#Suicide in the Orthodox Church

[love-promethea]

and when the guilt consumes you, what will you hold onto

[traumacatholic]

Whenever I try to return to this blog, I always tell myself “Okay, I’ll start making X,Y,Z content” and then…life happens. I had to make the decision to put the cat that I’ve had since I was like 9/10 years old down - there was no way for her to win the battle with cancer that she had. And I didn’t want to let her down by keeping her alive for my own sake while she was getting into more and more pain. Then in January, I had to put my other cat to sleep. My gran’s dementia is continuing to worsen and I’m in a position where I am struggling to access any kind of resources for her - here resources are a postcode lottery, and we do not live in an area with many options. Options further afield are also not options because everything here works in catchment areas and I cannot drive to transport her elsewhere anyways. We’re currently on the waiting list for a Care Needs Assessment to see what kind of support the Council can offer us. The responsibilities of being a full time carer on top of my own disabilities are tough to say the least. I currently have no ability to earn money outside of my disability payments because there’s nothing I can currently do outside of caring for my gran.

I have not been to Church in some months. I do pray sometimes, but for other people. I can’t remember the last time I prayed for myself. On Monday, I am going to be phoning the doctor and asking to get put back on antidepressants because my suicidal thoughts have been overwhelming me. I have been considering reaching out to a Priest - of any kind, and I just. I’m scared of rejection I guess. I’m just feeling very lost. I do not know if I believe in God, or rather, I do not know if I believe in my ability to practice faith. It has always felt like so many barriers get in the way. I do not know what I believe. I feel as equally sick and anxious about Orthodoxy as I do Catholicism. I guess there is a part of me that wants to return to being faithful, in some way. And equally as much of me is just so exhausted by the situation that I am currently stuck in. Sometimes faith felt like a comfort to me, but more often that not, it just felt like banging desperately against a wall and hoping Someone would hear me.

Back when I was couchsurfing in a place where I could attend an Orthodox Church, sometimes I would drag myself out of bed even though I had spent the night miserable and suicidal and then I would get told off in Church for sitting down during parts of the Liturgy due to exhaustion or for forgetting my veil. Every time I tried to pursue actual Catechism other things got in the way. But this is not unique to Orthodoxy, because I had similar experiences in Catholicism of feeling isolated and dismissed.

I don’t really know what I’m asking for at this point. I’m just really in need of prayers, maybe. I don't know. Everything going on and that has went on is just a lot. I’m sorry that I always come on here to be such a bother to other people.

[whencyclopedia]

Cathars

The Cathars (also known as Cathari from the Greek Katharoi for “pure ones”) were a dualist medieval religious sect of Southern France which flourished in the 12th century and challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. They were also known as Albigensians for the town of Albi, which was a strong Cathar center of belief.

Cathar priests lived simply, had no possessions, imposed no taxes or penalties, and regarded men and women as equals; aspects of the faith which appealed to many at the time disillusioned with the Church. Cathar beliefs ultimately derived from the Persian religion of Manichaeism but directly from another earlier religious sect from Bulgaria known as the Bogomils who blended Manichaeism with Christianity.

Cathars believed that Satan had tricked a number of angels into falling from heaven and then encased them in bodies. The purpose of life was to renounce the pleasures and enticements of the world and, through repeated incarnations, make one's way back to heaven. To this end, the Cathars observed a strict hierarchy:

Perfecti – those who had renounced the world, the priests and bishops

Credentes – believers who still interacted with the world but worked toward renunciation

Sympathizers – non-believers who aided and supported Cathar communities

Cathars rejected the teachings of the Catholic Church as immoral and most of the books of the Bible as inspired by Satan. They rejected the Church for what they saw as hypocrisy of the clergy and the Church's acquisition of land and wealth. The Church responded by condemning the Cathars as heretical and they were massacred in the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) which also devastated the towns, cities, and culture of southern France.

Origins & Beliefs

Almost everything known about the Cathars comes from confessions of “heretics” taken by Catholic clergy during the inquisition which followed the Albigensian Crusade. The belief structure can easily be traced back to Manichaeism which traveled via the Silk Road from the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East to Europe where it became entwined, under certain circumstances, with Christian belief and symbolism.

The orthodox view of the Catholic Church was that there was one God with three aspects – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – but this orthodoxy was not part of the vision of early Christianity and was not generally accepted until after the Council of Nicaea in 325 (convened by Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome) ruled in favor of it. Even then, the Nicaean interpretation of Christianity vied with others for centuries. The so-called heretical movements of the Middle Ages such as the Bogomils, the Cathars, and the Waldensians were simply the latest challenges to the Church, but they were significant because they were the first to set themselves up as a legitimate alternative to Catholicism in any form.

Cathar beliefs included:

Recognition of the feminine principle in the divine – God was both male and female. The female aspect of God was Sophia, “wisdom”). This belief encouraged equality of the sexes in Cathar communities.

Metempsychosis (Reincarnation) – a soul would be continually reborn until it renounced the world completely and escaped incarnation.

Cosmic Duality – the existence of two powerful deities in the universe, one good and one evil, who were in a constant state of war. The purpose of life was to serve the good by serving others and escape from the cycle of rebirth and death to return home to God.

Vegetarianism - though eating fish was allowed to credentes and sympathizers.

Celibacy for perfecti – celibacy was also encouraged generally since it was thought that every person born was just another soul trapped by the devil in a body. Marriage overall was discouraged.

