Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople blasts Moscow Patriarchate

A recent backlog item; as reported by Russian Faith, August 13, 2020:

Patriarch Bartholomew is a citizen of Turkey. He leads all Greek Orthodox churches in the United States of America, as well as the handful of Christians remaining in Istanbul, Turkey.

As reported by Tatyana Chaika of the Union of Orthodox Journalists, February 6, 2020 (links in original):

The Patriarchate of Constantinople is revered by spiritual children across the world, still there are the ungrateful who do not value its gifts, said Pat. Bartholomew.

On February 5, 2020, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople met with a group of clergy, professors, and students from Armenia, Romfea reports.

In his speech, Patriarch Bartholomew noted, “Constantinople is the spiritual womb of our nation, the ark in which everything that is sacred to our nation is preserved.”

He emphasized, “We consider this a special blessing and privilege from God, because we were granted this spirituality, this blessing to continue the tradition of many centuries, according to which our patriarchy is founded and worshiped not only by our own spiritual children but also by others, by the entire Orthodoxy, by the Christian world, by the whole mankind.”

According to him, the Patriarchate of Constantinople "is of particular value to us, the Greek Orthodox, as well as to all Orthodox faithful", while "the new Orthodox Autocephalous Churches, which were born from here, found healing. Unfortunately, there are unborn children and there are ungrateful ones who do not appreciate what they received from Constantinople – their Baptism, culture, the Cyrillic alphabet or otherwise.”

“The Church of Constantinople sacrificed itself, gave itself to others and, as grateful people tell us, the Mother Church, because She is the mother and still loves them all,” added the Phanar leader.

As reported by the UOJ, earlier Metropolitan Maxim (Vgenopoulos) of Silivria assured the head of Phanar that the Holy Theotokos is on his side “in the struggle of the Ecumenical Throne with its opponents, including the ungrateful Moscow Church.”

As reported by Yekaterina Filatova of the Union of Orthodox Journalists, August 11, 2020 (links in original):

Pat. Bartholomew spoke explicitly of visible and invisible enemies of the Mother Church, stressing that "we have ungrateful children, but we embrace them all with love."

The Head of the Phanar, Patriarch Bartholomew, called the Moscow Patriarchate, which broke off Eucharistic communion with Constantinople after the latter had granted autocephaly to Ukrainian schismatics, enemies and "ungrateful children." It was reported by the Orthodox Times.

Thus, according to the resource, Patriarch Bartholomew made a direct reference to both the visible and invisible enemies of the Mother Church of Constantinople and about the ungrateful children who benefited from the Church of Constantinople and yet “lifted heels of contempt against their benefactor.”

“We have enemies, it is not that we do not have, and in fact many,” the publication cites the patriarch. The enemies are not only who are declared, whom we know to be our enemies, but they are also the beneficiaries of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, its descendants, its spiritual descendants. So, we also have ungrateful children, but we embrace them all with love.”

The Phanar head recalled that on the occasion of the granting of Autocephaly to Ukraine, the Church of Russia “interrupted the Eucharistic communion and ceased to commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”

“However, the Ecumenical Patriarchate did not interrupt communion with the Church of Russia. Even this morning, while officiating at St. Panteleimon in Galatas, we commemorated Patriarch Cyril of Moscow,” the Ecumenical Patriarch stressed.

“We continue to embrace everyone, enemies and friends, with our love and our prayer and our understanding,” Patriarch Bartholomew upheld.

He made special mention of the continuous interest of the Mother Church for her direct flock in Constantinople, and for her care for every believer, “regardless of his/her national origin, as she takes care of the worship needs and the spiritual support of the Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Moldavian, Gagauz and, more recently, of the Georgian Orthodox Christians, who came as immigrants and now live permanently in Constantinople, being a flock of the Mother Church.”

As reported by the UOJ, earlier Patriarch Bartholomew claimed that the Patriarchate of Constantinople "is of particular value to us, the Greek Orthodox, as well as to all Orthodox faithful", while "the new Orthodox Autocephalous Churches, which were born from here, found healing. Unfortunately, there are unborn children and there are ungrateful ones, who do not appreciate what they received from Constantinople – their Baptism, culture, the Cyrillic alphabet or otherwise.”

As reported by the Union of Orthodox Journalists, August 11, 2020:

The Ecumenical Patriarch made another direct reference to both the visible and invisible enemies of the Mother Church. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew spoke about ungrateful children who benefited from the Church of Constantinople and yet, as he stressed, “lifted heels of contempt against their benefactor.”

“We have enemies, it is not that we do not have, and in fact many…. The enemies are not only who are declare, whom we know to be our enemies, but they are also the beneficiaries of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, its descendants, its spiritual descendants. “So, we also have ungrateful children, but we embrace them all with love.”

This direct shot, of course, was aimed at the Church of Russia, which on the occasion of the granting of Autocephaly to Ukraine, interrupted the Eucharistic communion and ceased to commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

“You know that on the occasion of the Autocephaly of the Church of Ukraine the Moscow Patriarchate interrupted the communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, that is, with its Mother Church. However, the Ecumenical Patriarchate did not interrupted communion with the Church of Russia. “Even this morning, while officiating at St. Panteleimon in Galatas, we commemorated Patriarch Cyril of Moscow,” the Ecumenical Patriarch stressed, adding that “We continue to embrace everyone, enemies and friends, with our love and our prayer and our understanding.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew made special mention of the continuous interest of the Mother Church for her direct flock in Constantinople, and for her care for every believer, regardless of his/her national origin, as she takes care of the worship needs and the spiritual support of the Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Moldavian, Gagauz and, more recently, of the Georgian Orthodox Christians, who came as immigrants and now live permanently in Constantinople, being a flock of the Mother Church.

U.S. federal court of appeals rules against New York restrictions on houses of worship

It's not guaranteed, but if you dare to stand up for your rights, there's a chance you might win; of course, you won't win if you cravenly bow the knee to Caesar, as many churches have done. As reported by Shira Hanau of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 28, 2020 (link in original):

A federal court of appeals ruled that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s capacity limits on houses of worship in areas with rising COVID-19 cases constituted a violation of religious liberty.

The ruling on Monday comes after a Supreme Court injunction last month blocking Cuomo from enforcing the rules until the lower court could reevaluate an earlier ruling that upheld state guidelines limiting synagogue attendance to 10 or 25 people.

The case, brought by the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, an advocacy organization representing haredi Orthodox Jews, was one of the first religious liberty cases to be decided by the court’s new conservative majority. The appeals court ruling was celebrated by Agudath Israel as confirmation that it had achieved a victory for religious liberty.

“The courts have clearly recognized that the restrictions imposed by New York State violate the constitutional rights of those seeking to attend religious worship services,” Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, said in a statement Monday.

The court of appeals did not rule on the constitutionality of percentage capacity limits, which would have impacted smaller houses of worship. Houses of worship in zones with the highest rates of COVID-19, so-called red zones, were subjected to capacity limits of ten people or 25% of building capacity, whichever is fewer. In orange zones, the limit was 25 people or 33% of capacity, whichever is fewer.

The court ordered the district court to reevaluate its ruling on the percentage capacity limits imposed by Cuomo to determine if they discriminated against houses of worship.

Crimes against church buildings in Saskatchewan are increasing

As reported by Canadian Press, December 23, 2020:

REGINA - RCMP say they are dealing with a new trend in Saskatchewan involving a significant increase in crimes affecting churches.

Mounties have issued a "Crime Pattern Alert" about a growing number of thefts, break-ins, attempted break-ins and mischief involving places of worship.

Police say that from January to November there were 64 such crimes involving 55 churches — a 60 per cent increase in break-ins from 2019.

In most cases, the doors of churches were opened by force at night and thieves took money, electronics, computers, guitars, safes, freezers and refrigerators.

Investigators says all denominations are being targeted and nothing indicates the crime trend is motivated by hate, racism or ideology.

