.
The developers at what3words came up with a list of 40,000 English words. (The what3words system works in 50 different languages with independently assigned words.) The next question is determining how many ordered triples of three random words can be made from a list of 40,000 words. If you allow repeats, as what3words does, it is quite straightforward: there would be 40,000 possibilities for the first word, 40,000 possibilities for the second word, and 40,000 possibilities for the third word. The number of possible ordered triples would therefore be 40,000 times 40,000 times 40,000, which is 64 trillion. That provides plenty of “three random word” triples to cover the globe. The excess combinations also allow them to eliminate offensive words and words that would be easily confused for one another.
Passwords you can actually remember
While the power of three random words is being used to map the Earth, the U.K. National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) is also championing their use as passwords. Password selection and related security analysis are more complicated than attaching three words to small squares of the globe. However, a similar calculation is illuminating. If you string together an ordered triple of words – such as brilliancebronzeinputs – you get a nice long password that a human should be able to remember far more easily than a random string of letters, numbers, and special characters designed to meet a set of complexity rules.
If you increase your word list beyond 40,000, you’ll get even more possible passwords. Using the “Corncob list” of 58,000 English words, you could generate more than 195 trillion “three random word”-style passwords.
It’s important to note that there are numerous trade-offs among the different approaches to password selection and complexity rules. So, while “three random words” doesn’t give you a fail-safe for password security, the complexity of language does provide some incredible power in this realm as well.
Written by Mary Lynn Reed, Professor of Mathematics, Rochester Institute of Technology.
An enormous mosaic of Stephan’s Quintet is the largest image to date from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, covering about one-fifth of the Moon’s diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The visual grouping of five galaxies was captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Last month, jaw-dropping images from its newest and most powerful space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In unprecedented detail, pictures revealed distant wonders such as the Carina Nebula, the Southern Ring Nebula, and Stephan’s Quintet—a collection of five dazzling galaxies, some of which are actively colliding with each other.
In this video, Philip Appleton, a staff scientist at Caltech’s IPAC astronomy center, walks us through the new image of the quintet. Four of the five galaxies are gravitationally bound and make up a compact galaxy group located hundreds of millions of light-years away in the Pegasus constellation. At least three galaxies in this group are actively colliding with each other, producing shock waves that trigger new star formation.
Appleton and his colleagues have studied this turbulent region for nearly 20 years using other telescopes such as the now-retiredSpitzer Space Telescope, whose data archive is based at IPAC. Spitzer was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (
Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, called for greater efforts to spare and protect civilians.
The Mission has been in the country since 2014, when it began work documenting violations in the east stemming from the fighting between Government forces and pro-Russian separatists.
Ms. Bogner said the resulting escalation of the eight-year long armed conflict has brought more death, suffering, damage, and destruction.
“Every day, we speak with people affected by the war, and hear about and document violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including war crimes,” she said.
Since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February, there have been 13,560 civilian casualties, with 5,614 deaths, including 362 children, and 7,946 people injured.
Most casualties, 92 per cent, were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in populated areas.
“We know that the actual figures are considerably higher. Each of these figures is a human being, whose life or health has been lost or damaged,” said Ms. Bogner.
The Mission has also documented 327 cases of arbitrary detention and forced disappearance in territory controlled by Russian forces and affiliated armed groups. While 105 victims were released, 14 persons – 13 men and one woman – were found dead.
Additionally, 39 arbitrary arrests were recorded in Ukrainian Government-controlled territory, and 28 other cases that may amount to enforced disappearance.
“Many of these victims, on both sides, have faced torture,” said Ms. Bogner, who underscored that “human beings, whoever they are, must be treated with dignity”.
She added that prisoners of war also must be protected, as guaranteed under international law.
While the Mission has access to prisoners of war and other conflict-related detainees in Government-controlled areas, this is not the case for those held in other locations.
“We call on the Russian Federation to grant independent monitors full access to all individuals detained in relation to the armed conflict by the Russian Federation, including those held by Russian-affiliated armed groups,” she said.
WFP food parcels are distributed to war-affected people in Kharkiv Oblast in collaboration with the Ukrainian Red Cross.
Food at home and abroad
Throughout the war, the World Food Programme (WFP) has been using every opportunity to assist people, both within Ukraine and beyond.
WFP has disbursed more than $200 million to internally displaced Ukrainians, while some 11,000 families in neighbouring Moldova are receiving cash transfers to cover additional expenses for hosting Ukrainian refugees.