The dignity of manual labor – the Cathars all worked, priests as well as laypeople, many as weavers.

Suicide (known as the ritual of endura) as a rational and dignified response under certain conditions.

Earlier heresies such as Arianism, while still condemned, at least adhered to the same essential dogma of the Church; the Cathars rejected and repudiated every aspect of the Church, including most of the books of the Bible. Scholar Malcolm Barber notes:

They believed that the devil was the author of the Old Testament except these books: Job, the Psalms, the books of Solomon , of Isaiah, Ezekiel, David, and of the twelve prophets. (93)

Continue reading...

[tiramisuwithmascarpone]

Hello! I'm a 15-year-old devotee of both Lord Hermes and Lady Aphrodite who is raised in an extremely Orthodox Christian household, and I would like to share my story with you ⋆˚ʚɞ

Hi! for safety reasons I will not use the name I usually use online for this account, but you can call me Jellyfish. I live in Eastern Europe, more exactly Romania, a country whose population is 98% devoted to Christianity at the time of speaking. My mother is a perfect example. She wholeheartedly believes in God, I grew up with pictures of him and the Holy Mary all over the walls, which I wouldn't escape even at my grandparent's houses. My house always smelled of myrrh, I would carry a picture of God everywhere I went, I would pray to him before bed, go to church on every holiday, but I never felt fulfilled or connected to him in any way. I didn't truly know what I believed in. My mother was telling me all about how should I praise God, but I don't think I ever did it because I wanted to or felt connected to what she was telling me or felt like it was the life I wanted to live. When she would fight with my father, even now, she would threaten that she would run away to a monastery and become a nun. She thinks you cannot change your religion and you can not be Christian if you were born with Christian parents and raised in that environment. I did not have faith in God because I wanted to and felt connected to his message and wanted to worship his divine being, I did it because my mother felt that way. And that destroyed me.

As I grew older, I started believing less and less in God. I was struggling with going through teenagehood, fighting my own inner battles, and dealing with friendship that slowly felt like they were taking away my lifespan, and it wasn't just that I didn't have faith in a divine being (which is completely alright. Please do not believe this monologue is Anti-Christian, I believe everyone is allowed to believe and worship the one who they feel most connected and inclined towards.) I didn't have faith in anything anymore. When my brother reached 15, he hated my parents for their beliefs. I will not get much I detail since his story is not mine to tell, but he had battled with alcohol and substance abuse. And I was his only shoulder for him and my parents to lean and cry on. My mother told me to pray for our family, she would pray to god every day, light up myrrh, take me to churches, and I would feel miserable. I felt like an imposter in that church. I truly wanted to have faith in a god, anyone, but I felt like my only choice was God since that's what my mother taught me. Both my parents trust God so I cannot be different, can I?

How foolish I was. I can only look back to my past self and wish to embrace and hold her till she cries all her sorrow out. She was so confused.

Back in 2022, I had first heard of Aphrodite. My brother was sent to a mental hospital for his substance abuse when they caught him on the verge of overdosing. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder after a suicide attempt, autism and ADHD, but my father (who already couldn't accept the fact that my brother has ADHD) fought with them saying they ,,don't know me well enough" and,,there's nothing wrong with me". And he's right, there's nothing wrong with me. Not even If I am neurodivergent. I was at my lowest, I felt disgusting, I fought with my parents and was their therapist every single day, I stopped going to school, I was a mess. But, I was heavily active on social media because I had tons of online friends. While scrolling on tiktok, I found a video of an Aphrodite devotee. My interest was piqued. I heard about Greek Mythology before but never actually researched it. I liked the video and commented, talking about how gorgeous their faith sounds, and that's when it all started. I started getting more info about Aphrodite, the swans swum by me every time I would go to the lake with my family so we could ,,get some fresh air". I started getting lots of pins on Pinterest with her. I always had a desire for water and the beach was my safe place, where I felt fulfilled and free from all I'm feeling. I had a Dove make itself a nest on a tree next to the window of my classroom which I would always sit by while having lunch (on the rare occasions I would drop by to school). I started researching more about Lady Aphrodite, loving her story, beliefs, ways of worshipping, how it felt like silence was washing over me when I would make a non-physical offering to her. Her tales. The way it felt like she was always there to give me a warm hug and squeeze me while I was crying. I also felt a boost in my confidence! I started loving my features, taking care of myself again, etc. It wasn't always just sun and rainbows, I would still have breakdowns and wish it would all just end and all that, but it was more bearable with her. She made my life more bearable. I love, worship, and adore Lady Aphrodite for that. I worshipped her till this year when I officially felt strong enough to devote myself to her.

This year, actually, I started noticing my strong connection to Hermes. I was always attracted to the kind-hearted, mischievous, kind-hearted, highly intelligent and funny thieves. I always idolized them and wished to be like them. That's how I feel about Lord Hermes. I feel like he was reaching out to me all my life. Everything he is associated with I had an inexplicable obsession with for pretty much all my life. Turtles, golden or silver, travel, learning new languages, astronomy, astrology, everything you could think of. I have been devoted to him since last month, that's when I officially started labeling myself as a Hellenic Pagan, but I am still a beginner, and I need to hide all of this from my mother since I am afraid of what she would do if she were to find out I have another belief since she reacted super badly back when I was an atheist :( I set up the first altar for Lady Aphrodite, and the second one for Lord Hermes. I always had been an artistic soul and loved making my room all pretty randomly so I told my mother this is one of those cases and she believed it. She does not know english and is not at all cultured about any beliefs besides Christians, Muslims, and Jews. They are both hidden in my closet. I feel very bad for not being able to make them a bigger and more obvious altar, I hope I'll have that chance when I move out from my parent's house..