RCMP crime analyst Monica Deters says people and communities are being urged to make their churches more secure.

"This increase in church break-ins is concerning enough that it creates a pattern," Deters said Wednesday in a release.

"This new criminal trend is noticeable because these break-ins happened all year and across Saskatchewan. It is imperative that we all get involved to better secure these buildings."

RCMP say most of the crimes that affected churches this year are in the central part of the province.

I suspect this is the result of the buildings not being used during the plandemic; one thing that might deter crime would be for the buildings to reopen.

Vatican's 2020 nativity scene displays occult symbols

To quote renowned cultural observer James Stolee out of context: "What utter blasphemy!" As reported by Vigilant Citizen, December 15, 2020 (bold, links in original):

On December 11th, the Vatican unveiled its 2020 Nativity scene in St-Peter’s Square. And, once the red drape covering the scene was removed, the crowd discovered a towering, brutalist, and totem-like Angel Gabriel staring back at them, along with an astronaut and a masked executioner (yes, those guys who kill people who are sentenced to death).

Let’s say that the applause following the unveiling was “polite”. Here are some pictures of the Nativity scene.

An ominous-looking angel looks down at the crowd while Jesus remains covered in red cloth for a while (not sure why). Behind the figures is a neon light that is probably meant to look like mountains on the horizon. However, at first glance, it looks like lightning striking the Nativity scene.

An astronaut and a masked executioner are also included in the Nativity scene.

In a press release, a Vatican City Governorate announced that the manger “aims to be a sign of hope and faith for the whole world especially in this difficult time due to the COVID-19 health emergency.”

But this thing did not bring “hope and faith” at all. In fact, nearly all observers absolutely hated it.

In no way does this horned creature bring me Christmas joy. And to think, in a few weeks, he's going to be standing over a Baby Jesus at the Vatican.

How did we get here?

--The Catholic Traveler

It is almost as if the Vatican created – on purpose – something that is so ugly that it causes devout Christians to hate piece depicting the birth of Jesus. Satanists wouldn’t have done better.

Weaponized Ugliness

Titled “Monumental Nativity”, this Nativity scene was originally created between 1965 and 1975 by students and teachers from the FA Grue Art School in Castelli, Italy. The original work contained over 50 pieces, but only a few were selected for the Vatican’s Nativity scene and they chose an executioner wearing a horned mask.

“Monumental Nativity” is said to be a tribute to the world-renowned ceramic works of the Abruzzo region while giving a post-modern twist to the classic Nativity scene.

Speaking with a local newspaper, Italian art historian Andrea Cionci asked if it was a “nightmare or a masterpiece”.

“Forget the sweet face of the Madonna, the tender, luminous incarnation of the Child Jesus, the paternal sweetness of St. Joseph and the devout wonder of the shepherds. For the first time in the middle of Bernini’s colonnade, the Vatican has erected a brutally postmodern work dating back to the sixties. In the choice of this crib, all the themes of Francis’ pontificate are recognized: Above all, heavy modernism and a drastic break with Tradition.

The figures resemble the masks of the ancient and ferocious Samnites, ancestors of the Abruzzese, who had a pantheistic, animist, fetishist, magical religion, a bit like the Andean fertility goddess Pachamama.

Castelli’s “Nativity scene” is an outdated work and the product of a strongly ideological art school. The work offers an image of Castelli’s ceramics that most certainly does not correspond to reality, given that this admirable art is famous for its formal elegance and exquisite, delicate decorative inspiration that are completely absent here.

The references to the Greek, Egyptian and Sumerian sculptures of the characters suggest the liberal historical-critical method of interpreting Scripture. Liberal biblical scholars have hypothesized various aspects of the Bible as adaptations of pagan cultures rather than the result of divine revelation.”

Although “ugliness” is subjective, this Nativity scene nearly goes out of its way to be as unpleasant to the eye as possible which, in turn, is unpleasant to the soul. The least one can say is that this scene is anti-devotional. I mean, who would actually pray to this thing? You just can’t. And that’s kind of the goal of the twisted minds behind this thing.

Furthermore, beyond its overall ugliness, the Nativity scene also contains many symbols and historical references that convey a rather blatant message: This is actually an anti-Nativity scene.

Anti-Nativity

Usually, the center focus of Nativity scenes is baby Jesus. However, in this thing, Baby Jesus is basically a random toddler, just standing there, looking like a giant cork.

WORSHIP ME

The center focus of this piece is not Jesus but rather the angel Gabriel. He is surrounded by a massive aureola while Jesus is still standing there looking like a giant cork. Furthermore, the angel towers over everything atop a rib ribbed pillar. The overall shape of this pillar is highly reminiscent of an important symbol in Ancient Egypt: The Djed pillar.

On the right: A djed pillar dedicated to the goddess Hathor.

The djed is a common symbol in Ancient Egypt and is believed to represent the god Osiris, more specifically his spine. While this symbol probably bears an esoteric meaning relating to the chakras (which are said to be based on the spine), the djed is also phallic in nature and associated with fertility rites. In fact, the “raising of the djed” was an important ceremony in Ancient Egypt.

Did the Vatican deceptively make its believers witness a “raising of the djed” ceremony? One thing is for sure, the Egyptian influence of this Nativity scene blends well with what’s immediately behind it.

Right behind the Nativity scene is St. Peter’s obelisk (which is originally from Egypt).

The general layout of the Vatican is Egyptian magic in plain sight. The phallic obelisk (representing Osiris and the male principle) faces the womb-like dome of the St. Peter’s Basilica (representing Isis and the female principle). The same exact layout can be found in various power centers of the world, including Washington DC.

In Washington DC, an obelisk (the Washington monument) faces the dome of the U.S. Capitol.

In Egyptian magic, the union of male and female principles (Osiris and Isis) produces a “star child” (Horus). In esoteric terms, that star child is potent magical energy...

...the Vatican’s Nativity scene also features an astronaut. Why? God knows.

The astronaut appears to be holding/giving birth to something. Also, there’s an eight-pointed star on the helmet.

Considering the fact that this figure was created between 1965 and 1975, it might be a reference to the moon landing of 1969. But why, in 2020, did the Vatican select this thing to stand next to Jesus?

Even more baffling, why is there an executioner wearing a horned mask standing next to Jesus?

Even he’s thinking to himself: “What am I doing here?”.

In ancient times, executioners carried out the death sentences of legally condemned persons by chopping their heads off. In some cases, they wore grotesque masks with macabre and menacing traits to further terrify the prisoners while depersonalizing them as an individual. In short, that’s a bizarre figure to place next to a newborn baby Jesus, especially considering the fact that Jesus himself was ultimately sentenced to death.

According to Religion News Service, the executioner is there to represent the Vatican’s opposition to the death penalty. That’s a pretty weak argument that barely makes any sense. I mean, I’m pretty sure that the Vatican is also against crystal meth. Should they also add a meth dealer to the Nativity scene as well?

In a scene that is literally called “Nativity”, this horned figure represents death. It is the antithesis of a “Nativity”. I don’t think that Satanists would have done a better job desecrating a scene representing the birth of Jesus.

In Conclusion

In a way, this year’s Nativity scene is a sad reflection of the year 2020. It is a collection of expressionless and socially-distanced figures who do not interact with each other while standing under the neon glow of phone and computer screens.

It also reflects how the occult elite reared its ugly head this year, poisoning every aspect of our lives with its toxic agenda. Through a display that is thoroughly anti-Christian, the elite sought to prove that its toxic ideology is also embedded in the Vatican.

While “Monumental Nativity” was created decades ago, it was selected for this year’s 2020 Nativity scene for a specific reason: It contains specific symbols while conveying a specific energy. Like everything else that happened this year, this scene is about showcasing the control of the elite and the demoralization of the masses.

