Dear brothers and sisters in the Crucified and Risen Lord...

Christ is in our midst!

Well, here they go again. Holy Pascha is drawing near, and thus like clockwork, the blind fools of this world, who in their satanic delusion are ever bent on trying to deny Jesus Christ... and thereby our Holy Orthodox Faith and all true Christians... yes, they're at it once more, trying to undermine the very foundation of Christianity, the Resurrection of our incarnate God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Hey, this time they hope to dazzle us with their "vast knowledge and scientific wisdom" via a so-called documentary, scheduled to air next Sunday March 4th on the Discovery Channel, in which they are claiming to have "discovered" the tomb of Christ and his family. What's that you say, the tomb of Christ? Gee whiz, if Christ is in the tomb, then there couldn't possibly be any resurrection. So I guess this whole Christianity thing is just a colossal hoax fostered upon us poor ignorant folk the past 2,000 years. That's what they beleive, and that's the lie they'd like others to swallow too.

However, its clearly they who are the hoax! The following AP Article reveals that their "discovery" is nothing but garbage.

I ask and strongly encourage all the faithful of St. Luke's NOT to watch this show next week. At best, its only a waste of time... but more likely, it will serve only to pollute our eyes and minds with the stench of satan... who in biblical language is called the father of all lies!

Your unworthy servant, Fr. Michael

Scholars, Clergy Slam Jesus Documentary
By MARSHALL THOMPSON

February 26, 2007

Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by the Oscar-winning director James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets. 'The Lost Tomb of Christ,' which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries _ small caskets used to store bones _ discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus and his family, according to a press release issued by the Discovery Channel.

One of the caskets even bears the title, 'Judah, son of Jesus,' hinting that Jesus may have had a son. And the very fact that Jesus had an ossuary would contradict the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.

Most Christians believe Jesus' body spent three days at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City. The burial site identified in Cameron's documentary is in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood nowhere near the church.

In 1996, when the BBC aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television.

'They just want to get money for it,' Kloner said.

The claims have raised the ire of Christian leaders in the Holy Land.

'The historical, religious and archaeological evidence show that the place where Christ was buried is the Church of the Resurrection,' said Attallah Hana, a Greek Orthodox clergyman in Jerusalem. The documentary, he said, 'contradicts the religious principles and the historic and spiritual principles that we hold tightly to.'

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight.

'I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this,' Pfann said. 'But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear.'

'How possible is it?' Pfann said. 'On a scale of one through 10 _ 10 being completely possible _ it's probably a one, maybe a one and a half.'

Pfann is even unsure that the name 'Jesus' on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name 'Hanun.'

Kloner also said the filmmakers' assertions are false.

'It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave,' Kloner said. 'The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time.'

Archaeologists also balk at the filmmaker's claim that the James Ossuary _ the center of a famous antiquities fraud in Israel _ might have originated from the same cave. In 2005, Israel charged five suspects with forgery in connection with the infamous bone box.

'I don't think the James Ossuary came from the same cave,' said Dan Bahat, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University. 'If it were found there, the man who made the forgery would have taken something better. He would have taken Jesus.'

Although the documentary makers claim to have found the tomb of Jesus, the British Broadcasting Corporation beat them to the punch by 11 years.

Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israeli government agency responsible for archaeology, declined to comment before the documentary was aired.

From the Journal of Fr. Alexander:

Wow... powerful and prophetic!

February 5, 1979: All these days, while watching on television the raging crowd on the streets of Tehran , with the astounding idolization of Ayatollah Khomeni, I feel that despite all its technocracy, the West is bankrupt. The West has nothing to offer to the Third, Fourth or other worlds that are just awakening. The reason, it seems to me, is quite simple. The First world never had any other dream than Christianity –maybe better to say- than Christ! Only around Christ did "freedom," culture," "technocracy" have any meaning. But the West renounced Christ and Christianity; renounced them for the sake of the freedoms that Christianity had planted. Marx, Engels, Freud are stages of that renunciation. And with that renunciation, the soul was lost. Everything started to decay and into everything entered death. It was the renunciation of Christianity, of its vision, but mainly the renunciation of Christianity by Christians themselves. And thousands of people now clamor about the mysterious Islamic Republic.