I wanted to ask if Lord Hermes would be mad if my mom kept setting random things on his altar? she even put a picture of the Holy Mary. I moved it to the other side of the closet and made a DIY necklace for him out of orange garnet or beads to apologize to him, and he didn't seem mad, but I'm not sure...I sketched drawings of both of them and rested them on their altars. Everything you see are either offerings I heard they may like or things that reminded me of them! the little notebook on Hermes's altar is specifically made for learning new languages and thought he would enjoy it. Do you guys think any of my offerings are disrespectful? or should be removed? I'm open to any advice! Thank you for listening to my story <3

[techramonic]

Orthodox Gymnasium bombing 2021, Vladislav Struzhenkov.

Russia has seen a rise in attacks on schools in recent years but incidents at religious premises are rare. In October 2018, 18 year-old Vladislav Roslyakov killed 20 people and injured 70 at Kerch polytechnical college in Crimea. In September 2021, 18 year-old law student Timur Bekmansurov killed 6 people and injured 147 others in Perm State University. In May of 2021, a 19-year-old Ilnaz Galyaviev killed 9 people and injured 23 at Kazan school, Tatarstan.

Vladislav Struzhenkov was an 18-year-old graduate and former student of the Orthodox Gymnasium. Vlad was sentenced to 13 years in prison after detonating an IED bomb in the educational facility beside a monastery in Serpukhov, outside Moscow, Russia in December, 2021.

At 08:24 a.m, Vlad entered the premises and attempted to detonate an explosive device. The bomb went off at 08:26 a.m. local time, near the entrance of a school located on the grounds of the 14th-century Vladychny Convent. Several teenagers were injured in the blast. Vlad, who had attempted to blow himself up, wounded ten others, including himself. He was taken to the intensive care unit with traumatic injuries and had to have his leg amputated. While conscious, he informed investigators that he had been planning the attack for three months. It is suspected that he may have had an accomplice who assisted in preparing the explosive device.

ABUSE AND BULLYING

According to the teenager, the religious Orthodox school was considered to be abusive. State news agency TASS, citing a police source, reported that the teenager intended for the device to detonate during morning prayers, but it exploded at the school entrance instead. Authorities are working to determine the motives behind the attack.

However, according to the Interfax news agency, the teenager may have sought revenge for being bullied by nuns at the convent. Vladimir Legoida, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, stated that the church will provide assistance to "all those affected". "Such attacks, wherever they occur, cause the same grief and a strong desire to prevent them in the future," he said in a statement on Telegram.

Since President Vladimir Putin's election, the Russian church has increased its influence over traditionally secular institutions like schools. Introducing more religious lessons and clerics advocating for conservative textbooks.

VERDICT

Commenting on the verdict, a source in the Russian Church told RIA-Novosti: 

"The act committed by Struzhenkov, of course, meets the criteria of a terrorist act, so the punishment is fitting. At the same time, of course, we’d like him to have the opportunity to repent of this crime, and we hope that the prison priests, as far as possible, will be able to help him in this. He’s a young man, and despite the severity of the crime he committed, we believe his life isn’t over, and his fate is better than that of those who committed suicide during such attacks or were eliminated by law enforcement agencies."

Vlad was sentenced 13 years in prison. It is also to note that Vlad's parents also said that recently their son was seen by a psychologist and drank antidepressants before the incident.

picture of vladislav's cane, the words written, "when you know nothing matters the universe is your's :)".

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

Artnet: Saint Sebastian, The Gay Icon

Saint Sebastian by Guido Reni (left) and El Greco (right).

Despite Saint Sebastian’s popularity in art history, the details of his life are sparingly few. Saint Sebastian is venerated as an early Christian martyr and a saint by the Catholic and Orthodox churches and, according to fifth-century hagiography, during the Diocletian Persecution of Christians Sebastian, a member of the Praetorian Guard, was sentenced to death by the reining pagan Emperor Diocletian for espousing the teachings of Christianity.

He was tied to a tree and soldiers shot him with arrows, but according to Christian lore, Saint Sebastian miraculously survived, having been rescued and healed by Saint Irene of Rome. This scene of affliction and survival would become a popular artistic theme as early as medieval times, only growing more common in 16th- and 17th-century European painting.

Sebastian’s actual martyrdom, however, came after this initial assault. Having recovered, the saint attempted to confront the Diocletian face-to-face about his persecution of Christians. Guards clubbed the saint to death and his body was dumped into a sewer, only to be later recovered by Saint Lucy and buried in a Roman catacomb, where his remains are still today enshrined at the Basilica of St. Sebastian Outside the Walls.

Throughout the centuries, Saint Sebastian’s myth and legacy have shifted with cultural interests. During medieval times, Saint Sebastian was embraced as a patron of divine protection and culturally aligned with the god Apollo, resulting in the saint’s depiction as a beautiful and youthful young man (though often clad in armor, in keeping with his life as a soldier). With the emergence of the Black Death, however, his likeness shifted to one of a grizzled older man, more aligned with his historical age. His popularity as a protective intercessor against disease grew, however, and with it, his return to youthful attractiveness.

