Rehabilitation from the tyranny of drugs has a spiritual as well as a physical component, and many faiths, instead of turning their backs on the problem, tackle it head-on within their own religious modalities. Some offer help specifically within their own congregations; others are open to all. Many faiths incorporate or refer members to a 12-Step program wherein one embraces a higher power, thus mirroring their own beliefs. A few examples of faith-based rehab programs associated with specific religions follow, in alphabetical order:
Baptist: In the face of the opioid epidemic, the Southern Baptist Convention declared that “Christians are commanded to love their neighbors (Matthew 22:39) which includes those in our communities suffering from the harmful effects of opioid addiction.” Baptist churches worldwide sponsor support groups for those troubled by addiction. For example, Reformers Unanimous, founded in 1996 by a recovering alcoholic and cocaine addict, now has over 2,000 chapters in dozens of countries.
Catholic: While acknowledging that addiction is a sin, the Catholic Church also acknowledges that people can make mistakes and that with belief in the Holy Trinity, prayer, atonement and counseling, along with proven detoxification techniques, one can find comfort and release from substance abuse and lead a sober Catholic sacramental life. There are many Catholic treatment centers, varying in facilities from private to public local parish support groups.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) treats substance abuse within its own congregation by incorporating traditional 12-step programs and detoxification with daily prayer, meditation and study of scripture so as to bring about atonement through Jesus Christ and a rededication to a sober life.
Episcopal: The Episcopal Recovery Ministries is an independent network of Episcopal organizations. Its mission includes, “Help the addicted and those who love them connect with spiritual resources and find lasting recovery. Raise the awareness of clergy and other leaders about the disease of addiction and the redemption and grace found in recovery. Strengthen recovery Episcopalians in the work of their recovery and help proclaim the Gospel in the world and carry their recovery into the Church.”
Evangelical: Evangelical Pastor John Baker developed “Celebrate Recovery: An Evangelical 12-Step Program” which incorporates the traditional 12-step program with quotes from scripture. Over 35,000 churches globally promote Pastor Baker’s program.
Islam: The Millati Islami fellowship integrates the 12-step nondenominational program of Alcoholics Anonymous with specifically Muslim values, such as an increased understanding of how to love and respect Allah through prayer and study.
Judaism: Founded in 1979 by individuals who had firsthand experience of the agonies, stigma and shame of addiction, Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others (JACS) is a network that helps Jews who are struggling with substance abuse. Incorporating Jewish values and daily prayer along with proven evidence-based programs, the group also sponsors retreat weekends, chances to enjoy the Sabbath with like-minded individuals, and forums for discussions with rabbis and rabbinical students.
Scientology: Open to all faiths and based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s discoveries, the fully secular Narconon uses an evidenced-based, drug-free approach to rehabilitation, incorporating detoxification through sauna, exercise and nutrition, and education in life skills to ensure the individual is stable, substance-free and in full control of his life. The Church of Scientology and Scientologists support Narconon.
Seventh-Day Adventist: The Seventh-Day Adventist Church offers its Journey to Wholeness program which is accomplished in “an atmosphere of Christian love and acceptance,” according to the program’s website. Incorporating the 12-step program and recognizing Jesus Christ as the higher power, the program’s goal is “recovery and freedom from obsessive thoughts, compulsive actions, habitual behaviors, and spiritual separation.”
Substance abuse knows no boundaries, practices no discrimination, tolerates no favoritism. It is a scourge that affects all cultures and creeds. Hence this guide to available resources.
Rocío Muñoz, Carla’s mother, tells Europa Hoy a story that will not leave you unmoved. A young girl, 24 years old, held against her will in the HUBU, specifically in the psychiatric ward of the University Hospital of Burgos (HUBU), now two months since June 10 and under psychiatric treatment when in reality she has a physical illness and no mental disorder as confirmed again and again from the HUBU to the family.
At the moment, Rocío tells us, Carla is under psychiatric medication for no logical reason. “The real diagnosis is advanced Lyme disease, transmitted by the bite of a tick, according to diagnostic tests carried out by doctors outside the hospital.
The symptoms of this disease are very varied: from digestive, vascular, neurological, endocrine to fibromyalgia-like symptoms, as well as a drop in the immune system. The type of test necessary to detect this disease is not carried out by the Social Security because of its high rate of false negatives, and therefore it is necessary to go to external laboratories where tests such as elispot, phagos test, Galaxy nanotrap antigen test and Paldispot, among others, are carried out.
As has been documented, Carla, suffering from this infectious and multisystemic disease, comes to the health service with multiple organic symptoms: involuntary weight loss, muscle and joint pain, vascular ulcers, oedema in the lower limbs, livedo reticularis, vertebral fractures, narrowing of the mesenteric artery at the junction with the celiac trunk and recurrent infections due to her immunosuppression.
This department, unable to find the reason for the organic ailments detected and seeing the progressive and unstoppable physical deterioration she is suffering, decided, incomprehensibly for all the health professionals we asked, to transfer her to the psychiatric ward with the excuse that she was in a more aseptic place.
It does not seem logical to ignore the use of the ICU where the monitoring and treatment of her illness could be adequate.
Instead she is transferred to psychiatry, her IVs are removed (Carla is also diabetic), she is isolated from the outside world, she is prevented from having a telephone, from receiving the necessary visits and not even from communicating freely with her loved ones (which violates everything that the UN and the World Health Organisation are pushing for in their “Quality and Rights” programme). In the meantime Carla sees her colleagues on that floor interacting with each other and with the outside world, doing activities with the occupational therapist, socialising and even being able to receive phone calls which she is denied so that she cannot contact the press “as there is an open judicial process against that hospital”, forced to be alone 24 hours a day staring at the four walls of her white and sad room.
In addition, in recent weeks, according to information provided by Rocío to Europa Hoy, she has been expropriated by the hospital staff. She is given unnecessary treatment with counterproductive side effects and “which not only does not help to improve Carla’s physical pathologies, but can also cause irreversible damage by preventing her from receiving the correct medical attention or masking important symptoms that should be treated”. All this without Carla’s consent and in complete violation of Carla’s rights as a patient, as the Junta de Castilla y León explains on its website:
“It is the right to choose freely, after receiving adequate information, between the different options for the application of a diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic procedure presented to me by the professional responsible, and to not have any action affecting my health carried out without my prior consent.”
And it seems that it is not that the medical evidence of Carla’s illness has not been presented, “it is simply the negligence or inability to accept errors or corrections that prevents the medical team that attended Carla in internal medicine and now in psychiatry, from listening; listening to other health professionals or the calls for help from Carla and her family”.
The HUBU management, continues Rocío, is aware of the legal proceedings and orders the doctors to restrict all the rights of the young woman and the patient’s autonomy, while Carla languishes in the prime of her youth, defenceless, suffering, fading away.
Links between HUBU management and Justice in Brugos?
Who is interested in Carla’s continued admission to psychiatry when what she wants is to be transferred to another hospital she trusts in order to receive the appropriate treatment for her pathologies? wonders Rocío.
What hidden interests are there in this case in which other people are deciding for Carla without letting her participate in the decision-making process in relation to her health, completely disregarding her human rights?
How is it possible that we find ourselves with a legal defencelessness of such magnitude in a State governed by the rule of law as Spain is supposed to be? Does it have anything to do with the fact that the judge investigating Carla’s case is the sister of the Head of Pneumology at the HUBU?
Who is going to take responsibility for this if a fatal outcome such as the one documented below occurs?
All these questions are constantly on the minds of Carla’s mother and relatives, as they feel the impotence typical of a David and Goliath struggle.
