Unusual Holy Women and Men
Yesterday (here; still yesterday for some of you...), November 2, was the Orthodox Feast Day for St Gabriel Urgebadze the Fool for Christ of Georgia, who reposed in 1995. He is known among other things for burning an image of Lenin during a Communist parade in Tbilisi.
I think I learned about St Simeon the Stylite, who perched himself atop a pillar, on this site in its former incarnation many years ago. While not wanting to do so myself, the toilet situation keeps coming to mind(!), he and his fellow stylites awakened something within me that the church needs its characters, behaving in -- at times -- even in shocking ways, to communicate something.
Are their unusual acts of women or men in times past that have had an impact on you?
I think I learned about St Simeon the Stylite, who perched himself atop a pillar, on this site in its former incarnation many years ago. While not wanting to do so myself, the toilet situation keeps coming to mind(!), he and his fellow stylites awakened something within me that the church needs its characters, behaving in -- at times -- even in shocking ways, to communicate something.
Are their unusual acts of women or men in times past that have had an impact on you?
Comments
Having also visited in Georgia the base of the Katskhi pillar, I've always assumed that stylites received food via a pulley system, and that waste went down in a bucket the same way. But I could well be wrong.
Saint David of Thessaloniki is another favourite of mine. He lived for some years in an almond tree, and hence is known as a "dendrite".
That Dublin story is wonderful -- he is easily recognisable.
Thank you for St David of Thessaloniki; I looked up his life and was encouraged.
edited link
jj-Helpful Heaven Host
Oh, looks wonderful, cgichard. Somewhere to hope to visit should I return.
He was born in 1827 in Zell am Ziller,Tirol to parents who were 'evangelisch' (probably Lutheran). His parents left Tirol and went to Salzburg where for some reason the Prince Archbishop enrolled him in a prestigious local school. When he left school he entered the Franciscan Order and due to his excellent linguistic abilities he was sent to Damascus after his priestly ordination in 1851. He ministered to the Christian community there 'with Christian joy,' In 1860 there was a Druse uprising in Damascus where several Christians including Kolland were put to death in a particularly brutal manner.
I had never before heard of the new Saint, but I won't now forget him and his witness.
I would nominate my old landlady, Miss B, when I was a postgraduate student. Goodness, holyness and kindness personified. Being a member of the Plymouth Brethren she herselfwould have none of this Papist 'saint business', not realising she was one.
This was more than fifty years ago but I stil miss her!
I came across St Olga of Alaska, the first female Orthodox saint in North America, and the first-ever Yup’ik saint, today (her feast day is November 10; she reposed in 1979). Accounts range from her record of healing and midwifery while alive to post-death appearances in dreams as a healer of trauma and abuse. Her story of a woman who helped others in their time of great need I found inspiring.
Happy to expand the thread to those...
.... 'Happy to expand the thread to those...'
Oh b*gg*r, that includes me, then!
Would the estimable Captain 'I may be some time' Laurence Oates have been a member?
I like Duffy' work. I'll have to add that book to my increasing 'to read' pile.
Frs Mackonochie, Tooth, Darwell Stone, Freddie Hood, and various other deceased Anglo-catholic luminaries. As examples of living. From the other side of the Tiber Fr Ronald Knox continues to be an inspiration. They all qualify as at the very least ‘unusual’
On a slightly different tack Rev Edwin Boston.
From a Catholic point of view he is a canonised Saint but some Orthodox will see him as a 'soul-snatcher'.
We had at one time a very anti-Catholic Orthodox poster who could only see Josaphat as an evil man who received his just punishment in having his head split with an axe.
There would have been a good number of Calvinists in that area at that time but I have no idea what opinion modern Calvinists have of Josaphat.
What intrigues me about this holy/unholy man is that we can all read his story but come to very different conclusions about its significance.
He is commemorated on January 13th by the Church of England... which, no doubt, would have annoyed him considerably!
I've heard the thing about George Fox founding a religious order had he been RC, before and yes, has he lived in France, Spain or Italy I think that would have been likely.
I've heard the same thing said about William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army.
Thing is, you could probably say the same sort of thing about any founder or initiator of a movement within Protestantism, be it the Wesley's, Count Zizendorf or whoever else.
The life of St Mary of Egypt, someone who would not accept payment for sex she was so obsessed with it, and repented and lived a life in the desert, is read during Great Lent in the Orthodox church. I am not sure if I should smile at this, but this part of her life always makes me smile [she has met a priest, Zosima, in the desert]:
Jack is probably the reason I have remained a Christian.
When I was a teenager, and rebelling in the only way I could, I took to falling out with ministers. Well having deeply emotional theological arguments with anyone who gave me space and that was often clergy. That was chiefly my dad, and yes I was testing boundaries. However, I would argue with others if they were available. After one particularly difficult argument it was decided that it was time that we had a membership class. Most of the classes were led by one particular minister which was OK but not particularly good. Then one session was led by Jack, the Baptist minister on the team. I as a very edgy teen felt welcomed.
However, Jack's remarkableness does not stop there. Jack was a minister despite/because he was one of the soldiers who "liberated" concentration camps. He also was for many years a volunteer chaplain at Christie's Hospital in Manchester. When he died about a decade later a then volunteer chaplain said that Christie's would have done anything for Jack. That does not sound much, until you know Jack died of cancer and must have deliberately kept his diagnosis from Christie's for he was treated at another local hospital. In other words he chose to be an ordinary patient when he could have been an extraordinary one.
I never did take a class from him, but I heard him at a number of presentations. He once came to Pullman WA for the Roger William Symposium at Washington State University sponsored by the Ecumenical Ministry.
A kind man. It is said he never forgot a face. He always wore a bowtie.
Gramps: might I ask what he was critical of, if it is not too much to ask? A bowtie is a distinguishing feature! I recall some presenters too with fondness.
Well, he started writing about it in the 50's. At the time, he was critical of how the suburban church was acting as the chaplain to the culture of the day. Later, when he started studying fundamentalist churches, he found them doing the same thing only more reactionary. He said the problem was we were not willing to address societal issues in positive ways.