By the dawn of the Renaissance, artists were emulating prototypes of masculinity associated with the Greek world, and Saint Sebastian transformed into a figure of ephebic beauty—adolescent, lithe, idealized in form, and often covered only by a loin cloth. These images showed the saint, not in his actual moment of martyrdom, but in a more poetic moment of torture by arrows. Indeed, these Renaissance and Baroque depictions are rooted in the Catholic teachings about the permeability of saints’ bodies and the ecstasy experienced in their communion with the divine. 

In the modern era, the popularization of Saint Sebastian as an icon in the gay community often leads back to Guido Reni’s Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (c. 1615) arguably the most famous depiction of the saint. Oscar Wilde was known to have adored the work, which is in the collection of the Palazzo Rosso, in Genoa. In fact, Wilde went so far as to adopt the pen name Sebastian while exiled in Paris during the last years of his life.

Yukio Mishima (left) and Sebastien Moura (right) as Saint Sebastian.

Reni’s painting was similarly influential to the famed 20th-century Japanese author Yukio Mishima; in Mishima’s 1949 novel Confessions of a Mask, the book’s adolescent protagonist experiences a homosexual awakening while gazing at the very same painting. The references to the saint didn’t end there—Mishima, who was himself gay, went so far as to pose as Saint Sebastian in a now-infamous photographic portrait, taken not long before the writer’s death by suicide in 1970.

In the visual arts, too, these allusions to the saint have cropped up repeatedly throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. In the 1970s, Italian artist Luigi Ontani staged a provocative photograph of Saint Sebastian as a gay icon. In the 1976 film Sebastiane, filmmaker Derek Jarman engaged with the narrative of the saint to explore ties between sexual and spiritual ecstasy, through a specifically homoerotic lens. 

But what about these depictions of Saint Sebastian so resonated with the likes of Wilde and Mishima? Many observers, including Susan Sontag, have noted that Sebastian doesn’t yell out in anguish amid his wounding but endures the torment with an expression caught between pain and pleasure. Sontag called him the “exemplary sufferer.” His head is often flung back or forward rapturously. He conceals the depth of his emotions, experiencing both torments and pleasures privately, a feeling similar to the experience of gay identity for many men in the 20th century (and often to this day).

Others have interpreted the arrows piercing the saint’s body as phallic allusions and disguised references to homosexual sex, while his rope-tied hands can be seen through the lens of sadomasochism. Perhaps most concretely, the story of Saint Sebastian paralleled the experiences and fears of the closeted gay community—when Sebastian’s concealed true (Christian) identity was revealed, he was shunned, tormented, and killed by those in power, a harrowing tale that mirrored the gay experiences of being “outed” throughout modern history.

(Full article)

[guiltywisdom]

I have a potentially dumb question. I'm thinking of converting to Orthodoxy, but I often help my neighbors out with things because they're both elderly and one is disabled. This includes helping chop firewood and bring it in, shovel snow, and help put up decorations for their pagan holidays. It just doesn't sit right with me that their kids can't be bothered to help, that these two lovely people seem ignored by the world because of their age and lack of income (society just tosses people aside when they're used up, it's disgusting) and in rural Montana, where we live, depression and suicide run rampant. A part of me worries about them hitting dangerous levels of despair if I didn't swing by and help out periodically. I don't know how Orthodox people would feel about my helping them decorate? If someone's gotta get up on the ladder and put something up, I'd rather it be me than an elderly person who'll have much worse injuries if they fall. But I know my old church would've been besides themselves at the sight of me doing this because omg, idolatry! evil! paganism! And certainly I don't think it's wrong to be uncomfortable with the paganism itself. There are a lot of Neo Nazi pagans out there. But these two aren't that, and they're nice people. I don't want to have to stop helping them out just because they're not Christian. Will this be a problem as I convert?

Some would disagree with me but I don't think it's in anyway a bad thing to do. Of course there are "nice pagans" just as their are awful Christians. The most important thing is not really about worrying who people worship but how they express their faith. Your love of God compells you to care for your neighbours and whatever their pagan beliefs are their faith, it is special to them just as yours is to you. So share cultures, share holidays, be tolerant and loving. You aren't praying to their gods, so don't see this as helping someone worship but rather see it as only helping your neighbours; that is the right thing to do.

Saint Maria of Paris said, "The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked."

[apesoformythoughts]

"On the one hand, [Pope Francis'] official teachings in magisterial documents have all been capable of orthodox interpretations, despite what his putatively traditionalist detractors may claim [...]

On the other hand, in his actions governing the Church, we see a decided privileging of personnel and policies that run directly contrary to those same teachings of the Church that the pope has upheld.

For example, on just the issue of homosexuality and despite his magisterial teachings on the topic, he went out of his way to promote priests, bishops, and even cardinals who have publicly dissented from Church teaching on that issue [...]

Actions speak louder than words. What the actions of Pope Francis indicate to me is a pope who wanted to change the Church in controversial ways, but to do so in a manner that did not rip the Church apart. Therefore, what he could not accomplish via papal fiat without creating a schism, he decided to pursue via a kind of ecclesial drift, but a drift that was engineered to go in the desired direction.