What Carla wants, says her mother, is to get out of psychiatry and go to a trusted hospital with professionals who are able and willing to look at her real physical medical situation without prejudice and who will do their best to restore her health.
While she is denied the correct treatment and her human rights are flagrantly violated, Rocío tells Europa Hoy, Carla is deteriorating physically and emotionally in an irreversible way. It was not so long ago that we could forget the fatal outcome of the case of Andreas Fernández, who died at the age of 26, physically ill and, like Carla, was denied proper treatment and unjustifiably admitted to psychiatry.
The four SU-25 military aircraft that RNMacedonia bought from Ukraine during the conflict with radical Albanians in 2001 for 4 million euros have been donated to Ukraine these days. On 5th of August the Ministry of Defense neither denied nor confirmed this information. It is about the planes that Macedonia planned to sell back in 2004, MKD.mk reported.
If the deal is officially confirmed, it would make Northern Macedonia the first country to donate military aircraft to Ukraine. Other countries, including Poland and Slovakia, considered how to donate their MiG-29s and other aircraft, but in return quickly and cheaply receive American aircraft.
The reaction of the Ministry of Defense in Skopje when asked about the fate of the Sukhoi aircraft after T-72 tanks were donated was: “The exact details of all three decisions, their content and explanation will be declassified and transparently published. The ones taken so far decisions do not worsen the combat readiness of our army”.
During the Macedonian conflict in June 2001, RNMacedonia purchased four Sukhoi SU-25 combat aircraft, three single-seat and one two-seat, from Ukraine. The planes are intended for direct support of the infantry, and during the conflict they had several combat missions in support of the ground actions of the Macedonian security forces, the publication recalls.
In June, the Left Party announced that it had learned from informants, officers and army personnel that the Sukhoi jets were being inspected and repaired by Ukrainian military engineers.
In the spring of 2003, the Ministry of Defense of Macedonia announced that there was no longer a need for combat aircraft in the formation of the armed forces, and in 2004 the aircraft were preserved and prepared for sale.
In 2011, the Ministry of Defense began to think about modernizing them according to NATO standards, but this idea did not materialize.
North Macedonia has already decided to donate tanks to Ukraine
North Macedonia plans to donate an unspecified number of tanks to Ukraine as it seeks to modernize its own army to meet NATO standards, the Ministry of Defense announced on 29 July this year.
In a statement, the ministry in Skopje said Ukraine would receive tanks belonging to the country’s tank battalion, which is undergoing modernization.
“Taking into account this situation and the requirements of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the government has decided that a certain amount of these (tank) capacities will be donated to Ukraine in accordance with its needs,” the statement said.
The ministry did not specify the number of tanks, but said they belonged to the so-called third-generation main battle tanks of the 1970s and 1980s, which have composite armor and computerized stabilization and fire control systems.
A reference to open access sources shows that the country has 31 T-72 tanks.
Northern Macedonia, a former Yugoslav republic, is a member of NATO and a candidate for joining the European Union. Like other Western countries, it has already donated military equipment to Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February, Reuters recalls.
Globalization – the involvement of the peoples and states of the Earth in common economic, cultural, information, political processes – has become the main distinguishing feature of the new era. People clearly, as never before, feel interdependence, which is served by more and more connections generated both by the growing possibilities of technology and by a changed way of thinking.
Due to the secular and materialistic tendencies that dominate modern societies, economic motives have become the most important driving force of globalization. The overcoming of borders and the formation of a single space of human activity is associated primarily with the search for new resources, the expansion of sales markets, and the optimization of the international division of labor. Therefore, understanding the opportunities and the threats that globalization brings to the world is impossible without understanding its economic background.
The Christian conscience cannot remain indifferent to phenomena of such magnitude as globalization, which are radically changing the face of the world. The Church, being a Divine-human organism, belonging both to eternity and to the present, is obliged to develop its attitude towards the ongoing changes that affect the life of every Christian and the fate of all mankind.
In the Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, economic activity is seen as “co-working with God” in “fulfilling his plan for the world and man,” and only in this form does it become justified and blessed. It is also reminded that “the seduction of the blessings of civilization removes people from the Creator”, that “in the history of mankind it has always ended tragically.” This means that the core of the economy should not be the multiplication of temptations, but the transformation of the world and man through labor and creativity.
In the “Message of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches” dated October 12, 2008, it is emphasized that Orthodox Christians share the responsibility for the emergence of economic crises and troubles if “they recklessly condoned abuses of freedom or reconciled with them, not resisting them worthily with the word of faith.” Therefore, it is our duty to measure every economic activity with the immutable categories of morality and sin, contributing to the salvation and preventing the fall of mankind.
The centuries-old hope of Christians was the unity of all people in the truth, the awareness of themselves as brothers and sisters, together creating a peaceful, pious life on the earth given to us as inheritance. The unity of mankind on the moral basis of God’s commandments is fully consistent with the Christian mission. Such an embodiment of globalization, which provides opportunities for fraternal mutual assistance, free exchange of creative achievements and knowledge, respectful coexistence of different languages and cultures, joint conservation of nature, would be justified and pleasing to God.
If the essence of globalization was only overcoming the division between people, then the content of its economic processes should have been the overcoming of inequality, the prudent use of earthly wealth, and equal international cooperation. But in modern life, globalization not only removes obstacles to communication and knowledge of the truth, but also removes obstacles to the spread of sin and vice. The rapprochement of people in space is accompanied by their spiritual distance from each other and from God, aggravation of property inequality, aggravation of competition, and growing mutual misunderstanding. A process designed to unite leads to more separation.
The most important socio-psychological phenomenon accompanying globalization has become the ubiquitous spread of the cult of consumption. Thanks to modern means of communication, an excessively high standard of living, inherent only to a narrow elite circle of people and inaccessible to the vast majority, is advertised as a social benchmark for the whole society. Hedonism turns into a kind of civil religion that determines the behavior of people, excuses immoral acts, forcing them to devote all their spiritual strength and precious time to the consumer race alone. The volume of consumed material goods becomes the main criterion of social success, the main measure of values. Consumption is seen as the only meaning of life, abolishing concern for the salvation of the soul and even for the fate of future generations, in exact accordance with the cry of the Old Testament apostates: “Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die!” (1 Cor. 15:32; cf. Is. 22:13)
At the same time, the continuous growth of consumer demands is facing the limit of the natural possibilities of the Earth. For the first time in its history, mankind has encountered the finiteness of the reachable earthly limits. The pioneer will no longer discover new lands with virgin natural lands, there are no uninhabited spaces left on the planet for peaceful colonization. The limited size of the globe does not correspond to the unlimited appetites of a hedonistic society. Here is tied the main knot of economic contradictions of globalization.
Attempts to circumvent the limit set by God, usually referring to the sinful, damaged side of human nature, not only harm the spiritual condition of our contemporaries, but create acute economic problems. The Church calls to evaluate these global problems and injustices through the categories of morality and sin, and to look for ways to resolve them in accordance with the Christian conscience.
1. Despite the outwardly visible collapse of the world colonial system, the richest countries in the world, in pursuit of ever-retreating horizons of consumption, continue to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. It is impossible to recognize as fair the international division of labor, in which some countries are suppliers of unconditional values, primarily human labor or irreplaceable raw materials, while others are suppliers of conditional values in the form of financial resources. At the same time, money received as wages or irreplaceable natural wealth is often taken literally “out of thin air”, due to the operation of the printing press – due to the monopoly position of the issuers of world currencies. As a result, the chasm in the socio-economic situation between peoples and entire continents is becoming ever deeper. This is one-sided globalization, which gives unjustified advantages to some of its participants at the expense of others, entails a partial, and in some cases, in fact, a complete loss of sovereignty.
