Taize - one year after

Remembering Taize

A year ago, 5 Middkids undertook a bold adventure; they decided to go to Taize, a small village in the South East France, close to the city of Lyon. Said and done. From Ireland, France, and Spain, we all went to...Taize. It was the last weekend in October, when Taize gets filled with young high-school kids from all over France. It was a journey by the end of which each of us had faced challenges and found the vastness of the divine dimension...and how sometimes answer come at a later date. Or, we become more mature and are able to understand the meaning of our experiences and encounters with God later in life.


What is Taize, after all? It is...a place where those in search for a meaning of this life can find refuge in prayer. Simply put. But Taize is so much more, it is a hallmark of freedom, tolerance and inclusiveness. And what makes Taize are the millions of people that go summer after summer, autumn after autumn, spring after spring. People come from all corners of the world, speaking a variety of languages and yet they understand each other in the language of prayer.

Taize means so much to me. And note that I have not included "winter after winter" in the above paragraph. In winter, Taize goes to the people, instead. Each December a European meeting takes place, in cities such as Warsaw, Barcelona, Budapest, Paris, Hamburg, Lisbon, Milan, etc. I have attended three of the above, and two summer meetings in the past. Coming back to Taize in the fall of 2005, especially in the extraordinary circumstance of not having my church group from Bucharest with me posed a new challenge and a liberation. On the surface, Taize was the same. Actually not. Taize will never be the same without its founder, brother Roger. For those who have met him, have listened to his quiet and bland voice read the Scriptures, for those who have been blessed by him, we will always miss him. [Brother Roger of Taize passed away in August 2005; he was the victim of a Romanian deranged woman who stabbed him in the middle of a group prayer, in the main church.] His fate was so cruel, and we Romanians have mourned him greatly. In the aftermath of the collapse of the Communist regime, it was brother Roger who came to Romania and initiated talks with priests from churches St. Silvestru and Stavropoleos in Bucharest, aimed at organizing pilgrimages for young Romanians. He opened a door for us, despite the fact we were a minority of Orthodox people among Catholics and Protestans found in Taize at the time. To this day, Romanians continue to be the sole major Orthodox people going to Taize.









Brother Roger



Below is a passage I found on the Taize website: www.taize.fr
"Romanian Orthodox in Taizé

A “bridge” between East and West

Once again this summer (2006, n.a.), hundreds of young people from Romania spent a week in Taizé.
The great diversity of the inhabitants of that country was visible: Orthodox, Latin and Eastern-rite Catholics, Reformed Christians, Hungarians from Transylvania…
Most of the population of Romania is Orthodox and that is visible in Taizé. The Romanians are the only Orthodox who speak a Romance language. They feel that they have the responsibility of being a “bridge” between East and West. Once or twice a week, the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom was celebrated in Romanian, in the small village church. The liturgy is at the heart of their life of faith: for two hours everything stops, as if heaven touched earth. The life of the women and men of our time is presented to God, with their cares and their sorrows, and people leave “bearing peace”. The Byzantine tradition is rich and beautiful. Some young people say that in Taizé, paradoxically, they were able to begin to rediscover the beauty of the treasure which is theirs and to have the desire to go deeper, to go to the source of this life and this joy present at the heart of the praise of God’s people. We have recorded the testimonies of three young people from Bucharest.
"In general, people in Taizé do not know that the great majority of the Romanian people are Orthodox. But very quickly, we realize that barriers between denominations fall, and what matters is that we are all Christians."
http://www.taize.fr/en_article3983.html
Iulia

Great Martyr Demetrius, the Myrrh-gusher

Saint Demetrius was a Christian martyr who lived in the 4th century. His father, a proconsul of Thessaloniki, secretly embraced the Christian faith, and also raised his son in the faith in God. However, early legends about Demetrius credit him with a military career in the Roman Army. Therefore, he is sometimes also called a military martyr, and depicted wearing an armor.
Later in his life, Saint Demetrius was appointed by Emperor Maximian as a proconsul of Thessaloniki, and was ordered to eradicate all the Christians within the walls of the city. Saint Demetrius responded by proclaiming his faith, thus enraging the emperor, who was a Christian prosecutor. He was imprisoned and then killed by the soldiers of the emperor who ran him through with lances, on October 26. It is said that the first lance crossed his right rib, just like as happened with Jesus Christ on the cross.

Saint Demetrius's relics are found in his dedicated church in Thessaloniki, Greece. On the left there is a fresco of Saint Demetrius.

Popular beliefs: people believe that the day of Saint Demetrius will show how the entire winter will be. A cold day meant a winter rich in snow and good for crops, while a warm day meant that the fall will be long and beautiful.

Romanians also celebrate Saint Demetrius the New (Dimitrie cel Nou) of Basarabi on October 27; the holy relics of this saint are found at the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest. This time of the year there is a pilgrimage in which believers from all the country partake, and it can last up to three days.

For more information, please visit www.oca.org/CALindex.asp?SID=22

Welcome!

The pictures above were taken with the occasion of the COA trip to a Coptic Orthodox service in South Burlington, in October 2004.






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