We see evidence of this preference for directed drift in the fact that Pope Francis, though a proponent of the “theology of the people” (and, therefore, was a bit of an ecclesial “populist”), nevertheless strongly opposed right-wing populism, in both secular politics and the Church. Therefore, when he said of the Church that “everyone is welcome” (Todos! Todos!), we must remember that his actions toward Catholics who espoused traditional moral theology and liturgy betrayed a decided slant in just who this “todos” included [...]

In my view, Pope Francis was not a heretic as his most fevered critics claim. But with all due respect for him and with sincere filial love for his soul, which I pray is with our Lord, his pastoral strategy was a recipe for institutional suicide. And that is something, perhaps, that is worse than heresy."

— Larry Chapp: “The disconnect between papal words and papal actions”

[pumpkinfreak]

Rambling about Horror, Human Suffering, and Religious Fundamentalism

The scene is this.

A woman is tied to a bed, her body is damp and sticky with sweat. The skin of her wrist and ankles is raw from thrashing against her binding. Candles cast shadows across the room.

A priest stands over her reciting prayers to cast out the demon that is destroying her body from the inside out. Can this man of god save her, or will she be devoured by darkness.

-but what if we replace the demon with something more grounded. OCD, grief, depression, anxiety, addiction. Well that is different.

Not all sectors of Christianity believe in exorcism. The particular flavor of faith I grew up in disavowed modern stories of possession, they believed in prayer, therapy, and medication. It’s not all bad right. No.

In Christian fundamentalist anxiety is worrying, worrying is a sin. Depression is despair, despair is a sin. Suicidal ideation is a sin. Addiction is a lack of self control that’s a sin too. If one comes to their church leaders or fellow believers, more often than not, it’ll be the thing they bring up before anything else.

“ Well that’s a sin.”

“ you need to have faith in god.”

“ Death by suicide sends you to Hell.”

The real horror is the complete brushing away of human suffering. Because suffering is godly, but only under specific circumstances. Everything else is a personal failing.

Huesera: The Bone Woman is a film about Valeria. A woman who is about to become a mother. The first scene if of her standing before a statue of Marry. Valeria’s own mother prays over her to bless her with a healthy child.

Except Val doesn’t want to be a mother, in fact it is her greatest fear. Now it’s not a religious horror but the undercurrent of religious expectations are there. Mother hood is scared, children are a blessing, and any psychosis that occurs before or after?

Well, you need to pray about that.

So what happens when someone is driven away from their faith because of their suffering? They need to be brought back into the fold as soon as possible.

The Vigil is a film about a young Jewish man who has left the Orthodox community due to PTSD. So, his friend still in the faith prods at him. He tries to goad him into coming to the Temple, to sit down and a talk, to just please keep vigil over the body of a recently deceased community member.

His friend has to bribe him just to keep the vigil. While keeping watch he is tormented throughout the night be forces that want nothing more than to drive to the brink of insanity.

That’s what it’s like when faith no longer brings comfort but becomes a burden tied around your neck and the weight is your loved one’s.

“God never gives us challenge we can’t handle.” Until he does and when that happens it’s not his fault.

They want to believe that suffering has meaning and makes them stronger, better servants of a higher power. Reversely suffering is also a tool of The Enemy to drive you away from god so it must be overcome. They don’t realize that the priority of keeping the faith strong is not helping anyone. Shame and fear-mongering is not going to cure mental illness.

The real horror is faith and tradition over safety and compassion.

[apilgrimpassingby]

Update On Miriam

Once again, @cheerfullycatholic, @prolifeproliberty, @the-hour-of-our-deaths and @ave-immaculata, please reblog this.

The Good: Miriam is now back in her house.

The Bad: Her mum is threatening suicide, she's going to move out with her stepdad and the stepbrother who got her pregnant and she's urinating blood so she's either got a urinary tract infection or a miscarriage.

Please pray for all involved, for their safety and temporal and eternal salvation.

Jude Thaddeus, Dymphna, Blessed Virgin Mary, Joseph, please pray for us

The saint list has gotten shorter because I'm getting increasingly serious about converting to Orthodoxy, and so I'm limiting myself to ones recognised by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Of course, Catholics, feel free to add yours.

[godisarepublican]

Hey, you snot encrusted waste product, three times in the last week, THREE TIMES, the Ukrainians attempted a Weapon of Mass Destruction; a radiological bomb. THREE TIMES they attacked a Russian nuclear reactor with drones, trying to create a breach, render a huge swath of land uninhabitable, slowly murdering everyone exposed with cancer deaths from the radiation. THREE TIMES in the last week!

Here's an incredibly biased piece of anti Russian propaganda from a left wing "news" source. The Ukraine really is trying to spark a nuclear war, and Biden really is so incompetent and senile that he's letting them. <link>

Russia has long ago said that they will respond with nuclear weapons. Long ago. Long BEFORE the Ukraine just did this another THREE TIMES in the last week.

And we're paying for this? You think it's a good idea? You think it makes sense for the American people to spend money we don't even have so that election-cancelling fascists can spark a nuclear war with their terrorist attacks?

This is "Good" foreign policy to you?

You LIKE that Biden is doing this?

Trust me here, and I mean this with all my heart but, if the Ukraine isn't stopped, if they continue with the reckless even INSANE terrorism there will be a nuclear war and, after that, assuming you're alive, there will be nothing you wouldn't give up to roll back the clock and stop it from happening. Once the Ukraine gets the nuclear war started, there will be nothing you wouldn't do to get a second chance to stop them.