If humanity needs monetary units that freely circulate throughout the planet and serve as a universal measure in economic calculations, the release of such units should be under fair international control, in which all states of the globe will proportionally participate. Possible benefits from such emissions could be directed to the development of distressed regions of the planet.
2. The economic injustices of today are manifested not only in the growing gap between states and peoples, but also in the growing social stratification within individual states. If in the first decades after the Second World War, the difference in living standards between the rich and the poor, at least in developed countries, was decreasing, now the statistics show a reverse trend. The powerful of this world, carried away by the consumer race, increasingly neglect the interests of the weak – both in relation to the social protection of children and the elderly who are unable to work, and in relation to decent remuneration of able-bodied workers. An increase in property stratification contributes to the multiplication of sins, since it provokes the lust of the flesh at one pole, envy and anger at the other.
In the context of globalization, the transnational elite has become significantly stronger, capable of evading the social mission, in particular, by transferring funds abroad to offshore zones, exerting political pressure on governments, and disobeying public demands. We see that national governments are increasingly losing their independence, less and less dependent on the will of their own peoples and more and more on the will of transnational elites. These elites themselves are not constituted in the legal space, and therefore are not accountable to either the peoples or national governments, turning into a shadow regulator of socio-economic processes. The greed of the shadow rulers of the global economy leads to the fact that the thinnest layer of the “chosen ones” is becoming richer and at the same time is increasingly freed from responsibility for the well-being of those whose labor created these riches.
The Russian Orthodox Church reiterates the truth formulated in the Message of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches dated October 12, 2008: “Only such an economy is viable that combines efficiency with justice and social solidarity.” In a moral society, the gap between the rich and the poor should not grow. The strong have no moral right to use their advantages at the expense of the weak, but on the contrary, they are obliged to take care of those who are disadvantaged. People working for hire should receive decent remuneration. Since they, together with employers, participate in the creation of public goods, the standard of living of the employer cannot grow faster than the standard of living of workers. If these simple and morally justified principles cannot be implemented in a single state due to its excessive dependence on the conditions of the world market, governments and peoples need to jointly improve international rules that limit the appetites of transnational elites and do not allow the development of shadow global enrichment mechanisms.
3. Another way to artificially raise living standards is “life on loan”. Not having the desired material values in the real world today, a person strives to get them from tomorrow, consume what has not yet been created, spend what has not yet been earned – in the hope that tomorrow he will be able to earn and repay the debt. We see that in the modern economy, like a snowball, the size of borrowings is growing, not only personal, but also corporate and state. It becomes more and more aggressive, more and more tempting pictures are drawn by advertising calling for living on loan. The amounts borrowed on credit are increasing, the maturity of debts is being postponed – when the possibilities of borrowing from tomorrow have already been exhausted, they begin to borrow from the day after tomorrow. Entire countries and peoples have plunged into a debt hole, yet unborn generations are doomed to pay the bills of their ancestors.
Business on lending expectations, often illusory, becomes more profitable than the production of tangible benefits. In this regard, it is necessary to remember the moral dubiousness of the situation when money “makes” new money without the application of human labor. The announcement of the credit sector as the main engine of the economy, its predominance over the real economic sector comes into conflict with the divinely revealed moral principles that condemn usury.
If earlier the impossibility of repaying the taken debt threatened bankruptcy for one borrower, then in the context of globalization, the exorbitantly swollen “financial bubble” threatens the bankruptcy of all mankind. The interdependence between people and countries has become so great that everyone will have to pay for the greed and carelessness of some. The Orthodox Church recalls that financial activities of this kind involve severe economic and moral risks; calls on governments to develop measures to limit uncontrollably growing borrowings, and all Orthodox Christians to develop economic relations that restore the link between wealth and labor, consumption and creation.
4. A concomitant phenomenon of globalization is a permanent migration crisis, accompanied by an acute cultural conflict between migrants and citizens of the host countries. And in this case, the openness of borders does not lead to rapprochement and unification, but to the division and embitterment of people.
The roots of the migration crisis also have a sinful nature, to a large extent, it is generated by the unfair distribution of earthly goods. Attempts by the indigenous inhabitants of wealthy countries to stop the migration flow remain futile, because they come into conflict with the greed of their own elites, who are interested in low-paid labor. But an even more inexorable factor in migration was the spread of a hedonistic quasi-religion, which captured not only the elites, but also the broadest masses of citizens in countries with a high standard of living. A sign of the times is the refusal to procreate for the sake of the most carefree, self-satisfied and secure personal existence. The popularization of the child-free ideology, the cult of childless and familyless life for its own sake lead to a reduction in the population in the most prosperous societies at first glance.
In a traditional society, selfish refusal to have children threatened poverty and starvation in old age. The modern pension system allows you to count on the savings made during your life, and creates the illusion that a person provides for his old age himself. But who will work if each next generation is numerically smaller than the previous one? So there is a need to constantly attract workers from abroad, in fact, exploiting the parental labor of those peoples who have preserved traditional values and value the birth of children above career and entertainment.
Thus, the economies of entire countries are addicted to the “migration needle”, they cannot develop without an influx of foreign workers.
Such an international “division of labor”, in which some national communities give birth to children, while others use their parental labor for free to escalate their own well-being, cannot be recognized as fair. It is based on the departure of millions of people from traditional religious values. We must not forget that the commandment given to all the descendants of Adam and Eve says: “Fill the earth and subdue it.” The acute migration crisis that has engulfed Europe today and threatens other prosperous regions is a direct consequence of forgetting this commandment. Those who do not want to continue their race will inevitably have to cede the land to those who prefer the birth of children to material well-being.
Thus, globalization, which has offered whole societies the tempting opportunity to do without parental efforts by exporting new people from outside, may turn out to be a fatal trap for these societies.
5. The Church is alarmed by the fact that every year the pressure created by man on the natural environment increases: irreplaceable sources of raw materials are depleted, water and air are polluted, natural landscapes are distorted, and the creations of God that inhabit them disappear. Scientific and technological progress, designed to teach us to live in harmony with God’s world, conserve natural energy and materials, make do with little to create more, cannot yet balance the growing appetites of the consumer society.
Globalization has accelerated the consumer race, disproportionate to the earthly resources provided to mankind. The volumes of consumption of goods in those countries that are recognized as world standards and which are equal to billions of people have long gone beyond the resource capabilities of these “exemplary” countries. There is no doubt that if all of humanity absorbs natural resources with the intensity of countries that are leaders in terms of consumption, an ecological catastrophe will occur on the planet.
In a traditional society where cultivation or grazing served as a source of subsistence, the scale of consumption was strictly limited by the natural limit. A person could not be content with more than the allotted land gave him. He who rapaciously depleted his plot, not caring about the future, suffered a quick punishment from his own greed. Natural consumption limits also existed in the self-sufficient states of the recent past, where excessive consumption, disproportionate to the country’s resources, turned into a deficit of its own natural resources and quickly threatened the existence of such a state. But globalization has opened up the possibility of “exporting your greed” in exchange for imported resources. Thus, relying on the depletion of foreign lands, importing countries create the appearance of inexhaustible opportunities for consumer growth.