Pope Francis approves Covid-19 vaccine despite its links to abortion

If any pope ever deserved the title of "Antichrist," it's Cardinal Bergoglio from Argentina; he gets more brazen in his promotion of ungodliness every time you look around. As reported by Tyler Van Dyke of the Washington Examiner, December 21, 2020 (links in original):

Pope Francis approved a note released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith on Monday, condoning the use of coronavirus vaccines that have an indirect connection to abortion, saying it is "morally acceptable" to receive the vaccine.

"It is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process," the CDF wrote. "All vaccinations recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in production of the vaccines derive."

The letter was signed by Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, the Vatican prefect, and Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, Vatican secretary. Pope Francis approved the text on Dec. 17 and released the note Monday.

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were involved in a commonly employed "confirmatory test" that relies on HEK293, a cell line derived from a human embryonic kidney cell from a fetus that was aborted in the 1970s. Because of this, some Catholics have expressed concerns about the ethics of getting the vaccine, with some calling for Catholics to "reject a vaccine which has been produced immorally."

The papal notice follows a similar missive from bishops in the United States who sanctioned getting the vaccine despite concerns from members of the Catholic community. One Texas church leader, Bishop Joseph Strickland, said that he "urge[d] all who believe in the sanctity of life to reject a vaccine which has been produced immorally."

"In view of the gravity of the current pandemic and the lack of availability of alternative vaccines, the reasons to accept the new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are sufficiently serious to justify their use, despite their remote connection to morally compromised cell lines," the committees wrote, referring to the use of HEK293-derived tests. "Being vaccinated safely against COVID-19 should be considered an act of love of our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for the common good."

The CDF's note continues a trend in previous pronouncements, according to Vatican News. As recently as 2017, the Holy See said the value of vaccines and their distance from contemporary abortion practices "lead us to exclude that there is a morally relevant cooperation between those who use these vaccines today and the practice of voluntary abortion."

"The morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one's own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good," the CDF said. "In the absence of other means to stop or even prevent the epidemic, the common good may recommend vaccination, especially to protect the weakest and most exposed."

Morocco follows United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Bahrain in normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel

Israel and her neighbours seem to have formed a "Peace Agreement of the Month Club" in recent months. First, there was the United Arab Emirates, as reported by Linda Gradstein of VOA News, October 20, 2020:

JERUSALEM - A senior delegation from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Israel for the first official visit since the two countries signed a peace agreement last month. They signed a series of bilateral agreements, including a visa waiver agreement.

A very happy Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the UAE delegation, saying “today we are making history.”

"The enthusiasm for this peace agreement among our people is enormous. It’s real, it’s broad, it’s deep, and it reflects the potential that is realized today," said Netanyahu.

One of the agreements says that Israelis will not need visas to visit the UAE, and Emiratis can visit Israel freely as well. With direct flights expected to start by January, the Israeli tourist industry, which has been hit hard by COVID-19, hopes for 250,000 Emiratis to visit a year. Some Israeli tour companies are already marketing trips to Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The two also inaugurated a three-billion dollar trilateral fund among Israel, the UAE and the US to encourage investment.

For Netanyahu, the UAE’s short delegation visit was a welcome break from his electoral woes. His popularity has plummeted amid criticism of his handling of the pandemic, and his trial on several charge of corruption is set to start in January.

President Trump also hopes the accord, which was signed last month in Washington, will give him an electoral boost. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the accords could transform the Middle East.

"The Abraham Accords established direct economic ties between two of the Middle East’s most thriving and advanced economies," said Mnuchin. "These ties create a tremendous foundation for economic growth, opportunity, innovation and prosperity."

For the UAE, Israel offers high tech innovation and business opportunities. UAE Minister of State for Financial Affairs Obaid Huamid Al Tayer said both countries offer opportunities."The UAE will continue to be a regional leader in terms of economic reform, openness in international trade, political stability and peacemaking," said Al Tayer.

"The economic cooperation in finance and investment will be realized after signing today the agreement for the promotion and protection of investment.

Because of COVID-19, the delegation did not leave the area of the airport. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu invited them back for a sightseeing trip when the pandemic passes.

Then there was Sudan; see my post Israel and Sudan agree to normalize relations (October 23, 2020).

Bahrain was next; as reported by France 24, November 18, 2020:

Bahrain and Israel said on Wednesday they would open embassies, establish online visa systems and launch weekly flights between the countries soon, in a broadened cooperation promoted by Washington as an economic boon and means of isolating Iran.

On the first official visit by Bahraini officials to Israel, the Gulf kingdom’s foreign minister, Abdellatif al-Zayani, was welcomed Wednesday at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport by his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi, a live Israeli television broadcast showed.

Bahrain and its Gulf neighbour the United Arab Emirates both signed US-sponsored normalisation accords with Israel at the White House on September 15, pacts that were condemned as a "betrayal" by the Palestinians and their allies.

The agreements shattered a longstanding Arab consensus that there should be no normalisation with Israel until it reaches a comprehensive peace deal with the Palestinians.

The Bahraini envoys went on to Jerusalem, which Israel, with US backing, considers its capital. Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem for a state, have been outraged by the Arab countries' engagement with Israel while their own goals are unmet.

In a possible sign of a rethink, a senior Palestinian official told Reuters that Palestinian ambassadors would return to Abu Dhabi and Manama after having been recalled in protest.

Al-Zayani's trip coincided with a visit to Israel by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who hailed the regional rapprochement brokered by the Trump administration as it presses sanctions against Iran.

The normalisation deals "tell malign actors like the Islamic Republic of Iran that their influence in the region is waning and that they are ever more isolated and shall forever be until they change their direction", Pompeo said alongside his Bahraini counterpart and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Al-Zayani announced that, as of December 1, Bahrainis and Israelis will be able to apply online for entry visas. He also submitted a request to open a Bahraini embassy in Israel and said an Israeli embassy had been approved for Manama.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Askenazi, who is due to visit Manama next month, said he hoped opening ceremonies for the embassies would be held by the end of 2020.

Sudan followed Bahrain and UAE in announcing last month it would move towards ties with Israel...

...The United States has very close relations with Bahrain too. The tiny but strategic kingdom just across the Gulf from Iran is home to the US Fifth Fleet.

All three allies – Israel, Bahrain and the US – see the mainly Shiite Muslim regional power Iran as a common threat.

Al-Zayani's visit is expected to be followed by others.

On Tuesday, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin sent an official invitation to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayad Al-Nahyan, seen by many as the UAE's de facto ruler.

The latest to join the club is Morocco; as reported by Steve Holland of Reuters, December 10, 2020:

WASHINGTON -Israel and Morocco agreed on Thursday to normalize relations in a deal brokered with U.S. help, making Morocco the fourth Arab country to set aside hostilities with Israel in the past four months.

It joins the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan in beginning to forge deals with Israel, driven in part by U.S.-led efforts to present a united front against Iran and roll back Tehran’s regional influence.

In a departure from longstanding U.S. policy, President Donald Trump agreed as part of the deal to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara, a desert region where a decades-old territorial dispute has pitted Morocco against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, a breakaway movement that seeks to establish an independent state...

...Trump sealed the Israel-Morocco accord in a phone call with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Thursday, the White House said.

“Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco have agreed to full diplomatic relations – a massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Mohammed told Trump that Morocco intends to facilitate direct flights for Israeli tourists to and from Morocco, according to a statement from Morocco’s royal court.

“This will be a very warm peace. Peace has never - the light of peace on this Hanukkah day has never - shone brighter than today in the Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to a Jewish eight-day holiday starting on Thursday night.

Palestinians have been critical of the normalization deals, saying Arab countries have set back the cause of peace by abandoning a longstanding demand that Israel give up land for a Palestinian state before it can receive recognition.

Egypt and UAE issued statements welcoming Morocco’s decision. Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979.

“This step, a sovereign move, contributes to strengthening our common quest for stability, prosperity, and just and lasting peace in the region,” Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, wrote on Twitter.

But Senator Jim Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee, denounced Trump’s “shocking and deeply disappointing” decision to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. Inhofe said people living in the area should vote in a referendum to decide their future.