Overall, nearly seven million people have found shelter in European countries, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
WFP reported that within days of the start of the conflict, staff began serving ready-to-eat meals and distributing bread to people in Ukraine.
Kits containing items such as meat or beans, sunflower oil, pasta and rice, are also being provided to families wherever food is unavailable or difficult to access.
OCHA/Levent Kulu
The first shipment of over 26,000 tons of Ukrainian food under a Black Sea export deal was cleared to proceed today, towards its final destination in Lebanon.
Grain exports critical
Prior to the war, Ukraine was a major global breadbasket and produced enough food to feed 400 million people a year.
WFP has been working with the Government and partners to both push for and facilitate grain exports through key Black Sea ports, as well as alternative land river routes.
Last week, the first shipment of Ukrainian grain for the agency’s operations left the port of Pivdennyi in Odesa and is now on the way to the Horn of Africa, where the spectre of famine haunts more than 20 million people.
Amid the ongoing global food crisis, WFP explained that allowing the export of Ukrainian grain is critical to stabilize global markets and alleviate hunger, but it also has direct benefits for Ukrainians.
The agricultural sector is an essential component of the economy, and also a direct source of livelihood for many of the 13 million citizens living in rural areas.
At a hospital in western Ukraine, doctors managed to remove a four-centimetre-long fragment of shrapnel and save a 13-year-old boy’s life after he was seriously wounded by shelling in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners are preparing for a challenging winter ahead and have been taking stock of lessons learned so far.
“Six months of war have had a devastating impact on the health and lives of Ukraine’s people, but despite many challenges the health system has managed to survive and deliver care where and when it is needed most,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General.
More supplies expected
The UN has helped deliver more than 1,300 metric tonnes of critical medical supplies to Ukraine, in coordination with the Ministry of Health and partners.
More are on the way, including power generators, ambulances and oxygen supplies for medical facilities, as well as supplies for trauma and emergency surgeries, and medicines to help treat noncommunicable diseases.
Although Ukraine’s health system has been shaken, Tedros said it has not collapsed.
“WHO continues to support the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to restore disrupted services, displaced health workers and destroyed infrastructure, which is essential not only for the health of Ukraine’s people, but for the country’s resilience and recovery,” he added.
“But no system can deliver optimum health to its people under the stress of war, which is why we continue to call on the Russian Federation to end this war”.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia will not be able to meet Pope Francis in Kazakhstan. The reason is that he will not participate in the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, Metropolitan Antony of Volokolama, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, told RIA Novosti.
“This year, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church will be represented by an official delegation. His Holiness the Patriarch himself will not participate in the work of the congress. Therefore, his meeting with Pope Francis is not planned in Kazakhstan,” the Metropolitan said.
Earlier it became known that Pope Francis will not have a meeting with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch during his visit to Kazakhstan next month, Reuters recalled.
The Holy Father will be present from September 13 to 15 at a meeting of religious leaders in the Kazakh capital, Nur Sultan.
In previous interviews, Francis had indicated that he hoped to meet with Patriarch Kirill while in Kazakhstan.
The planned May meeting between Pope Francis and the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, was also canceled. It was reported that the meeting was scheduled to take place in Jerusalem, a day after the pope ended his trip to Lebanon.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church held a telephone conversation with the Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in the spring.
Basilians (Vasilians, lat. OSBM, Ordo Sancti Basilii Magni) is the common name of several Catholic monastic orders of the Byzantine rite, following the cenobitic charter, which is attributed to St. Basil the Great. All Basilian orders also have female branches.
The Basilians are:
• Order of the Italian Basilians of the monastery of Grottaferrata, Italo-Albanian Catholic Church (lat. Ordo Basilianus Italiae, seu Cryptoferratensis);
• The Basilian Order of St. Josaphat, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (lat. Ordo Basilianus Sancti Josaphat, Ukrainian ChSVV, Order of St. Basil the Great, also Ukrainian. Basilian Order of St. Josaphat);
• Melkite Orders of the Holy Savior, St. John the Baptist and the Aleppine Order, Melkite Catholic Church.
Monastery of Grottaferrata
Abbey of Grottaferrata
The first monasteries of the Byzantine rite appeared in southern Italy in the 8th-9th centuries. They were founded by Greeks who fled from Byzantium during the period of iconoclasm. In 1004, the monk Nil Rossansky founded the monastery of Grottaferrata, 18 kilometers from Rome. After the Great Schism, this and a number of other monasteries in southern Italy continued to practice the Byzantine liturgy and live according to the rule of St. Basil the Great, being in communion with the Holy See as part of the Italo-Greek (later Italo-Albanian Eastern Catholic Church). The practice of using the rule of Basil the Great in the Catholic Church was finally legalized in 1561 by Pope Pius IV. In 1579, on the basis of the Greek monasteries in Central and Southern Italy, Pope Gregory XIII founded a single order of Italian Basilians with a center in Grottaferrata.