We must not forget that water and atmosphere, forests and animals, ores and combustible materials, all other types of natural resources were created by God. The relative cheapness of many resources is deceptive, since it reflects only the cost of their extraction and delivery, because a person uses what has already been given to him by the Creator. Having consumed mineral resources, we can no longer replenish their supply on the planet. In the same way, a person is not able to recreate the species of living beings that have disappeared due to his negligence. And the purification of often polluted water and air costs many times more than those products for the production of which pollution occurred.
Mankind needs to build a world economy, mindful of the pricelessness of many resources that are now sold at symbolic prices. Initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol should be developed, providing for compensation from countries – excessive consumers in favor of countries – sources of resources. When implementing industrial and other technogenic projects, it is necessary to measure the value of the products they create with the value of natural resources spent for their activities, including natural landscapes, water and atmosphere.
6. It is regrettable that globalization has spurred the commercialization of cultural life, its transformation from free art to business. The global scope of competition between cultural works has meant that only the largest projects survive, attracting an audience large enough to pay off with the help of multimillion-dollar advertising investments.
The fact that culture has become part of the global economy threatens to level the world’s cultural diversity, the impoverishment of the language environment, the imminent death of the cultures of small peoples and even peoples with a significant number. Movies, books, songs in languages that are not familiar to millions of audiences turn out to be uncompetitive, unprofitable, and do not have the possibility of replication. In the not too distant future, a global culture driven only by economic motives may become monolingual, built on a meager set of typical clichés that produce the maximum impact on the most primitive instincts. Opportunities for its development and enrichment due to ethno-cultural and linguistic diversity may be irretrievably lost. This is facilitated by international “prestigious” competitions and awards in the field of cinematography, popular music, etc., which create globalized standards of imitation, which at the national level reformat the artistic tastes, first of all, of young people, and then of a significant part of viewers and listeners.
The Church considers it necessary to bring cultural life to the maximum extent possible from the sphere of commercial relations, to consider spiritual values as the main criterion of its quality. The efforts of governments and the public must be made to preserve the world’s ethno-cultural diversity, as the greatest wealth of mankind created by God.
7. The abundance of material goods at the disposal of the wealthiest countries leads to the idealization of their way of life by less wealthy communities, to the creation of a social idol. This often ignores the morality of the methods by which the world’s economic leaders have reached their peaks, and hold them. The role that the colonial exploitation of surrounding peoples, lending at unjustifiably high interest rates, the monopoly emission of world currencies, and so on, played in the enrichment of world economic centers is overlooked. Regardless of the circumstances, their way of life, their economic and social structure are declared exemplary.
Their imitators consider their countries and societies “backward”, “inferior”, choose a “catching up” model of modernization, blindly copying their idols or, even worse, compiled in strict accordance with their “gracious” recommendations. At the same time, neither differences in historical circumstances, nor the difference in natural conditions, nor the peculiarities of the national worldview, traditions, and way of life are taken into account.
In the reckless pursuit of material wealth, you can lose much more important values without acquiring the desired wealth. The “catching up model of modernization”, which has an uncritically perceived external model before one’s eyes, not only destroys the social structure and spiritual life of the “catching up” societies, but often does not allow one to approach the idol in the material sphere either, imposing unacceptable and ruinous economic decisions.
The Church calls on the peoples of countries that are not at the top of the world economic ratings, and above all the intellectual class of these nations, not to let envy into their hearts and not to indulge in idols. Carefully studying and using the successful world experience, we must carefully treat the heritage of our ancestors, honoring the ancestors who had their own unique experience and their own reasons for building just such a way of life. In contrast to the immutability and universalism of moral precepts, in the economy there cannot be a single solution for all peoples and times. The diversity of the peoples created by God on Earth reminds us that each nation has its own task from the Creator, each is valuable in the eyes of the Lord, and each is able to contribute to the creation of our world.
On August 5, in the Vatican, Pope Francis met with Volokolamsk Metropolitan Antony, Chairman of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate. This is the first personal meeting with a representative of Patriarch Kirill since the political problems between Russia and Ukraine became complicated.
Following the March 16 online meeting between Pope Francis (of the Vatican) and Patriarch Kirill (of Moscow), during which the Pope called for peace and the search for all possible means of diplomacy to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and after the change of the head of international relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, this is a new step at such a level for both Orthodox-Catholic dialogue and world church politics.
Russian Metropolitan Antony replaced Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeev in his affairs Russian Orthodox Church. It was Metropolitan Antony’s first visit to the Vatican since he was appointed head of the Department of External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate on June 7 last year, following the surprise appointment of his predecessor, Metropolitan Hilarion, as Metropolitan of Budapest for the Russian Orthodox Church.
Antony Volokolamsky is a long-time representative of the Russian Orthodox Church and former president of the Russian Church “St. Catherine” in Rome, and responsible for the Russian Orthodox Mission in Italy, on August 4 he first met with the head of international relations of the Holy See, Archbishop Richard Gallagher, and then with the Pope. The topic of conversation is the relations between the Russian Federation and the Holy See since the beginning of the war against Ukraine and the bilateral Orthodox-Catholic dialogue.
The announcement of the Foreign Department of the Moscow Patriarchate regarding the meeting with Archbishop Gallagher is too laconic and it states that the Russian Metropolitan is in Rome “on an archpastoral visit on behalf of the Administration of the Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in Italy”. “During a long conversation, topical issues affecting relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church were discussed. During the meeting, Pope Francis and Volokolamsk Metropolitan Anthony discussed “many topics on the agenda of Orthodox-Catholic relations, also in the context of the political processes taking place in the world”, as noted by the Moscow Patriarchate, and that after the meeting they exchanged gifts . Due to pressing commitments, Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, did not attend the meeting with Pope Francis.
Eager to go to Moscow and meet for the second time in person with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, as well as in Ukraine to support those suffering from the war, Pope Francis first met with Volokolamsk Metropolitan Anthony in the Vatican. The meeting has more diplomatic than religious weight, experts say.
All the Ukrainian authorities, and in particular the very active ambassador of Kyiv to the Holy See, Andrii Yuras, have long expressed a desire for the Pope’s visit to Ukraine. Catholic newspaper Achi Stampa notes that, amid the war in Ukraine, Francis and Gallagher’s meetings with Antony are likely to be more about church politics than ecumenism, and that a new meeting between Pope Francis and Moscow Patriarch Kirill may be in the works to take place in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, after the original plan for the June meeting in Jerusalem fell through.
We remind you that the first real historical meeting took place in 2016 at the Havana airport, while another was planned in Jerusalem in June of this year, but was postponed due to the different positions on the war in Ukraine. If in fact the trip does not take place in August, the pope may go in September, but not before his trip to Kazakhstan, already scheduled for September 13-15, where he will participate in the world meeting of religious leaders. The Russian Patriarch Kirill has already also confirmed his presence at this meeting. Ambassador of Ukraine to the Holy See Andrii Yuras was in audience with Pope Francis on the morning of August 6. The meeting was requested by the ambassador himself, immediately after Archbishop Gallagher said that he did not rule out a trip of the Pope to Kyiv. The audience lasted about an hour. Pope Francis, according to embassy and church media sources, has ascertained the willingness of Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See and has repeatedly expressed his sympathy for the suffering Ukrainian people.