“The president has been poorly advised by his team. He could have made this deal without trading the rights of a voiceless people,” Inhofe said in a statement.

A senior U.S. official said Trump knew about Inhofe’s opposition to recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. But Inhofe’s argument lost ground with the president when the senator refused to hold up the annual defense spending bill when Trump demanded it be used to repeal a law granting liability protection to tech companies, the official said...

...Under the agreement, Morocco will establish full diplomatic relations and resume official contacts with Israel.

“They are going to reopen their liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv immediately with the intention to open embassies. And they are going to promote economic cooperation between Israeli and Moroccan companies,” Kushner told Reuters.

Trump’s agreement to change U.S. policy on the Western Sahara was the linchpin for getting Morocco’s agreement and a major shift away from a mostly neutral stance.

In Rabat, Morocco’s royal court said Washington will open a consulate in Western Sahara as part of Morocco’s deal with Israel.

A White House proclamation said the United States believes that an independent Sahrawi state is “not a realistic option for resolving the conflict and that genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution.”

“We urge the parties to engage in discussions without delay, using Morocco’s autonomy plan as the only framework to negotiate a mutually acceptable solution,” it said.

Washington had supported a 1991 ceasefire between Morocco and the Western Sahara’s Polisario Front independence movement that called for a referendum to resolve the issue. Last month, after a border incident, the Polisario pulled out of that deal and announced a return to armed struggle.

A representative of the Polisario Front said it “regrets highly” the U.S. change in policy, which it called “strange but not surprising.”

“This will not change an inch of the reality of the conflict and the right of the people of Western Sahara to self determination,” the Polisario’s Europe representative Oubi Bchraya said.

For further reading, see Joel Rosenberg's views: Peace on earth? Arab-Israeli peace deals seem like Hanukkah miracles (December 15, 2020).

250 members of "lost" "Sons of Manasseh" make aliyah from India to Israel

And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee,
And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;
That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.
If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:
And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. Deuteronomy 30:1-5

As reported by Israel365 News, December 14, 2020:

Jerusalem – Tonight, 250 members of the Bnei Menashe Jewish community of northeastern India will make Aliyah via a special flight chartered by both Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration and the Jerusalem-based nonprofit Shavei Israel.

The Bnei Menashe, or sons of Manasseh, from Mizoram and Manipur claim descent from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who were sent into exile by the Assyrian Empire more than 27 centuries ago. Their ancestors wandered through Central Asia and the Far East for centuries, before settling along the borders of what are now Burma and Bangladesh. Throughout their sojourn in exile, the Bnei Menashe continued to practice Judaism just as their ancestors did, including observing the Sabbath, keeping kosher, celebrating the festivals, and following the laws of family purity. They continue to nourish the dream of one day returning to the land of their ancestors, the Land of Israel.

The effort was coordinated by Shavei Israel, a nonprofit organization founded by Michael Freund, who immigrated to Israel from the United States with the aim of strengthening the ties between the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the descendants of Jews around the world. The organization is currently active in more than a dozen countries and provides assistance to a variety of communities such as the Bnei Menashe of India, the Bnei Anousim (referred to by the derogatory term “Marranos” by historians) in Spain, Portugal, and South America, the Subbotnik Jews of Russia, the Jewish community of Kaifeng in China, descendants of Jews living in Poland, and others.

See also my posts: Jews from "lost tribe" move from India to Israel (December 24, 2012)

More descendants of "lost tribe" from India arrive in Israel (April 19, 2017)

Ancient oil lamp factory discovered in Israel

As reported by Israel365 News, December 14, 2020:

One of the largest ceramic oil-lamp workshops in Israel has been discovered by Israel Antiquities Authority excavations in Beit Shemesh. Hundreds of ceramic oil lamps, two bearing symbols of the menorah and stone lamp molds for their production were found along with terracotta figurines which were made about 1600–1700 years ago. In the past few months, the Israel Antiquities Authority excavations aided by dozens of pre-military program students. The large-scale archaeological excavations are being carried out prior to the establishment of a new neighborhood by the Ministry of Construction and Housing.

The discovery of the lamps, used for lighting in ancient times, surprised the archaeologists not only because of their quantity and quality, but also because it solved an archaeological mystery connected with them:

In 1934, archaeologist Dimitri Baramki, an inspector on behalf of the Department of Antiquities during the British Mandate, discovered a water cistern in the region of Beit Shemesh. On excavating the cistern, he was surprised to uncover an ancient ‘treasure’ — a huge quantity of intact oil lamps bearing animal and plant motifs and geometric designs. The lamps are dated to the Late Roman period (third–fourth centuries CE) and became known as ‘Beit Nattif lamps’ after the name of the nearby village and have become an archaeological hallmark. Together with the lamps, Baramki recovered stone lamp molds and a wide variety of pottery figurines depicting animals, horse-riders, women, and birds.

After the British Mandate-era discovery, the location of the cistern was lost and has remained a mystery, despite all efforts to re-locate it.

“As part of the Beit Shemesh development program, we examined an area on the edge of the ancient remains of Khirbet Beit Nattif,” explain excavation directors Moran Balila, Itai Aviv, Nicolas Benenstein and Omer Shalev. “We uncovered a water cistern that looked, at first sight, like many others in the region. But to our surprise, excavation beside the cistern began unearthing massive quantities of oil lamps, stone lamp molds and figurine fragments.” When the archaeologists entered the cistern, which was still intact, they were amazed to find that they recognized it from photos appearing in Baramki’s excavation publication. The cistern also contained items left behind by Baramki himself, including leather baskets used to extract soil and an empty metal box. “The Beit Nattif oil-lamp cistern has been brought back to life!” the archaeologists say. “We are extremely excited, since this is not just an important archaeological discovery in its own right, but also tangible evidence of archaeological history.”

“The figurines and the motifs on the lamps from the Beit Nattif region tell the story of the Judean Hills in the period following the Bar Kokhba Revolt,” explains Benyamin Storchan of the Israel Antiquities Authority, an expert on the Beit Nattif lamps. “From the writings of Josephus, we know that in during the Second Temple period, Beit Nattif was a regional administrative center — one of the ten principal cities under Hasmonean rule. After the failure of the Bar Kokhba Revolt and Roman takeover of the region, the local Jewish population of the Judean Hills was greatly diminished and in turn, the region was settled by pagans. The many figurines unearthed at the site attest to this. At the same time, a small number of the ceramic oil lamps area decorated with distinctively Jewish symbols such as the shofar, incense burner and seven branched menorah. The fragment tell us that Jewish life continued to exist in the Judean Hills, well after the rebellion’s failure. Obviously, the oil-lamp workshop produced these lamps in response to a continued demand in the region. During this period, Christianity also began to emerge and some of the Beit Nattif oil-lamps carry fish motifs, one of the symbols of Christianity. The sheer variety of lamps and figurines therefore proves that the local population featured a mix of pagans, Christians and Jews..."

...“The festival of Hanukkah is a wonderful opportunity to tell the public about the recovery of these oil lamps, which was the main method of lighting in ancient times,” the archaeologists say. In light of the importance of the find and its location, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Ministry of Construction and Housing plan to preserve the site and incorporate it in a large park that will be open to the public.

Beit Nattif lamps (Yoli Schwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Finds from the Beit Nattif excavation (Itai Aviv, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Church of Ireland marks 30 years of women priests

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. Isaiah 3:12

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. I Corinthians 14:34-35

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. I Timothy 2:12

As reported by Patsy McGarry of the Irish Times, November 30, 2020:

The 30th anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Church of Ireland will be marked at its General Synod this week.

The General Synod was originally to have taken place at Croke Park last May but was postponed due to the pandemic. It will now happen online, on December 1st and 2nd.

The ordination of women priests and bishops was approved by General Synod in May 1990 and in the following month two deacons – Rev Irene Templeton and Rev Kathleen Young – became the first female priests in Ireland following their ordination at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast by then Bishop of Connor Samuel Poyntz.