February 22, 1979: Passionate interest in Iran 's events. The papers are filled with the war between China and Vietnam, but I seem to be completely bewitched by this Ayatollah. I know why of course: because of religion, because in Iran, right now, is the focus of what is happening with Christianity; its weakening, its dying away as a power in history… In Iran the power of Islam flared up in that old man. It will probably be defeated and crushed by the same West with its other power, the mysticism of the masses, of Marxism, Leninism: but the West, as Christianity, is dying. It poses so many deep questions about the essence of Christianity. Islam, to sum it up, is anti-Christian.

It seems that:

-- The West – secular, hedonistic, technological, etc. lives by its renunciation of Christianity. I emphasize, not by its indifference to Christianity, but precisely renunciation (happiness, economics, sex, abortion)
-- The revolutionary West lives by its fight with Christianity, with the Christian man, the homo Christianus
-- The East is divided between Western renunciation (Japan, maybe now China, with their dream to modernize) and the fight with the West under either the sign of revolution or Islam

The "death of Christianity"! It sounds horrible. But is it so? It constantly seems to me (and gives me inner light and joy!) that the death of Christianity is needed, so that Christ would be resurrected. The deadly weakness of Christianity lies in only one thing – forgetting and neglecting Christ. In the Gospel, Christ always says "I" – He says about Himself that He will come back in glory as a King. One must love Him, expect Him, rejoice in Him and about Him. When nothing of Christianity will remain only Christ will be visible; and neither revolution, nor Islam, nor hedonism will have any power left. Now is the time for prayer.

Come, Lord Jesus.

An icon? This ponytailed monk will leave that image to others

Father Justin Sinaites has 'rock star' status as overseer of a Byzantine exhibition at the Getty Museum . He's eager to return home to Egypt .

By Martha Groves, Times Staff Writer
February 20, 2007

With his long black robes and salt-and-pepper beard and ponytail, Father Justin Sinaites hardly looks the part of rock star. But when the tall, lean monk walks through the exhibition of Byzantine icons and manuscripts on display through March 4 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, visitors descend on him like so many grown-up groupies.

"I recognized you from the video," said Heidi Singh, a Buddhist minister who rushed to Father Justin's side as he stood one recent morning before a 6th century icon of St. Peter. Later, a group of visitors crowded around him to ask about St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, Egypt, where he lives with 24 other Greek Orthodox monks and serves as librarian.

Call Father Justin the icon of the icons.

Because he speaks English and knows the exhibition's 43 icons, six manuscripts and four liturgical objects intimately, Father Justin was tapped as a "courier" to monitor their care on a rare trip outside their desert home, 8,000 miles away. So far, more than 171,000 people have toured the exhibition, "Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons From Sinai."

It is an unlikely role for a man who grew up in a Baptist household in Texas and came to Greek Orthodoxy as a college student. Like the icons themselves, Father Justin's path to St. Catherine's, at the foot of the mountain where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments, speaks of faith, humility and love.

Born in 1949, Father Justin grew up in El Paso with three siblings. While studying at the University of Texas in Austin , he became fascinated by history, first medieval and then Byzantine. He read voraciously about the early church and began attending the Greek Orthodox church in San Antonio (because Austin did not yet have one). He was drawn by the church's "continuity and the perfect balance of doctrines."

"The Orthodox church became the most important thing for me," Father Justin said in a recent interview at the Getty.

His parents "didn't understand anything about the Orthodox church," he said. "I tried to explain it to them, but that only made them more confused."

He graduated in 1971 with majors in English and history. While continuing to study Orthodox history and theology, he marked time by building traditional pipe organs in Austin and then counseling delinquent boys in Houston .

On Lazarus Saturday (a celebration of Christ's raising of Lazarus from the dead, held on the day before Palm Sunday) in 1974, his 25th birthday, he entered the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline , Mass. , as a novice.

In 1978, Father Justin spent two days at the Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai — known more familiarly as the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai (still a mouthful), or, simply, St. Catherine's Monastery.