But realistically, as far as a possible trip to Ukraine is concerned, Pope Francis has assured that it can take place, following the advice of doctors regarding his travels. We remind you that, although in a difficult state of health, the Pope made a long pilgrimage to Canada from July 24 to 30, called a “penitential pilgrimage”, during which the pontiff met both with the Catholic communities in Canada and with the local population, which according to he was “subjected to genocide”. Francis showed his outrage and shame at the participation of many Christians in the residential school system, a tool of cultural assimilation that has had devastating consequences for indigenous peoples, and he described his pilgrimage to Canada as a sign of reconciliation and healing. During the return flight from Canada, the press office of the Vatican officially announced that Pope Francis will visit Kazakhstan from September 13 to 15. An apostolic trip that takes on even more significance not only for the summit, in which Bergoglio will participate in an ecumenical summit with the world’s major religious leaders, but also because it is the first trip to the border with Russia (and China) since the outbreak the war in Ukraine last February. In May of this year In an interview with the Argentinian newspaper La Nacion, Pope Francis mentioned: “I regret that the Vatican had to cancel the second meeting with Patriarch Cyril that we had planned for June in Jerusalem. But our diplomacy understood that our meeting at this time could create a lot of confusion.”
On the same day, August 5 of this year, the Pope received in audience Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, giving his approval for the recognition of martyrdom, which opens the door to the beatification of a priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, killed in 1953 by the regime of the Soviet Union. The Pope has in fact authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to issue a decree on the martyrdom of the Servant of God Pietro Paolo Oros, a priest from the Diocese of Mukachevo, Ukraine, who was killed in defense of his faith on August 28, 1953 in Siltse, USSR.
Red roses are different. Some are velvety, others are fresh and tender, reminiscent of tart berries or wine. I found the perfect summer mist with a delicious berry undertone. For me, it smells like a bright and fresh red rose just off the bush.
Rose with redcurrant
I have tried many different red rose fragrances, but I found them all to be heavy and overpowering. The new Chanel 2022 was a pleasant surprise, although it is dedicated not to a red rose, but to a scarlet camellia. In nature, this flower does not smell, but perfumers managed to recreate the fantasy scent of this flower. In reality, this is a rose with a hint of red currant, falling in love from the first sip.
About the fragrance
The novelty of Chanel 2022 belongs to the luxury fragrances.
Concentration – Fragrance Mist (3-5 percent fragrant substances. Used as a mist for the body and hair, the lightest version of a perfume for every day.
The category is flower-fruity, but I would call it flower-berry.
Gender Female.
Full size bottle
The bottle of this fragrance is made of red glass, quite dense. It shimmers beautifully in the sun.
Aroma Pyramid:
top notes
Red berries / citruses
middle notes
Rose / jasmine / orange blossom
base notes
Musk / iris
Almost everything is felt here – rose, red berries, jasmine, iris. But for me personally, this is the scent of a summer red rose with a currant tint.
Personal feelings and images
When I learned about the concentration of the Fragrance Mist fragrance, I was a little surprised and expected a fragrance from a series of inexpensive body sprays. But in fact, it is toilet water, and it is very light and tart, almost transparent.
Persistence of fragrance – 2-3 hours, lasts longer on the hair.
Since this is a Fragrance Mist, there is no alcohol in it, so it does not damage hair and skin, it lasts a long time and does not imply high density.
The longevity of the fragrance is extended by notes of red berries, rose and jasmine. I personally hear a beautiful scarlet spray rose, which emits a very delicate aroma.
And it is also a tart aroma of red currant and flowers. Very unusual, transparent and iridescent, like the red edges of the bottle.
This is a gentle, very summery reading of the red fragrance. I want to wear a red glitter under it, a long dress, and not necessarily red, the main thing is that it should be flowing and very gentle. It suggests sophistication, heels, delicate handbags and jewelry. This is the aroma of juicy red currant with jasmine petals and scarlet rose. I think it will appeal to those who are looking for a fruity, berry rose with a subtle, transparent and delicate aroma. I think it is ideal for a young girl who wants to stand out from the crowd, but does not like vulgarity. And it will also appeal to those who love bright red spray roses that bloom in the hot summer. And he is also talking about currants – red, tart and very tasty. It will be appropriate at any time of the year when the mood color is red.
Thank you for reading my post to the end. What are your favorite scents associated with red?
Pilots of planes in Russia’s Aeroflot were given verbal instructions not to use the plane’s brakes when stopping, so as not to waste the pads. Crews at S7 Airlines, Ural Airlines, Rossiya, Pobeda also received similar instructions, reported the Russian site Newz.ru. The problem is that the wheel covers of the aircraft are imported and cannot be delivered under the conditions of sanctions against Russia.
The wear of the pads would result in a long-term grounding of the Russian civil aviation. When landing and taxiing on the runway, the “pilots” will have to use the engines to stop and slow down.
“If the pilots are more relaxed to stop with the help of the engines, this is not prohibited because it does not affect the safety of the flight,” Viktor Gorbachev, general director of the Association of Civil Aviation “Airport” stated in a conversation with the Telegram channel Radiotochka NSN ” and a member of the Public Council at Rostransnadzor.
“Perhaps the pilots will reduce the speed with the help of reverse, although it is used for landing, otherwise they will blow the pads at a landing speed of 250-300 kilometers per hour. It is impossible to slow down such a colossus with the pads – they will be blown off. If with the help of the engine they are more relaxed in this regard, it is not prohibited. It does not affect safety, they are on Earth. The same is in road transport. When you leave, you can reduce with the foot brake or with the engine – take away the gas. This is something absolutely normal,” said Gorbachev.
The aviation expert also explained that using the engine during landing can actually help reduce wear and tear on aircraft parts. “When the engine stops, there will be additional fuel consumption, but it is ours, and the pads are not ours,” noted Gorbachev.
Obesity is associated with a decrease in blood flow, which reduces the amount of oxygen and energy sources
People who suffer from obesity are less productive at work and more prone to injury, research shows.
Obese people may need longer breaks to recover from the work process, scientists believe.
The research focuses on how people of different weights perform given tasks in the workplace.
The study, conducted at the University of Buffalo, USA, followed the endurance of 32 people divided into 4 categories: non-obese youth, obese youth, non-obese adults and obese adults.
Each participant completed 3 tasks in which different abilities were used: hand grasping, shoulder lifting, assembly. Each task contains work and rest periods.
Task activity level is similar to production rates. During the tasks, obese women performed significantly worse.
“Our findings show that the obese group reported an average of 40% shorter endurance.
There are big differences in hand grip and assembly,” said Dr. Laura Cavuoto, one of the study’s experts.
Obesity is associated with a decrease in blood flow, which reduces the amount of oxygen and energy sources. When performing the set tasks, the muscle fibers tire faster.
“Employees who are obese probably need longer breaks to recover to their original state of muscle function. This makes them less productive,” says Dr. Cavuoto.
“For life is more than food, and the body than clothing”
Gospel according to Luke chapter 12, verse 23
“Wellness” is an active process through which people understand and choose a better way of life; as a concept, it combines in itself the idea of a healthy lifestyle (such as food and movement culture) with the idea of the physical, mental and emotional development of the personality, to build internal harmony and harmony with others. This implies knowledge and insight (or at least the desire to learn) into the richness of the inner world – emotional, spiritual – of the individual and of the social environment and above all the development of self-awareness, maturity of perceptions and emotions.
Wellness is:
a conscious, organized and stimulating process for the personality to reveal its potential, to achieve intellectual and mental balance;
a multi-layered, comprehensive lifestyle that is positive and affirming;
harmonious interaction with the environment (biological and social).
Bill Hettler, co-founder and president of the Board of Directors of the National Wellness Institute (USA) developed the model of the six dimensions of wellness, one of which is spiritual wellness.
