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'
Come, O true light! Come, O eternal life! Come, O hidden mystery! Come, O indescribable treasure! Come, O ineffable thing! Come, O inconceivable person! Come, O endless delight! Come, O unsetting light! Come, O true and fervent expectation of all those who will be saved! Come, O rising of those who lie down! Come, O resurrection of the dead! Come, O powerful one, who always creates and re-creates and transforms by your will alone! Come, O invisible and totally intangible and untouchable! Come, O you who always remain immobile and at each moment move all, and come to us, who lie in hades, you who are above all heavens. Come, O desirable and legendary name, which is completely impossible for us to express what you are or to know your nature. Come, O eternal joy! Come, O unwithering wreath! Come, O purple of the great king our God! Come, O crystalline cincture, studded with precious stones! Come, O inaccessible sandal! Come, O
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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