Though attended by several hundred people, television cameras were excluded from the actual ceremony on June 24th, 1990. However, Bishop Poyntz’s words of ordination were relayed outside on loudspeakers.

The Church of Ireland’s first woman deacon, Rev Katharine Poulton, was ordained to that role three years previously in June 1987. In 2010 she was the first woman Dean of Ossory and installed that Easter at St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny.

The Church of Ireland’s first woman bishop, Most Rev Pat Storey, was consecrated as Bishop of Meath and Kildare on November 30th, 2013.

Currently about one in five of the Church of Ireland’s 500 serving clergy are women.

This week’s General Synod will be the first presided over by new Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh John McDowell, who assumed office last April. His predecessor Archbishop Richard Clarke retired last February.

Dr McDowell will deliver his first General Synod Presidential address on Wednesday morning.

All relevant reports have already been made available online to General Synod attendees. The Representative Church Body, the central trustee body of the church, has reported that its total funds in 2019 increased by 13 per cent, from €179.3 million to € 203 million.

Women in places of leadership in a church is not only a reliable indicator of the extent to which apostasy has already taken place, but of future apostasy and decline. According to Revd Dr William M. Marshall in The Oxford Companion to British History:

Today with two archbishoprics and twelve dioceses, it has a total membership (1990) of 437,000 (340,000 in the North and 97,000 in the Republic).

As reported by the Church of Ireland itself (current as of the time of this post):

The Church of Ireland has around 375,400 members – 249,000 in Northern Ireland and 126,400 in the Republic of Ireland.

The Church of Ireland has lost almost 62,000 members in the 30 years since it began ordaining women to the priesthood. I have no explanation for the increase in the Republic of Ireland; maybe C of I members have been migrating from north to south.

New scans reveal traces of original dimensions of Old Testament units of measurement

Storage Jars from Khirbet Qeiyafa (Photo credit: Clara Amit_IAA (1))

As reported by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich of 365Israel News, September 30, 2020:

In biblical times, there were no meters, feet, centimeters and inches to measure things. A succa booth used on the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, for example (according to Mishna Succa), may not be used if it “is not ten tefachs [handbreadths] tall or does not contain three walls or which has more sun than shade is invalid.”

Storage jars form one of the main ceramic types that were produced and commonly used ever since pottery was invented. The need to collect, store and distribute agricultural products such as grains, oils and wine in large vessels has littered excavation sites with an abundance of ceramic jar fragments of various designs, sizes and shapes.

But for all of their variety, three Hebrew Univesity of Jerusalem archaeologists, Ortal Harush, Israel Antiquities Authority’s Avshalom Karasik and Weizmann Institute of Science’s Uzy Smilansky found an astonishing common denominator among storage jars in Israel over a period of 350 years – the inner-rim diameter of the jar’s neck.

The distribution of this diameter is consistent with measurements of the palm of a male hand – and according to the authors, this match is not coincidental. It may reflect the use of the original metrics for the biblical measurement of the “tefach,” a unit of measurement that was used primarily by ancient Israelites, appears frequently in the Bible, and is the basis for many Jewish laws. Their findings were recently published in BASOR, the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research under the title “The Morphology of Iron Age Storage Jars and Its Relation to the Handbreadth Measure (Biblical Tefach).”

“It was natural for the ancient potters to adopt the handbreadth – tefach –standard. It was a unit of length that was widely used in ancient times and is mentioned both in Assyrian and Egyptian sources and in the Jewish Bible,” the researchers shared.

The team did 3-D scans of 307 Iron-Age jars found in Khirbet Qeiyafa (Judah Kingdom; early 10th century BCE), “hippo” jars from northern Israel (Israelite Kingdom, 9th Century BCE—nicknamed for their large size and loop handles which resemble hippopotamuses) and royal Judah Kingdom storage jars (8-7th Century BCE). The researchers observed significant variations among the jars – even those from the same time period and geographic region, but only one measure remained constant: the averaged inner-rim diameter which always measured, with a standard deviation, between 8.85 and 8.97 centimeters.

The distribution of this diameter is statistically identical to the hand’s breadth of modern man. To gain data on the standard measure of a modern man’s palm, the team tapped measurements taken by the US Army when ordering gloves for their soldiers, the mean value being 8.67±0.48 cm, which is consistent with the measurements taken from the ancient jars. Though human heights and weights have changed over time due to improved diet and health, previous research has shown that palm dimensions have not changed much over the last 3,000 years.

As to why the inner rim remained consistent while the overall shape of the jar varied so much, the Israeli archaeologists have several theories. It was a natural choice for ancient potters to use their palms as the standard diameter for jar openings—it was easy to implement when working on the wheel: the potter could simply use her/his palm as a tool. In addition, storage jars were multiuse items, which meant their openings had to be large enough to allow for cleaning between uses and this involves fitting your hand into the jar.

However, there is another, ancient aspect that may explain the connection between the uniform neck diameters – is based on the highly-regarded and observed purity laws in the Jewish Bible. The Book of Numbers (19: 14-15, The Israel Bible) deals with the question: What is the status of jars that were left in the vicinity of a corpse—are they impure or pure? This is the ritual: When a person dies in a tent, whoever enters the tent and whoever is in the tent shall be unclean seven days; and every open vessel, with no lid fastened down, shall be unclean.” It is clear from this passage that the contents of a jar become impure –and therefore unusable – unless there is a special seal on its top. This ruling had serious economic ramifications. One would have had to throw out valuable stores of grain and oil if somebody died in the family tent.

Subsequent Jewish traditions quantified these rules of impurity, stating that the minimal opening size through which impurity may enter is the square of a hand’s breadth by hand’s breadth. “Impurity does not enter a shelter, nor does it depart from it if there is an opening less than a handbreadth [tefach] by a handbreadth [tefach].”

According to the Oral Tradition, it was taught that the verse is speaking only about a ceramic container, for it is a container that contracts impurity only through its opening.” According to Maimonides’s Code of Jewish Religious Law, the Mishneh Torah.

Here, Maimonides discusses an ancient tradition related to the laws of impurity, stating that a round opening with a maximum diameter of one hand’s breadth, or tefach, would ensure that the jar’s content would still be pure even if it were stored near a corpse. From here it would make sense that potters would create storage jars with a tefach, or hand’s breadth, opening.

For the purposes of storage and transport, a jar opening should be small. On the other hand, pouring, cleaning and easy manufacturing would dictate a large opening, at least a hand’s width. The final convergence to a one handbreadth opening kept in mind the spiritual, legal traditions regarding the minimal window through which impurity could defile the contents of a ceramic vessel and thus make them unusable.

Over time, different rabbis attempted to provide conversions of the traditional biblical measurements to our modern measurement. The conversions for the tefach vary, with competing theories brought forth by Avraham Chaim Naeh and the Chazon Ish, both 20th century Orthodox rabbis who lived in pre-State Palestine. According to Rabbi Naeh, one tefach = was eight centimeters, while the Chazon Ish said it was 9.6 cm. The uniform opening of the ancient storage jars, which falls between 8.85 to 8.97 cm, falls squarely in between these two opinions and may shed light on the dimensions of the biblical tefach. Because we no longer hold by purity laws when it comes to the contamination of stored items, said the team, this elucidates just how tall your succa both can be, down to the last centimeter.

Israel and Sudan agree to normalize relations

As reported by Ron Kampeas of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 23, 2020 (link in original):

WASHINGTON — Sudan will become the third Arab country in the past two months to normalize ties with Israel, continuing the trend of Arab states’ willingness to advance ties with the Jewish state even without a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

President Donald Trump announced the agreement on Friday. According to a joint statement released by Israel, Sudan and the U.S., the two countries will “end the state of belligerence between their nations.”

The statement also noted that the countries will “begin economic and trade relations, with an initial focus on agriculture.” In the coming weeks, the statement says, they will meet to discuss “agriculture technology, aviation, migration issues and other areas.”