Once the Ukraine sparks the nuclear war, assuming you live, you're going to wish bigger than any wish you ever had in your life that you can go back in time and stop Biden's madness.

Our idiotic leaders made assurances, you can even call them "Guarantees" of the Ukraine's independence. But you know what they didn't do? As stupid as our so called "Leaders" are you know what they didn't get mixed up in?

We never made a suicide pact with the Ukraine.

We had an agreement, we made assurances but we didn't form a suicide pact, so any and all agreements were broken, rescinded starting with the very first terrorist attack by the Ukraine.

You have no right to risk nuclear war for another people's country, much less fascist who engage in terrorism.

AND WHAT'S WORSE:

You actually think you're superior for supporting this madness. You think this makes you better than me and everyone else who values the existence of civilization.

The Ukrainian war would be long over, if we had decent leaders who stopped paying for the war the moment the Ukrainians resorted to terrorism.

There was a fascist coup that overthrew the elected government of the Ukraine in 2013. Yes, your precious media will tell you that the fascists weren't fascist, or they all moved to Brazil starting the moment they won but, even the so called "Democratic" government in charge right now cancelled elections. And they're persecuting the Orthodox Church as thought criminals. And there was never a time when they weren't attacking the ethnic Russians of the western fringes and Crimea.

End this madness. And the only way to do that is to end the Biden administration. He simply can not and will not see his policies for the insanity that they are.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side B

Propaganda below ⬇️

Valery

tw unreality skip to eddie

His feet are washed in a scene very reminiscient of Saint Peter being washed by Jesus, his leitmotiv is stronger than ever in the scene in front of the church, and his whole arc is about forgiving those who sinned against him.

I'm pretty sure he's actually russian orthodox but rules say that's allowed. His conversation with Katya Jesus told them to turn his cheek literally made me cry ahhh greatest mafia movie of all time

Eddie (tw mentions of suicide)

He meets Venom (the alien goo parasite that inhabits his body) in a church. Eddie is depressed and about to end his life and just before he does it goes to church and prays to God to forgive him because suicide is… y’know, a sin. Anyway Venom possesses him and saves his life and they have a crazy relationship/love story and the stained glass window in that church becomes important symbolism for them <3 He is the most catholic man ever

Admittedly, most of Eddie's insanity has little to do with Catholicism, he's just a deranged weirdo (affectionate) but he was suicidal once and went to a church to ask forgiveness before killing himself. That's where he met the symbiote and their relationship has parallels to both marriage and religion.

Listen listen he is the epitome of Catholic trauma. He’s got the angst. The repression. The je ne sais quoi. His whole story is basically very dependant on churches if that makes any sense. Like he tried to kill himself in a church and that’s when he bonded with the symbiote. They stopped a symbiote invasion by fu̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ crying out in agony in a church. EDDIE AND VENOM GOT MARRIED IN CANON IN THE CHURCH WHERE THEY MET. He also has so many breakdowns in churches and we love that for him.

He meets Venom in a church and has a lot of religious moments connected to Venom. They also sort of get married in the church they met at? It's gay. Eddie is catholic and in a committed relationship with an alien and it's gay.

(Cw suicide mention) He's canonically Catholic and has such a funky (read: kinda fucked up) relationship with it. When his life fell apart he went to a church to pray for forgiveness for the sin of committing suicide and to ask God to kill spiderman i think but then before he could actually do anything an alien came down and connected with him (in a gay way) and he was like "are you an angel". Also his sense of morality is totally fucked, its like "if you've done something bad once you deserve to die" and I like to think that's related to the specific brand of Catholicism

killed a cop in church (amazing spider-man 1963 comic, issue 300), had a homoerotic rebonding moment with his symbiote in church (venom: planet of the symbiotes comic), asked jesus to carry out a hit on former coworker peter parker (spider-man 3 movie)

more here

[stephensmithuk]

The Retired Colourman

Published in 1926, this was placed last in the Case-book compilation, although it was not the last Holmes story Doyle published. That is "Shoscombe Old Place", which we have yet to cover.

A colourman is someone who makes and sell paint. The term is very little used these days.

Lewisham is a London suburb located six miles from Charing Cross; it had transferred from Kent to London in the 1889 creation of the London County Council and today forms its own London Borough.

The Coptic Pope at the time was Cyril V, who reigned from 1874 to 1927, the longest serving head of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The Theatre Royal Haymarket was opened in 1720 and remains in use today as a theatre. It's currently running a production of Noises Off and next year will play host to The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is going to see Sarah Snook play all 26 roles.

Blackheath is a suburban station today served by electric trains operated by Southeastern from Victoria, Charing Cross and Cannon Street.

Lothario dates back to Don Quixote as a name, but its use for a serial seducer of women comes from the 1703 Nicholas Rowe play The Fair Penitent.

Crockford's Clerical Directory is a book listing clergy in the UK and Ireland.

Little Purlington is fictitous, but Frinton is real. Now Frinton-on-Sea, it is located on the Essex coast and by 1927 was attracting regular high society visitors. Former residents of note include Deborah Watling, who played Victoria Waterfield in Doctor Who. Due to its reputation as a place to retire to, it became the subject of a common joke "Harwich for the Continent, Frinton for the incontinent", the former being an LNER advertising slogan. Probably not a good idea to make that gag locally though.

