Oh Beata Solitudo!


"The friend is me and I am the friend"
(Matteo Ricci)


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Георгий Свиридов

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Святый Боже ('Holy God') Зарю бьют ('Dawn Strikes') The dawn beats. From my hand my shabby copy of Dante falls to the ground. On my lips, the half-pronounced verse ceases to shape meaning. - My soul flies far off. - Familiar, everyday living sound, although you often radiate far out, I shrink away - into my silent sense of age. 'Pastoral'
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St Symeon the New Theologian's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

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For Christians in Egypt the rise of Islamist political groups and a spate of violence targeting churches suggest that the cataclysmic events of the past 12 months have turned Arab Spring to Winter. In late November, the first round of parliamentary elections – the first since the February 2011 fall of President Hosni Mubarak – produced shock results favouring hard-line Islamic groups. With turn-out reported at 62 percent, the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party polled 45 percent, as had widely been expected. But the big surprise was the Nour Party – backed by the even more extremist Salafist Islamists – which polled 21 percent. In the first round of the elections, held at the end of November 2011 in nine of Egypt's 27 provinces including Cairo and Alexandria, a coalition of secular parties polled only 25 percent. Father Antoine Rafic Greiche, official spokesman for the Catholic Church in Egypt, warned that the success of the Salafists was a grave...
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