The order was almost destroyed at the end of the 18th-19th centuries as a result of the secularization policy pursued in the Kingdom of Naples, all the Basilian monasteries, except for Grottaferrata, were closed. In 1937, Pope Pius XII raised Grottaferrata Abbey to the status of a territorial abbey with direct subordination to the Vatican, the abbey is currently an independent unit within the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church. The monastery has 25 monks, of which 15 are priests[1]
Basilian of St. Jehoshaphat
The Order was founded in 1617 on the basis of the monasteries that accepted the Union of Brest in 1596. Originally called the Order of the Holy Trinity. Confirmed by Pope Urban VIII in 1631.
The order became widespread in the eastern regions of the Commonwealth, where the majority of the population traditionally adhered to the Byzantine rite. The activities of the order contributed to the transition to Catholicism of the Eastern rite of the Orthodox population of the eastern lands of the Commonwealth. Subsequently, the order was renamed in honor of St. Josaphat Kuntsevich.
Since 1720, all Greek Catholic monasteries in the Commonwealth belonged to the Basilians. Until the end of the 18th century, almost all the Greek Catholic metropolitans of Kyiv were Basilians. In the middle of the XVIII century, the order consisted of 195 monasteries and more than a thousand monks.
Great emphasis in the activities of the order was placed on the education of young people, in this field the Basilians competed with the Jesuits, and after the dissolution of the latter they received several Jesuit colleges in their possession, so that at the end of the 18th century they were in charge of about twenty-six schools. The Basilians also owned 4 printing houses, the largest was located in the Pochaev Lavra.
The heyday of the order ended with the divisions of the Commonwealth. In the 19th century, the order effectively ceased to exist as a centralized organization, although independent Basilian monasteries continued to exist in Austria-Hungary. In the Russian Empire, Basilian monasteries outside the Kingdom of Poland were closed in the 1830s, and in the Kingdom of Poland thirty years later.
By 1882, the order was reduced to 60 monks in 14 monasteries, but then a new rise of the order began. In 1896, Pope Leo XIII approved a new constitution for the order. The Basilians began to actively establish missions in the New World, working primarily with Ukrainian and Belarusian emigrants. By 1939 the number of monks had grown to 650.
After the Lvov Cathedral in 1946 and the ban of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the activities of the Basilians in the USSR were illegal, and the monasteries of the order continued to exist only in the diaspora countries.
After the collapse of the USSR and the exit of the Greek Catholics from the underground, the order was restored in independent Ukraine and in other Central and Eastern European countries, including Belarus.
Currently, the order is actively involved in the revival of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine and the spread of its activities in the eastern regions of the country. In Ukraine, the Basilians own 31 monasteries. In total, according to 2005 data, the order consisted of 609 monks, 310 of which were priests.[2]
Basilian-Melkites
There are three Basilian-Melkite orders, for which a single monastic constitution was created in 1934.
• The Basilian-Melkite Order of the Holy Savior (lat. Ordo Basilianus Sanctissimi Salvatoris Melkitarum) was founded in 1684 in Lebanon, approved by the Holy See in 1717. The residence of the order is located in the city of Saida (Lebanon). 18 monastic cloisters are located in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and the Palestinian Authority. In 1998, the order consisted of 123 monks, of which 94 were priests.
• The Order of the Basilian-Melkites of St. John the Baptist (lat. Ordo Basilianus Sancti Johannis Baptistae Melkitarum), also called the Order of the Shuwayrites, was founded in 1712 in Lebanon, in the village of Shuwayr. Approved by the Holy See in 1757. The residence of the order is located in the city of Khonchara (Lebanon). All 6 monastic cloisters are located in Lebanon. In 1998, the order consisted of 56 monks, of which 38 were priests.
• The Basilian-Melkite Order of the Aleppines (lat. Ordo Basilianus Aleppensis Melkitarum) was founded in 1829 in Lebanon, branched off from the Shuwayrites. Approved by the Holy See in 1832. 13 monastic cloisters are located in Egypt and Sudan. In 1998, the order consisted of 37 monks, of which 29 were priests.
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