"I had already read a tremendous amount and had a tremendous love for the place," Father Justin said, adding that he had known since before he became a novice that it was the place he wanted to be. But in 1978 it was out of the question for an American to join the monks' community there.

On a pilgrimage in 1995, Father Justin again spent two days at the monastery. After living for more than 20 years in the Brookline monastery, Father Justin knew the Greek language and the monks' way of life.

By then, Damianos, archbishop of Sinai, and the Holy Council of the Fathers were willing to make an exception to the general rule that St. Catherine's monks had to be of Greek descent. In February 1996, Father Justin moved to Sinai, where he was greeted by almond trees bursting into bloom, an auspicious sign. He immediately felt at home.

"Sinai is such an astonishing place," he said. "The continuity that first attracted me [to Greek Orthodoxy] is something you experience to an intense degree at Sinai."

Sinai is not the most hospitable of environments. Blisteringly hot in summer, numbingly cold in winter, the peninsula retains much of the wildness that the ancient Israelites beheld after Moses led them out of Egypt and across the parted Red Sea . Today the area is home to Bedouins and few others.

A typical day at the monastery for Father Justin and the other monks starts with a service from 4 to 7:30 am. There is another service at noon and vespers at 4 p.m. The monks dine together, do chores and study.

Once an enigmatic place at the edge of the world, reachable only by dirt roads, St. Catherine's, for better or worse, has seen the modern world move much closer. Nearby luxury hotels accommodate tourists, many of whom — sometimes 1,000 a day — find the paved road that now leads most of the way to St. Catherine's. (Among the visitors in 1998 were Father Justin's parents, who, he said, "were impressed and became at ease with my being there.")

An American businessman set up a computer and modem and introduced e-mail to the ancient fortress, built in the 6th century by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian.

The technology "has caused the whole world to shrink," Father Justin said. "Many feel the end of isolation at Sinai is a great tragedy. But the archbishop believes that people need to experience the ancient traditions."

Months ago, an e-mail request from a young man in Southern California prompted Father Justin to carry with him to Los Angeles leaves he had cut from the plant that purportedly is the "burning bush" where Moses heard the voice of God, as described in the book of Exodus. The man's friend, John Valadez, accepted the leaves after Father Justin's recent lecture at the Getty. "It was a wonderful blessing," Valadez said.

For years, the monastery's thick walls and remote location protected the monks and the precious icons, candlesticks and ancient vestments. The arid climate also helped.

Father Justin praised the Getty's care in constructing airtight shipping crates for the fragile objects, most of which had never left Sinai — where, he said, the maximum humidity is 30%, about as low as a museum could maintain. To avoid exposure to excessive humidity, each object was unloaded and installed, under Father Justin's watchful eye, in a quick 15 minutes.

Father Justin and a colleague, Father Porphyrios, typically spend their days in Los Angeles shuttling between a Getty-owned apartment in Brentwood and the hilltop Getty, where Father Justin spends hours doing research in the library. He has also visited the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens and given lectures, using a Mac laptop, at the Getty and elsewhere about the icons and manuscripts and the effort he is leading to digitally photograph the manuscript collection.

Father Justin has also seen a sister and plans to visit his parents later this month.

On Sundays when he's not traveling, he and Father Porphyrios assist with services at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral on South Normandie Avenue.

Father John Bakas, the dean of St. Sophia, will join Father Justin and Father Porphyrios and other Orthodox clergy on Saturday evening for a highly unusual service celebrating the restoration of the icons at the Getty.

The clergy will then lead a procession through the gallery, observing icons that survived what is known as iconoclasm, a period in the 8th century when many icons were destroyed.

Father John said he has been impressed by Father Justin's devotion.

"You don't think of El Paso , Texas , being the home of ascetic Sinai monks," he said. "He's a very humble, understated individual who typifies the ancient model of the ascetic desert father."

Father Justin appears eager for the "rock star" days to end so that he can return to Sinai.

"Some people think coming here would be a break, and it is," he said. "But there are different responsibilities. You look forward to going back because that's where your spiritual center is."