This dimension is related to the search for meaning and purpose of human existence. It develops a sense and appreciation of the depth and comprehensiveness of life and natural forces that exist in the universe. As you walk the path, you may experience feelings of doubt, despair, fear, disappointment and loss, as well as pleasure, joy, happiness, discovery – these are important experiences and elements of the quest. They will span the poles of your value system, which will constantly adapt and change to give meaning to existence. You will know that you are achieving mental balance when your actions become closer to your beliefs and values and you begin to build a new worldview.
In an interview with the Interfax-Religia agency (October 17, 2006), the following criticism was made regarding the unfair attacks of some officials from the European Union regarding traditional Christian denominations. “Over the past ten years, the European Parliament has condemned the Orthodox and Catholic Churches more than thirty times for human rights violations and never once brought similar accusations against such countries as, for example, China and Cuba,” said the Vice-President of the European Parliament Mario Mauro during the international conference “Europe at a turning point: a clash of two civilizations or a new dialogue?”.
According to him, the main reason for such accusations and similar decisions of the European authorities is in fact “the conviction of many that it is necessary to build Europe without the participation of religion, that we must adhere to such a strategy in order to resist fundamentalism”. “They confuse fundamentalism and religion. We stand against fundamentalism, but we must support religion, because religion is the dimension of man”, – noted the vice-president of the European Parliament. Opponents of the Church’s participation in European public life, in his words, thanks to their positions, can become “sources of destruction of the project for a united Europe”. During his speech at the conference, Mario Mauro also stated that one of the great threats of modern Europe is moral relativism, when “in some countries there is an attempt to build a society without God, but this provokes serious problems”. “The non-believing Europe will sooner or later disappear, it will dissolve,” the European MP expressed confidence. In modern society, human life and honor are devalued, the seven deadly sins are everywhere accepted as welcome guests. The material poverty of the masses is undoubtedly a grave evil in life. There is, however, a much more dire poverty. It is the mental poverty of a large part of people, their spiritual poverty, the poverty of conscience, the emptiness of the heart.
The commandment of Christ is not only an ethical norm, but it is in itself eternal divine life. The natural man does not have this life in his created (material) being, and therefore fulfills the will of God, that is, to live according to the commandment of God, man cannot by his own strength; but it is his nature to aspire to God, to the blessed eternal life. The aspirations of the natural man would remain only aspirations without the possibility of real realization, if the Divine power was not there – grace, which in itself is precisely what is sought, that is, the eternal divine life. The only thing that is necessary is to listen to the voice of conscience and duty – to the voice of the command of God, and to go on the path that leads to piety and charity, in order to resurrect humanity in man.
“Through the Holy Spirit we know the Lord, and the Holy Spirit resides in every person: both in the mind, and in the soul, and in the body. This is how we know God both in heaven and on earth” – with these words of Venerable Silouan of Atonsky, we can begin the study of the question of the relationship between a healthy spirit and a healthy body, which is also the main task of the wellness philosophy. Even the Old Testament writer Tobias clearly reveals that disease is associated with disease-causing spirits – demons in people’s bodies.
Human nature, through the energies peculiar to it, reveals to us the personality of the individual and makes it accessible to others and to God, which means the uniqueness of personal experience either through the revelation of mystical experience or through union in love. Through this contact with God’s energy, the image of Christ is imprinted on the human person, which leads us to the knowledge of God and makes us partakers of the “divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), manifesting our hypostasis through union with Christ. Experts from the scientific center in Colorado, who for the first time restored the volumetric figure of Christ from the image printed on the Shroud of Turin, describe to us the earthly appearance of Jesus Christ: height 182 cm, weight 79.4 kg. Based on the print and with the help of the latest computer technology, American scientists calculated all the parameters of Christ’s body and made a plaster model of it. It can be considered the most accurate recreation of the figure and face of Jesus. Christ was a tall and large man. According to the calculations of specialists, His height was 182 centimeters, and the weight did not exceed 79.4 kilograms. He was a full head taller than his contemporaries. When Jesus walked among His disciples, people could see Him from afar. And even the seated Christ was taller than the rest (quoted from Svetlana Makunina, “The scientists restored the image of the Savior”, Life). It behooves the Spirit of God to dwell in a healthy body, or rather, a healthy spirit in man presupposes bodily health. There are not a few cases when we observe a symbiosis between a healthy spirit in a weak body, when the spirit helps bear the physical infirmities. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky states: “wide, infinitely wide is a man: he can fall to the abyss of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it can rise to the heights of the Sistine Madonna.” When one lives with evil for evil’s sake, a person is a moral zero, a source of moral poison, a great spiritual minus, a spiritual invalid. Jesus Christ does not consider a single soul lost, because he knows how difficult it is to fully heal spiritually, so that a person can become a living spark of the Divine plan, an aroma of the best colors of humanity. So there are also people with a high moral temperature, with selfless idealism and well-deserved comfort in life. To weed the weeds is necessary, but it is much more necessary to sow good seed. We are personal beings created by God Himself, and what He has given us should not be seen as static gifts. We have the true freedom to be different. Our behavior can change. Our character can be further developed. Our beliefs may mature. Our gifts can be cultivated.
“God fills the person completely – mind, heart and body. The knower, man, and the Knowable, God, merge into one. Neither the One nor the Other becomes an “object” as a result of their merger”. The nature of the relationship between God and man excludes objectification and is existential in its essence, denoting the personal presence of God in man and man in God. A person is horrified by his impurity and corruption, but the thirst he experiences for forgiveness-reconciliation with God is “something difficult to explain to the uninitiated” and no matter how intense the suffering, it is also characterized by the joy of God’s call and the glow of the new life. His experience in other spheres – artistic inspiration, philosophical contemplation, scientific knowledge “always and inevitably of a relative nature”, and also the experience of the deceptive light of the “spirits of malice” allow him to say that his return to the true Light is the return of the “prodigal son”, who received new knowledge about man and being in a distant country, but did not find the Truth there.
The term “Orthodox psychotherapy” was introduced by Bishop Hierotei Vlahos. In his book “Illness and Healing of the Soul” he examines Orthodoxy as a therapeutic method in detail. This term does not refer to individual cases of people who suffer from psychological problems or neurosis. According to Orthodox tradition, after the fall of Adam, man is sick, his reason (nous) is darkened and he has lost his relationship with God. Death enters human existence and causes numerous anthropological, social, even ecological problems. In this tragedy, fallen man retains God’s image within himself, but completely loses his likeness to Him, as his relationship with God is severed. This movement from a state of fall to a state of deification is called healing because it is related to her return from a state of dwelling against nature to a state of living in and above nature. By adhering to Orthodox treatment and practice, as revealed to us by the Holy Fathers, man can successfully deal with his thoughts and passions. While psychiatry and neurology are called upon to treat pathological abnormalities, Orthodox theology treats the deeper cases that cause them. Orthodox psychotherapy will be more useful for those who want to solve their existential problems; for those who have realized that their reason is darkened, and to this end they must free themselves from the tyranny of their passions and thoughts, in order to attain the enlightenment of their minds in communion with God.
All this treatment and healing or psychotherapy is closely related to the contemplative tradition of the Church and to its hesychastic life and is preserved in the texts of “Kindness”, in the writings of the holy fathers of the Church and primarily in the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas. Certainly no one can ignore the fact that the contemplative and hesychastic life is the same life that can be seen in the lives of the prophets and the apostles, as accurately described in the texts of Holy Scripture. From this it is clear that the contemplative life is actually the evangelical life that existed in the Western world before it was replaced by scholastic theology. Even modern scientists in the West note this fact. The human spirit seeks completeness and wholeness, inner peace and tranquility. In the chaos and pain of the modern world, we must find this healing way and live as the holy fathers of the Church recommend us. Certainly the Holy Fathers predate modern psychologists and psychiatrists. One sees one’s physical flaws in the mirror, and one’s own spiritual vices in one’s neighbor. If a person sees a vice in his neighbor, then this vice is also in himself. We look at ourselves in it as in a mirror. If the face of the beholder is clean, the mirror is also clean. The mirror in itself will neither stain us nor cleanse us, but only provides us with the opportunity to look at ourselves through the eyes of others.