“The Arab-Israeli conflict is moving towards an end,” said Brian Hook, the top State Department official who helped broker the deal, on Friday at an Oval Office presentation.

Sudan has been ruled by a Sovereignty Council, led by military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, since a military coup last year deposed longtime Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was subsequently convicted of corruption. He presided over the country during the Darfur ethnic conflict, which involved what the International Criminal Court has deemed war crimes by the Sudanese government.

Earlier in the day, Trump informed Congress of his intent to remove Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, which reportedly is part of the agreement.

Sudan will get new leadership in 2022, when the state’s agreed-upon transition period ends. The north African country’s state religion was Islam until earlier this year.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have in recent weeks launched fast tracks to open up diplomatic affairs, trade and tourism with Israel, but Sudan is especially significant because it is by far the largest of the three countries, in land mass and in population. It is also symbolically significant because its capital, Khartoum, is where the Arab League met in 1967 after the Six-Day War and issued its “three no’s” to reject any engagement with Israel whatsoever and to continue the state of war.

Like the UAE and Bahrain, Sudan has not been in a war with Israel and has over the years enjoyed a degree of secret ties with the country. In 1984, the Sudanese authorities assisted in an airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in February met openly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Uganda.

There are also thousands of refugees from Sudan’s military conflicts living in Israel.

Trump also said at the Oval Office event on Friday that the process of solidifying the deals with the UAE and Bahrain “is moving along.” He said he is in talks with the United Arab Emirates to sell the country advanced F-35 stealth combat jets.

Israel objects to the sale, as do Democrats in Congress.

Bahrain signed a number of cooperative agreements with Israel this week and the UAE and Israel agreeing to travel between the countries without a pre-arranged visa. A government-linked Bahraini institute on Thursday signed an agreement with the U.S. State Department to combat anti-Semitism and delegitimization of Israel.

Go here for the statement issued by U.S. President Donald Trump.

40 years ago: Queen Elizabeth II visits Pope John Paul II

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith... I Timothy 4:1a

On October 16, 1555, erstwhile Church of England Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley became two of the most Protestant martyrs of the Reformation in England when they were burned at the stake in Oxford, England as heretics for refusing to accept Roman Catholic doctrine, particularly transubstantiation. As the flames rose around them, Mr. Latimer reportedly said, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out." That candle has been put out, evidence of which was an event that occurred the day after the 425th anniversary of the martyrdom of Messrs. Latimer and Ridley.

On October 17, 1980, another step was taken along the road to uniting all denominations under the banner of a false Christianity, as Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to make a state visit to the Vatican, where she and Prince Philip were received by Pope John Paul II. As reported by BBC News, October 17, 1980:

The Queen has made history after becoming the first British monarch to make a state visit to the Vatican.

Pope welcomed Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh, for what was described as a "warm and relaxed" encounter.

The Queen, dressed in a long black taffeta gown in line with Vatican protocol, arrived with the Duke at the Vatican in the rain at 1100 local time and took the lift up to the second floor.

Trumpets sounded and the royal procession moved slowly along the corridor into the Clementine Hall.

The Queen and the Duke were welcomed by John Paul II at the door of his private library.

The Queen then opened her speech with assurances of sincere friendship and good will.

She invited the Pope to her country in two years' time, but made clear this would not be a state visit but one "to the Roman Catholic community in Great Britain where some four million of my people are members of the Roman Catholic Church.

"We support the growing movement of unity between the Christian Churches throughout the world and we pray that your Holiness's visit to Britain may enable us all to see more clearly those truths which both unite and divide us in a new and constructive light."

In reply the Pope welcomed the opportunity of the forthcoming pastoral visit to the UK.

He said: "I render homage to the Christian history of your people, as well as to their cultural achievements.

"The ideals of freedom and democracy, anchored in your past remain challenges for every generation of upright citizens in your land."

They then held private talks and the Pope presented the Queen with a facsimile of the manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy with its illustration of the Order of the Garter in the time of Edward IV.

In return she offered a book about Windsor Castle by St John Hope and two signed photographs.

After the talks, the Queen and Prince Philip walked out into the Clementine Hall and they went on to meet the Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Casaroli, at the home of the British Minister to the Holy See, Mark Heath.

As reported by BBC News:

The Queen's visit was seen as a big step towards forging relations with the Church Of England and the Roman Catholics.

In 1982 John Paul II was welcomed by Her Majesty two years later at Buckingham Palace during a historic visit to Great Britain.

The Queen visited the Vatican again in 2000 to mark the 20th anniversary of their first meeting.

The Pope reinforced their close ties over the years when he said: "Relations between the United Kingdom and the Holy See have not always been untroubled; long years of common inheritance were followed by the sad years of division.

"But in recent years there has emerged between us a cordiality more in keeping with the harmony of earlier times and more genuinely expressive of our common spiritual roots."

The Pope died at 2137 (1937 GMT) on Saturday 2 April 2005 after he failed to recover from a throat operation.

Black sodomite becomes United Church of Canada leader

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. II Timothy 3:5

Politically correct racial category? Check. Alphabet pervert? Check. Social gospel? Check. Well, then, this person meets the qualifications to lead the United Church of Canada in its continuing march into oblivion. As reported by John Longhurst of the Winnipeg Free Press, October 10, 2020:

As the first Black and openly LGBTTQ+ person to be appointed general secretary of the United Church of Canada, Michael Blair knows he is travelling a new path.

"My appointment sends a message," he said, noting he is not the first Black person to hold a leadership role in the church.

That message goes out to members of the church who are persons of colour, showing they are welcome as leaders and giving them "something to celebrate," he said.

At the same time, his appointment challenges all members of the church to "think through what it means to be an anti-racist institution" at this important moment in history, and "how to live into that reality," he said.

As a gay man, it tells all Canadians "the United Church is a unique kind of faith community," one where "sexual identity is not a barrier to ministry and leadership," he added.

Being the only Black and LGBTTQ+ person to lead a major Christian denomination may also "create spaces where conversation can happen" with other church groups, he said.

He acknowledges there is a bit of loneliness in that space, and there will be a focus on him as only leader of a major denomination in Canada who is Black and gay. At the same time, he hopes "it can be a prophetic call to others."

Blair, 64, was born in Jamaica. A father of two adult sons, he was ordained as a minister in Toronto in 1986 by the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec. When he came out as gay in 2001, he was asked to leave that denomination and began working for various United Church-supported organizations in the city.

Through those experiences, he became more intrigued by the United Church and, in 2008, took his first staff position with the denomination.

Over his time as a staff member, he was asked to lead number of different national programs. As a result, "I come into role with a strong understanding of the church," he said.

As he begins his new role, Blair is excited about the future of the 95-year-old denomination.

"We are on the cusp of repositioning ourselves to engage people of faith and society as a whole," he said, noting the denomination made a number of structural changes two years ago that "puts us in a framework to experiment and try new things."

This included setting up a separate corporation to help congregations deal with issues related to the management and sale of churches.

Called the United Property Resource Corporation and backed with a $20 million line of credit from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, it will provide local churches with professional real estate development and management expertise as they seek to convert their buildings for other community uses such as affordable housing.

While some have viewed all the buildings owned by the United Church as a liability, Blair sees them "as a gift. But we need the expertise and skills to utilize them."

Noting the United Church has committed to building 600 affordable housing units by 2025 and 5,000 affordable units by 2035, his dream is to see under-utilized church buildings being used to meet important needs in cities and towns across the country.

"We can engage communities through our property," he said, noting "we have many buildings that are bigger than we need. We need to re-imagine how we can use those spaces."

Another exciting program, he said, is The Edge, which aims to support innovation, pilot new programs, fund new initiatives and create a learning network for faith communities across the church.

"It was set up to think through new mission opportunities," Blair said of how it will support new ideas that "are outside the box. We want to find new ways of doing mission and ministry."

All of this is being done at a time when the denomination is getting smaller—it has just under 400,000 members now, down from over one million in the 1960s.