Third Class trains had originally been ones with wooden seating, but by this time, Second Class had been abolished and the former passengers were now generally in upholstered carriages. Third Class became Second Class in 1956 on British Railways and is now Standard Class.

I have been unable to find when cyanide pills became a thing. Doing a search for them gives you the number of a suicide prevention line first, which is quite reasonable.

Broadmoor is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, completed in 1863. Notable patients have included Ronald 'Ronnie' Kray, 'Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe and Edward Oxford, a barman who tried to kill Queen Victoria. Until 2018, it maintained sirens to be used in case of an escape.

[rins-diary-entries]

Diary Entry #3 - November 10th, 2024

Day rating: 5/10

I managed to take a shower in the morning, I washed my hair, face and brushed my teeth. I'm proud.

Today we had family photos though. Honestly it was kinda okay. I'm very tired of my family. Then right after we had to go to my great uncle's parastas which is this Romanian Orthodox memorial thing. But then traffic was bad so we missed the ceremony and my mom was super upset.

The people at that church are really racist, and since I'm half Chinese they really dislike me and my family.

Finally though, we could leave and now I'm home doing math class. I feel stupid.

My friends are calling and even the thought of talking to them makes me feel suicidal so that's nice.

Monday is Remembrance day and at my school we have a really big ceremony because a lot of our students died in the war.

Tuesday I have an orthodontist appointment and I'm very stressed about it.

Wednesday is my school's awards shows and I know I'm not winning anything so love that for me.

Thursday we have a casual day which is nice I guess, and Friday I have no school.

I'm feeling really tired and like, empty I guess. But I don't know my emotions are all over the place at this point.

It's only 2:50 pm as I finish this so maybe I'll add more later in the day.

[brookston]

Holidays 10.22

Holidays

Apple Day (French Republic)

Chulalongkorn Day observed (Thailand)

Clean Up the Earth Day

Dassain (Bhutan)

Feast of Fools

Fechner Day (Psychophysicists)

Festival of the House of Mercy

Gormanudr (Start of Innards Month; Iceland)

Half-Earth Day

Highway Beautification Day

iPod Day

INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY (also 6.28)

International Day of Oscillation

International Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Awareness Day

International Stuttering Awareness Day

Kof Awareness Day

National Anna Day

National Barber’s Day

National Color Day

National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression & Criminalization of a Generation

National Diego Day

National Knee Day

National Kristopher NaJee Roebuck Day

National Lauren Day

National Love Your Melon Day

National Make a Dog’s Day

National Ruger Day

National Santri Day (Indonesia)

National Scar Appreciation Day

National Suicide Mouse Day

National Teen Arrive Alive Day

National Transfer Student Day

Parachute Day

Peniamina Gospel Day (Niue)

Post Polio Syndrome Day (UK)

Smart is Cool Day

Toastmasters Day

Ventiane (Boat Racing Festival; Laos)

Wombat Day (Australia)

World Energy Day

World Phage Day

World Planting Day

World’s End Day (Millers)

World Uveitis Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Austrian Sekt (Sparkling Wine) Day

Eat a Pretzel Day

National Nut Day

National Tavern-Style Pizza Day

National Tex Mex Day

Independence & Related Days

Laos (from France, 1953)

Russian Empire (Declared, 1721)

4th Tuesday in October

Bruery's Black Tuesday Release Day [4th Tuesday]

Information Overload Awareness Day [4th Tuesday]

Pink Tuesday [Tuesday of Last Full Week]

Taco Tuesday [Every Tuesday]

Target Tuesday [Every Tuesday]

Tater Tot Tuesday [Every Tuesday]

Tell the Truth Tuesday [4th Tuesday of Each Month]

Textiles Tuesday (Canada) [4th Tuesday]

Thai Tuesday [4th Tuesday of Each Month]

Trivia Tuesday [Every Tuesday]

Two For Tuesday [Every Tuesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning October 22 (3rd Full Week of October)

Hard Pretzel Week (thru 10.31) [Last 10 Days]

Festivals Beginning October 22, 2024

Baker County Fair (Macclenny, Florida) [thru 10.27]

Bourbon Festival at Belmont (Elmont, New York)

NH Pumpkin Festival (Laconia, New Hampshire) [thru 10.27]

Roots’Ergue Festival (Sauveterre-de-Rouergue, France) [thru 10.26]

Taste of Texarkana (Texarkana, Arkansas)

Taste of the Town (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina)

TEDNext (Atlanta, Georgia) thru 10.24]

Feast Days

Aaron the Illustrious (Syriac Orthodox Church)

Abercius of Hieropolis (Christian; Saint)

Abu Simbel Festival (Ancient Egypt; also 2.22)

Baphomet’s Day (Pagan)

Bertharius (Christian; Saint)

Catherine de Medici Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Cordula (Christian; Saint)

Dashain (Nepal)

Day of the Crossroads (Pagan)

A Day Sacred To All Deities of the Crossroads

Donatus of Fiesole (Christian; Saint)

Doris Lessing (Writerism)

Dussehra (a.k.a. Durga Ashtami; India)

Edmund Dulac (Artology)

Eusebius (Christian; Saint)

Grotius (Positivist; Saint)

Hermes of Heraclea (Christian; Saint)

Intergalactic Peeing Competition Day (Pastafarian)