Modern man, tired and discouraged by the multitude of problems that torment him, seeks rest and harbor. Most importantly, he seeks a cure for his soul from the permanent “mental depression” in which he lives. To explain the reason, many explanations given by psychiatrists can be found in circulation nowadays. Psychotherapy in particular is widespread. While before all these things were almost unknown, now they are a common occurrence and many people turn to psychotherapists to find solace and comfort, which again shows us that modern man feels he needs healing for various mental and physical ailments. The Orthodox Church is the hospital where every sick and depressed person can be healed.
According to Henri Bergson in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, the world is God’s enterprise of creating creators so that they may be assimilated to His being, worthy of His love. Besides blessing and glorifying God for the world, man is also capable of reshaping and changing the world, as well as giving it new meaning. In the words of Father Dimitru Staniloe, “Man puts the stamp of his understanding and intelligent work on creation… The world is not only a gift, but also a task for man.” Our calling is to cooperate with God. According to the expression of app. Paul, we are God’s fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9). Man is not only a thinking and Eucharistic (grateful) animal, he is also a creative animal. The fact that man is created in God’s image means that he is also a creator in God’s image. Man fulfills this creative role not through brute force, but through the purity of his spiritual vision; his vocation is not to dominate nature by brute force, but to transform and sanctify it. Blessed Augustine and Thomas Aquinas also advocated that every soul possesses the natural ability to receive grace. Precisely because she is created in the image of God, she is able to receive God through grace. As Albert Einstein rightly observed, “The real problem lies in the hearts and minds of men. This is not a problem of physics, but of ethics. It is easier to purify plutonium than the evil spirit of man.”
In various ways – through the processing of the cast, through his master’s skills, through the writing of books, through the painting of icons – man gives voice to material things and makes creation capable of speaking for the glory of God. It is significant that the first task of the newly created Adam was to name the animals (Gen. 2:18-20). Naming itself is a creative act: until we have found a name for a known object or experience—an indispensable word indicating its essential character—we cannot begin to understand and use it. It is also significant that when we offer the fruits of the earth back to God in the liturgy, we do not offer them in their original form, but transformed by human hands: we offer to the altar not ears of wheat, but pieces of bread, and not grapes, but wine.
Thus, by his power to give thanks and offer creation back to God, man is the priest of creation; and by his power to form and give form, to connect and separate, is the king of creation. This hierarchical and sovereign role of man is beautifully expressed by St. Leontius of Cyprus: “Through the heavens, the earth and the sea, through the wood and the stone, through all creation, visible and invisible, I offer homage, I worship the Creator, the Lord and the Creator of all ; for the creation does not worship its Creator directly and through itself, but through me the heavens proclaim the glory of God and through me the moon honors God, through me the stars glorify Him, through me the waters, the raindrops, the dew and all created things honor God and His bestows glory.
Source: “Wellness for all”, comp. Gramatikov, Petar, Petar Neychev. Ed. Business Agency (ISBN 978-954-9392-27-7), Plovdiv, 2009, pp. 71-82 (in Bulgarian).
Of Fairies, Witches, Gypsies, My nourrice sang to me , Sua Gypsies, Fairies, Witches, I alsua synge to thee.” (“Denham Tract.”)
DR. KRAUSS has in his work, “Sreca, Gluck und Schicksal im Volksglauben der Südslaven,” collected a number of sayings in reference to his subject, from which I have taken some, and added more from other sources.
Of an evil woman one says, as in all languages, “To ie vila“—that is, “a witch”; or it is uttered or muttered as, “To je vila ljutica“—that is, “a biting (or bitter) witch”; or to a woman whom one dislikes, “Idi vilo!“—”Begone, witch!” as in gypsy, “Jasa tu chovihani!”
Also, as in German, “Ako i je baba, nje vjestica“—”Though she is an old woman she is no witch”; while, on the other hand, we have, “Svake baba viestica, a djed vjestac“—”Every old woman is a witch, and every old man a wizard.”
The proverb, “Bizi ko vistica od biloga luka“—”she runs from it like a witch from white garlic”—will be found fully explained in the chapter on “The Cure of Children,” in which it is shown that from early times garlic has been a well-known witch-antidote.
Another saying is, “Uzkostrsila se ko vistica“—”Her hair is as tangled, or twisted, as that of a witch”; English gypsy, “Lâkis balia shan risserdi sâr i chovihanis.” But this has a slightly different meaning, since in the Slavonian it refers to matted, wild-looking locks, while the Romany is according to a belief that the hair of a witch is curled at the ends only.
Allied to this is the proverb, “Izgleda kao aa su ga coprnice doniele sa Ivanjscica“—”He looks as if the witches had done for him (or brought him away, ‘fetched’ him) on Saint John’s Eve”; English Romany, “Yuv dikela sá soved a lay sar a chovihani“—”He looks as if he had lain with a witch.”
“Svaka vracara s vrazje strane“—”Every witch belongs to the devil’s gang”—that is, she has, sold her soul to him and is in his interests. This is allied to the saying, “Kud ce vjestica do u svoj rod?“—”Where should a witch go if not to her kin or, “Birds of a feather flock together.”
“Jasa ga vjestice“—”The witches ride him”—refers to the ancient and world-wide belief that witches turn men into animals and ride them in sleep.
The hazel tree and nut are allied to the supernatural or witchly in
many lands. For the divining rod, which—is, according to “La Grande Bacchetta Divinatoria O Verga rivelatrice” of the Abbate Valmont, the great instrument for all magic and marvels, must be made of “un ramo forcuto di nocciuòlo“—a forked branch of hazel-nut”—whence a proverb, “Vracarice, coprnjice, kuko ljeskova!”—”Sorceress, witch, hazel-stick.” This is a reproach or taunt to a woman who pays great attention to magic and witchcraft. “This reveals a very ancient belief of the witch as a wood-spirit or fairy who dwells in the nut itself.” More generally it is the bush which, in old German ballads, is often addressed as Lady Hazel. In this, as in Lady Nightingale, we have a relic of addressing certain animals or plants as if they were intelligences or spirits. In one very old song in “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” a girl, angry at the hazel, who has reproached her for having loved too lightly or been too frail, says that her brother will come and cut the bush down. To which Lady Hazel replies:—
“Although he comes and cuts me down, I’ll grow next spring, ’tis plain, But if a virgin wreath should fade, ‘Twill never bloom again.”
To keep children from picking unripe hazel-nuts in the Canton of Saint Gall they cry to them, “S’ Haselnussfràuli chumt“—”The hazel-nut lady is coming!” Hence a rosary of hazel-nuts or a hazel rod brings luck, and they may be safely hung up in a house. The hazel-nut necklaces found in prehistoric tombs were probably amulets as well as ornaments.
Among popular sayings we may include the following from the Gorski Vijenac:—
“A eto si udrijo vladiko, U nekakve smućene vjetrove, Ko u marču što udre yještice.”
But behold, O Vladika, Thou hast thrown thyself into every storm, As witches throw or change themselves to cattle.”
And with these we may include the curse, “Izjele te viestice“—”May the witches eat you!” which has its exact parallel in Romany. Also the Scottish saying, “Witches, warlocks, and gypsies soon ken ae the ither”:—
“Witches and warlocks without any bother, Like gypsies on meeting well know one another.”