"The reality is we are declining in numbers," Blair said. "We can’t fudge that."

But, he quickly added, "numbers are not the only thing to measure. It’s harder to measure things like community connectivity, faithfulness, relationships, and nurturing faith formation. There is lots of energy in the church for that."

His goal is to "turn around the narrative of decline," telling stories that show how the church is making a difference in Canada and around the world through things like helping refugees, responding to the Beirut explosion disaster, addressing global hunger through its membership in the Winnipeg-based Canadian Foodgrains Bank, and playing a leadership role in advocating for a guaranteed basic income in Canada.

"We need Canadians to understand we are making a difference," he said. "But we need to do better at telling that story, sharing those stories of impact. We can’t just have stories of decline, decline, decline."

He hopes the new initiatives and ongoing programs will capture the interest of Canadians who will want to become part of the church.

"The United Church of Canada shares the values of Canadians in so many ways," he said. "It’s just a matter of figuring out how to tell stories of those values and invite Canadians to be part of our work."

That’s a challenge, he admits, given the declining state of religiosity in Canada. "Time will tell if we are successful," he said.

I have to chuckle at Mr. Blair's desire to "reimagine" how to use the church's buildings. The United Church is in a death spiral where the number of empty buildings is increasing because the number of people in the buildings is decreasing along with the amount of money coming in to pay for the buildings.

Mr. Blair is unusual in admitting that the United Church has been numerically declining, but this blogger predicts that continuing to promote the same "values of Canadians" that the United Church supposedly shares will be about as effective in reversing its decline as the promotion of "wokeness" has been for professional sports.

See also my posts:

Calgary Herald blasts United Church of Canada for advocating a boycott of Israel (May 15, 2012)

Canadian Senators warn United Church of Canada over proposed boycott of Israeli goods (July 6, 2012)

A secular columnist accurately assesses Canada's declining liberal churches (July 30, 2012)

United Church of Canada elects its first openly sodomite moderator (August 16, 2012)

50 years ago: United Church of Canada unveils Sunday School curriculum denying the truth of the Bible (August 1, 2014)

80 years ago: United Church of Canada ordains Canada's first female minister (November 7, 2016)

Amalgamation of congregations in Edmonton provides more evidence of the continuing decline of the United Church of Canada (January 31, 2017)

30 years ago: New Ager Matthew Fox delivers keynote lecture at Queen's Theological School (October 11, 2017)

50 years ago: United Church in Calgary experiments with modern music (June 15, 2018)

Mainline church leaders 50 years ago advocated methods used by "evangelical" churches today (November 6, 2018)

Atheist minister with United Church of Canada keeps her job after an agreement in lieu of a heresy trial (November 16, 2018)

50 years ago: Canadian Anglican traditionalists oppose union with United Church of Canada (June 21, 2019)

40 years ago: Pope John Paul II meets the Dalai Lama

On October 9, 1980, Pope John Paul II held a private audience with the Dalai Lama at the Vatican. While this blogger is unaware of what was said, it can be reasonably inferred that the audience was one of the events leading up to the World Day of Prayer for Peace, which took place in Assisi, Italy on October 27, 1986, under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, with the Dalai Lama as his right-hand man.

See my post 25 years ago: Representatives of 12 religions join Pope John Paul II at World Day of Prayer for Peace (October 26, 2011).

2,000-year-old ritual bath discovered in Lower Galilee

As reported by Israel365 News, September 30, 2020:

Prior to the construction of a major interchange at the Hamovil junction in Lower Galilee, an archaeological salvage dig carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority revealed the remains of a Jewish agricultural farmstead from the Second Temple period (2000 years ago), including a magnificent mikveh. The excavations were conducted with the help of workers from the village of Kfar Manda, students of pre-military preparatory programs and volunteers from the vicinity, including residents of the nearby Kibbutz Hannaton.

According to Abd Elghani Ibrahim and Dr. Walid Atrash, Directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The existence of a mikveh, a purification facility, unequivocally indicates that the residents of the ancient farm were Jewish, who led a religious and traditional way of life, and maintained purity as a Torah commandment. Ritual baths have been used in daily life by Jews since the Second Temple period and until today.

According to Ibrahim and Dr Atrash, “the discovery of the mikveh in the farmstead changes what we knew about the lifestyle of the Jews in the Second Temple period. Until now we hadn’t discovered Jewish farms in the Galilee. It was considered that the Jews in the Roman period didn’t live in farms outside the villages or towns. The discovery of the farmstead at some distance from the village of the Shikhin and the large Jewish town of Sepphoris, showed that Jews also settled in farmsteads that perhaps functioned as the rural hinterland of Sepphoris”.

About seventeen hundred years have passed since the farm was destroyed in an earthquake, and about fourteen hundred years since the site was finally abandoned.

Recently, a huge highway interchange is being constructed over the valley. The need to anchor one of the supporting bridge columns, necessitated the constructing deep foundation trenches in the bedrock. As the archaeologists excavated next to the construction works, the mikveh was uncovered. Since it was not possible to preserve the mikveh on the site, the idea arose to detach the installation from the rock and to transplant it to a protected site for display, for the benefit of the public.

The Israel Antiquities Authority, together with members of Kibbutz Hannaton cooperated, and the kibbutz residents launched a crowd-funding campaign for the project, with the aim of placing the ancient mikveh next to the functioning mikveh on the kibbutz. In cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, Netivei Israel, the Jezreel Valley Regional Council and the residents, the necessary funding was obtained to move the ancient mikveh.

In the past week, preparatory work for the transfer was carried out. The mikveh, whose weight is approximately 57 tons, was first sawed off on all sides, detached from bedrock and surrounded by a steel cage in order to protect it and allow it to be hoisted. Today, to the cheers of the residents, it was hoisted in the air and placed in its new location.

The farm with the ritual bath (lower right). (Abd Ibrahim/Israel Antiquities Authority)

New evidence reveals widespread literacy in ancient Judah

As reported by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich of Israel365 News, September 9, 2020:

Jews around the world today are known to be more educated – and even more likely to vote in elections – than their counterparts. But was this high level of literacy true thousands of years ago? Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU), together with a retired superintendent and senior handwriting examiner from the Israel Police Division of Identification and Forensic Science, have found that contrary to popular belief, many people in the ancient Kingdom of Judah could read and write.

The first-ever, special interdisciplinary study, just published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS One) was conducted by Dr. Arie Shaus, Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin and Dr. Barak Sober of TAU’s applied mathematics department; Prof. Eli Piasetzky of the Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy; and Prof. Israel Finkelstein of the department of archeology and ancient Near Eastern civilizations. The forensic handwriting specialist was Yana Gerber, a senior expert who served for 27 years in the Israel Police.

The researchers examined the writings found in Tel Arad – ostraca (fragments of pottery vessels containing ink inscriptions) that were discovered at the Tel Arad archaeological site in the 1960s. Tel Arad is one of Israel’s most important archaeological sites, where remains were found of a fortified Canaanite city and fortresses from the time of the kings of Judah, when it was a small military post on the southern border of the kingdom. Its built-up area covered about two dunams, and it housed between 20 and 30 soldiers. The fortresses include the remains of a unique Judean temple.

Literacy was not the exclusive domain of a handful of royal scribes, the team concluded after examining ink-inscribed pottery shards and identifying 12 different handwritings with varying degrees of certainty.

A high rate of literacy indicates the ability to compile biblical texts, such as the books from Joshua to Kings, before the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians.

Forensic handwriting examination of the Arad inscriptions had never before been conducted. In fact, to the best of the team’s knowledge, such an examination had never been performed on any ancient inscription for forensic chemical analysis in the context of historical texts. The researchers used state-of-the-art image processing and machine learning technologies to analyze 18 ancient texts from the Tel Arad military post dating back to around 600 BCE. They concluded that they were written by no fewer than 12 authors, a finding suggesting that many of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah during that period were able to read and write, and that literacy not reserved as an exclusive domain in the hands of a few royal scribes...