Ivan Bunin (Writerism)

Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Eras; Kyoto, Japan)

John Paul II, Pope (Christian; Saint)

José Escobar Saliente (Artology)

Kristjan Raud (Artology)

Maha Asthami [8th Day of Dashain]

Marcus of Jerusalem (Christian; Saint)

Marjorie Flack (Artology)

Mary Salome (Christian; Saint)

Mellonius (a.k.a. Mello) of Rouen (Christian; Saint)

N. C. Wyeth (Artology)

Nunilo and Alodia (Christian; Martyrs)

Philip, Bishop of Heraclea (Christian; Saint)

Robert Rauschenberg (Artology)

Salarrué (Artology)

Seek the King Week (Shamanism)

Severus (Christian; Saint)

Sleaze Brothers (Muppetism)

Theodoret of Antioch (Christian; Saint)

Timothy Leary Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Butsumetsu (仏滅 Japan) [Unlucky all day.]

Dismal Day (Unlucky or Evil Day; Medieval Europe; 20 of 24)

Egyptian Day (Unlucky Day; Middle Ages Europe) [20 of 24]

Fortunate Day (Pagan) [44 of 53]

Premieres

Aladdin’s Lamp (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1943)

Bosky the Drawback (WB LT Cartoon; 1932)

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, by Ian Fleming (Novel; 1964)

Destination Moon, by Hergé (Graphic Novel; 1953) [Tintin #16]

Dune (Film; 2021)

The Eiger Sanction, by Trevanian (Novel; 1972)

First Blood (Film; 1982)

The First Family, recorded by Vaughan Meader (Comedy Album; 1962)

Fun and Fancy Free (Disney Animated Film; 1947)

The Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing (Novel; 1962)

Hold That Rock (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1956)

Inside Job (Animated TV Series; 2021)

Jerry’s Diary (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1949)

Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas (WB MM Cartoon; 1938)

Jolene, by Dolly Parton (Song; 1973)

Just in Case, Parts 3 & 4 (Underdog Cartoon, S3, Eps. 9 & 10; 1966)

The Last Picture (Film; 1971)

Led Zeppelin II, by Led Zeppelin (Album; 1969)

New Rose, by The Damned (Song; 1976) [1st Punk Single]

Night Moves, by Bob Seger (Album; 1976)

Now, Voyager (Film; 1942)

One, No One and One Hundred Thousand, by Luigi Pirandello (Novel; 1926)

One Note Tony (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1947)

Painting Theft, Part 1 (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 223; 1963)

Red, by Taylor Swift (Album; 2012)

The Red Shoes (Film; 1948)

R is for Rocket, by Ray Bradbury (Novel; 1962)

Ron’s Gone Wrong (Animated Film; 2021)

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Film; 1949)

Sky Larks (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1934)

The Song Remains the Same, by Led Zeppelin (Live Album; 1976)

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway (Novel; 1926)

Transatlantic Chicken or Hens Across the Sea (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 224; 1963)

Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (WB Animated Film; 2019)

Today’s Name Days

Cordula, Ingbert, Kordula, Salome (Austria)

Filip, Marija, Marko (Croatia)

Sabina (Czech Republic)

Cordula (Denmark)

Anno, Annus, Hanno, Hannus, Ihan, Ihanus, Jaano, Jaanus (Estonia)

Anette, Anita, Anitta, Anja, Anniina, Nita (Finland)

Élodie, Salomé, Sara (France)

Cordula, Ingbert, Salome (Germany)

Averkios (Greece)

Előd (Hungary)

Donato (Italy)

Irida, Irisa, Salome (Latvia)

Aliodija, Mingedė, Severinas, Viltaras (Lithuania)

Karianne, Karine, Kine (Norway)

Abercjusz, Filip, Halka, Kordelia, Kordula, Przybysława, Sewer (Poland)

Averchie (Romania)

Sergej (Slovakia)

Juan, Pablo, Salomé (Spain)

Marika, Marita (Sweden)

Max, Maximillian (Ukraine)

Cordelia, Cordell, Cordella, Delia, Delilah (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 296 of 2024; 70 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of Week 43 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Gort (Ivy) [Day 24 of 28]

Chinese: Month 9 (Jia-Xu), Day 20 (Ji-Wei)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 20 Tishri 5785

Islamic: 18 Rabi II 1446

J Cal: 26 Orange; Fryday [26 of 30]

Julian: 9 October 2024

Moon: 67%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 16 Descartes (11th Month) [Maupertuis / Fontenelle]

Runic Half Month: Wyn (Joy) [Day 1 of 15]

Season: Autumn or Fall (Day 31 of 90)

Week: 3rd Full Week of October

Zodiac: Libra (Day 30 of 30)

Calendar Changes

Wyn (Joy) [Half-Month 20 of 24; Runic Half-Months] (thru 10.25)

[unnervinglyferal]

I'm coming to the conclusion that the key difference between catholics and protestants is that protestants look at suicide the same way that catholics look at abortion. Being in this terrible situation where you are desperate to do anything to make it stop is a sin. Doing anything to prevent this situation from happening is also a sin because not getting 100% of your emotional fulfillment from the church is a sin. And doing anything to get yourself out of the situation is a sin.

I have no idea what the orthodox christians are weird about. But from my experience of other types of christian and of orthodox jews, I'm going to guess that they're doing both of the above and also a secret third thing.