I may appropriately add to these certain proverbs which are given in an extremely rare “Denham Tract,” of which only fifty copies were printed by JOHN BELL RICHMOND, “in. Com. Ebor.” This quaint little work of only six pages is entitled, “A Few Popular Rhymes, Proverbs, and Sayings relating to Fairies, Witches, and Gypsies,” and bears the dedication, “To every individual Fairy, Witch, and Gypsy from the day of the Witch of Endor down to that of Billy Dawson, the Wise Man of Stokesley, lately defunct, this tract is inscribed.”
WITCHES.
Vervain and Dill Hinder witches from their will.
The following refers to rowan or mountain-ash wood, which is supposed to be a charm against witchcraft:—
If your whipstick’s made of rowan You can ride your nag thro’ any town.
Much about a pitch, Quoth the devil to the witch.
A hairy man’s a geary man, But a hairy wife’s a witch.
Woe to the lad Without a rowan-tree god.
A witch-wife and an evil Is three-halfpence worse than the devil.
Hey-how for Hallow-e’en! When all the witches are to be seen, Some in black and some in green, Hey-how for Hallow-e’en! Thout! tout! a tout, tout! Throughout and about.
Cummer goe ye before, cummer goe ye, Gif ye will not goe before, cummer let me!
“These lines are said to have been sung by witches at North Berwick in Lothian, accompanied by the music of a Jew’s harp or trump, which was played by Geilles Duncan, a servant girl, before two hundred witches, who joined hands in a short daunce or reel, singing (also) these lines with one voice:—
“‘Witchy, witchy, I defy thee, Four fingers round my thumb, Let me go quietly by thee.’
“It will be seen that this is a phallic sign, and as such dreaded by witches. It is difficult to understand why these verses with the sign should have been given by witches.”
The anti-witch rhyme used in Tweedesdale some sixty or seventy years ago was:—
“‘Black-luggie, lammer bead, Rowan-tree and reed thread, Put the witches to their speed.’
The meaning of ‘black-luggie’ I know not. ‘Lammer bead’ is a corruption of ‘amber-bead.’ They are still worn by a few old people in Scotland as a preservative against a variety of diseases, especially asthma, dropsy, and toothache. They also preserve the wearer from, the effects of witchcraft, as stated in the text. I have seen a twig of rowan-tree, witch-wood, quick-bane, wild ash, wicken-tree, wicky, wiggy, witchen, witch-bane, royne-tree, mountain-ash, whitty, wiggin, witch-hazel, roden-quicken, roden-quicken-royan, roun, or ran-tree, which had been gathered
on the second of May (observe this), wound round with some dozens of yards of red thread, placed visible in the window to act as a charm in keeping witches and Boggle-boes from the house. So also we have—
“‘Rowan-ash and reed thread Keep the devils from their speed,”‘
Ye brade o’ witches, ye can do no good to yourself.
Fair they came, Fair they go, And always their heels behind them.
Neither so sinful as to sink, nor so godly as to swim.
Falser than Waghorn, and he was nineteen times falser than the devil.
Ingratitude is worse than witchcraft.
Ye’re as mitch As half a witch.
To milk the tether (i.e., the cow-tie).
This refers to a belief that witches can carry off the milk from any one’s cow by milking at the end of the tether.
Go in God’s name—so you ride no witches.
“Rynt, you witch” quoth Bess Lockit to her mother.
Rynt, according to Skeat, is the original Cumberland word for aroint,” i.e., “aroint thee, get thee gone.” Icelandic ryma—”to make room, to clear the way”—given, however, only as a guess. It seems to have been specially applied to witches.
“‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cried.” (“Macbeth”)
Halliwell gives the word as rynt, and devotes a column to it, without coming to any satisfactory conclusion. I think it is simply the old word rynt or wrynt, another form of writhe, meaning to twist or strangle, as if one should say, “Be thou strangled!” which was indeed a frequent malediction. Halliwell himself gives “wreint” as meaning “awry,” and
“wreith destordre“—”to wring or wreith” (“Hollyband’s Dictionarie,” 1593). The commonest curse of English gypsies at the present day is, “Beng tasser tute!” “May the devil strangle you”—literally twist, which is an exact translation of wrinthe or rynt.
“The gode man to hys cage can goo And wrythed the pye’s neck yn to.” (“MS. Cantab.” ap. H.)
Rynt may mean twist away, i.e., begone, as they say in America, “he wriggled away.”
They that burn you for a witch lose all their coals.
Never talk of witches on a Friday.
Ye’re ower aude ffarand to be fraid o’ witches.
Witches are most apt to confess on a Friday.
Friday is the witches’ Sabbath.
To hug one as the devil hugs a witch.
As black
}
as a witch.
As cross
As ugly
As sinful
Four fingers and a thumb—witch, I defy thee.
In Italy the signs are made differently. In Naples the gettatura consists of throwing out the fore and middle fingers, so as to imitate horns, with the thumb and fingers closed. Some say the thumb should be within the middle and third fingers. In Florence the anti-witch gesture is to fare la fica, or stick the thumb out between the fore and middle fingers.
You’re like a witch, you say your prayers backward.
Witch-wood (ie., the mountain ash).
You’re half a witch-i.e., very cunning.
Buzz! buzz! buzz!
In the middle of the sixteenth century if a person waved his hat or
bonnet in the air and cried ‘Buzz!’ three times, under the belief that by this act he could take the life of another, the old law and law-makers considered the person so saying and acting to be worthy of death, he being a murderer in intent, and having dealings with witches” (“Denham Tract”). Very doubtful, and probably founded on a well known old story.
“I wish I was as far from God as my nails are free from dirt!”
Said to have been a witch’s prayer whilst she was in the act of cleaning her nails. In logical accuracy this recalls the black boy in America, who on being asked if he knew the way to a certain place, replied, “I only wish I had as many dollars as I know my way there.”
A witch is afraid of her own blood.
A Pendle forest witch.
A Lancashire witch.
A witch cannot greet (ie., weep).
To be hog, or witch-ridden.
GYPSIES.
So many gypsies, so many smiths.
The gypsies are all akin.
One of the Faw gang, Worse than the Faw gang.
The Faws or Faas are a gypsy family whose head-quarters are at Yetholme. I have been among them and knew the queen of the gypsies and her son Robert, who were of this clan or name.
“It is supposed the Faws acquired this appellation from Johnnie Faw, lord and earl of Little Egypt; with whom James the Fourth and Queen Mary, sovereigns of Scotland, saw not only the propriety, but also the necessity of entering into special treaty” (“Denham Tract”)
“Francis Heron, king of the Faws, bur. (Yarrow) xiii. Jan., 1756 (SHARP’S “Chron. Mir”).
Source: In the “Materials for the Study of the Gypsies,” by M. I. KOUNAVINE, which I have not yet seen, there are, according to A. B. Elysseeff (Gypsy-Lore Journal, July, 1890), three or four score of gypsy proverbial sayings and maxims. These refer to Slavonian or far Eastern Russian Romanis. I may here state in this connection that all who are interested in this subject, or aught relating to it, will find much to interest them in this journal of the Gypsy-Lore Society, printed by T. & A. Constable, Edinburgh. The price of subscription, including membership of the society, is £1 a year—Address: David Mac Ritchie, 4, Archibald Place, Edinburgh.
Illustration source: The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling, by Charles Godfrey Leland. Release Date: December 13, 2018 [EBook #58465]