...According to the researchers, the findings shed new light on Judahite society on the eve of the destruction of the First Temple and on the setting of the compilation of biblical texts.

“It should be remembered that this was a small outpost, one of a series of outposts on the southern border of the kingdom of Judah,” said Sober. “Since we found at least 12 different authors out of 18 texts in total, we can conclude that there was a high level of literacy throughout the entire kingdom. The commanding ranks and liaison officers at the outpost, and even the quartermaster Eliashib and his deputy, Nahum, were literate.” Someone had to teach them how to read and write, said Sober, “so we must assume the existence of an appropriate educational system in Judah at the end of the First Temple period. This, of course, does not mean that there was almost universal literacy as there is today, but it seems that significant portions of the residents of the Kingdom of Judah were literate. This is important to the discussion on the composition of biblical texts. If there were only two or three people in the whole kingdom who could read and write, then it is unlikely that complex texts would have been composed.”

“Whoever wrote the biblical works did not do so for us, so that we could read them after 2,600 years, they did so in order to promote the ideological messages of the time,” concluded Finkelstein. “There are different opinions regarding the date of the composition of biblical texts. Some scholars suggest that many of the historical texts in the Bible – from Joshua to II Kings – were written at the end of the 7th century BCE, that is, very close to the period of the Arad ostraca. It is important to ask for whom these texts were written. According to one view, there were events in which the few people who could read and write stood before the illiterate public and read texts out to them. A high literacy rate in Judah puts things into a different light.”

“Until now, the discussion of literacy in the Kingdom of Judah has been based on circular arguments, that is, on what is written within the Bible itself, for example on scribes in the kingdom,” he said. “We have shifted the discussion to an empirical perspective. If in a remote place like Tel Arad there was, over a short period of time, a minimum of 12 authors of 18 inscriptions, out of the population of Judah – estimated to have been no more than 120,000 people – it means that literacy was not the exclusive domain of a handful of royal scribes in Jerusalem. The quartermaster from the Tel Arad outpost also had the ability to read and appreciate them.”

Examples of two Hebrew ostraca from Arad (Yana Gerber, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Hebrew ostraca from Arad ( Michael Cordonsky, Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority)

Examples of Hebrew ostraca from Arad (Michael Cordonsky, Tel Aviv University, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Click on the link to see the original article Forensic document examination and algorithmic handwriting analysis of Judahite biblical period inscriptions reveal significant literacy level by Arie Shaus, Yana Gerber, Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin et al., PLoS One, September 9, 2020.

1,950 years ago: Titus sacks Jerusalem

And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.
And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.
And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Leviticus 26:31-33

And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!
And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. Mark 13:1-2

On September 8, 70, the siege of Jerusalem, which had begun almost five months earlier, ended when Roman legions commanded by future Emperor Titus completed their conquest of the city, which included the capture of the Second Temple, aka Herod's Temple. The sacking of Jerusalem fulfilled the prophecies of Moses and the Lord Jesus Christ; the latter prophecy must have seemed most unlikely at the time, but it was fulfilled less than 40 years later.

The Temple has yet to be rebuilt, but it will be (see, e.g., Ezekiel 40-44, II Thessalonians 2:4). The Temple Mount Faithful and the Temple Institute have been preparing for years for the building of the Third Temple. The book Ready to Rebuild by Thomas Ice & Randall Price (1992) and the companion video, hosted by Jimmy DeYoung, are no longer recent, but are still relevant and useful sources of information on this subject. Dr. DeYoung hosted a revised version of his video in 2011:

Remains of a royal structure from the time of the Kings of Judah have been discovered in Jerusalem

As reported by Israel National News, September 3, 2020:

Who was privileged to live in the monumental structure possessing a breathtaking view of the City of David and the Temple, which was uncovered in an archeological excavation on the Armon Hanatziv (Commissioner's Palace, also known as Governor's House) Promenade? Was it one of the Kings of Judah, or was it perhaps a Jerusalemite family of nobility and wealth during the First Temple period?

A rare, impressive, and very special collection of several dozen adorned architectural stone artifacts, which together were part of a magnificent structure, was discovered in the Antiquities Authority's excavations in preparation for the establishment of a visitor center on the promenade, at the site where the home of artist Shaul Schatz once stood. The excavations were funded by the Ministry of Tourism, Jerusalem Municipality and the Ir David Foundation (Elad).

The findings were unveiled to the public today, Thursday, at a festive event in the City of David in the Jerusalem Walls National Park, attended by Minister of Culture, Hili Tropper, Archaeologist from the Jerusalem region of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Dr. Yuval Baruch, and Chairman of the Ir David Foundation, David Be’eri. The findings will be on display in an exhibition at the City of David over the next few days, and an account of their significance will be given online at the Megalim Conference, to be held this coming Tuesday on the City of David website.

These stone artifacts are made of soft limestone, with decorative carvings, and among them are capitals of various sizes in the architectural style known as 'Proto-Aeolian' - one of the most significant royal building features of the First Temple period, and one of the visual symbols of the period. The importance of this artistic motif as a symbol representing the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel led the Bank of Israel to choose it as the image that adorns the five shekel coin of the State of Israel.

The unveiled collection includes, among other things, three complete medium-sized stone capitals and items from lavish window frames, incorporating balustrades composed of stylish columns on which a series of Proto-Aeolian style capitals of a tiny size were affixed.

According to Yaakov Billig, Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s excavation: “This is a very exciting discovery. This is a first-time discovery of scaled-down models of the giant Proto-Aeolian capitals, of the kind found thus far in the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel, where they were incorporated above the royal palace gates. The level of workmanship on these capitals is the best seen to date, and the degree of preservation of the items is rare."

It was with great surprise that two of the three column capitals were found neatly buried, one on top of the other. "At this point it is still difficult to say who hid the capitals in the way they were discovered, and why he did so, but there is no doubt that this is one of the mysteries at this unique site, to which we will try to offer a solution," Billig adds. Unlike the capitals, which were discovered preserved in excellent condition, the rest of the building was destroyed, probably in the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE or thereabout. The remains of the building were demolished and dismantled for the purpose of making secondary use of the valuable items.

In Billig's estimation, the magnificent structure -built in the period between the days of King Hezekiah and King Josiah- indicates the restoration of Jerusalem after the Assyrian siege of the city in 701 BCE, during the reign of King Hezekiah – a siege which the city barely survived.

"This discovery, along with the palace previously uncovered in Ramat Rachel and the administrative center recently uncovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority on the slopes of Arnona, attests to a new revival in the city and a somewhat 'exit from the walls' of the First Temple period, after the Assyrian siege. We reveal villas, mansions and government buildings in the area outside the walls of the city. This testifies to the relief felt by the city's residents and the recovery of Jerusalem's development after the Assyrian threat was over," says Billig.

The Minister of Culture and Sport, Hili Tropper said: “I am happy and excited with the revelation of the remains from the period of the Kings of Judah. The uncovering of the remains of the building reflects the glorious roots of the Jewish people and our rich past here in the capital city Jerusalem. I see great importance in the work of the Israel Antiquities Authority and in the work of the City of David in their discoveries over the years, which reveal parts of the illustrious Jewish past. This is an opportunity to thank the Ir David Foundation (Elad) that funded this important excavation. The past is the cornerstone of a nation, and the cornerstone of culture, and its discovery also affects the present as well as the future. The Ministry of Culture and Sports will continue to support this important enterprise of heritage, history, and culture.”

Recognition of the strategic and panoramic nature of the area was also expressed some 2,600 years later, when the British Mandatory administration built its central seat of government, known as the "Commissioner's Palace" (Armon Hanatziv) there. A few decades later, one of the most famous promenades in the State of Israel was established on the site, the Armon Hanatziv Promenade, from which the spectacular view of the City of David and the Temple Mount can be seen to this day.

One of the baluster columns of the ancient window (Shai Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority)

The uncovering of the capitals (Shai Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority)