On another blog group, I read from Helena:
"... when the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch
Cyril of Constantinople was accused of
high treason, strangled and thrown into
the sea by Janissaries on Ottoman Sultan
Murad IV's command. This marked the complete
replacement of Eastern Christian Orthodoxy
with Islam as the only religion of the land
in that region."
More than likely, the total lunar eclipse
occured during the Patriarch Cyril II of
Constantinople (Patriarch Cyril II Kontares)
who was in this patriarchial role for three
terms between 1633 and 1639.
I found on Wikipedia info describing this man.
He was struggling with two-prong attacks; first
between the Turks who were at war, while the
other attacks came from other warring factions
within the faith-communities with Jesuit
missionaries proselytizing the Orthodox faithful.
Apparently, Patriarch Cyril II wanted "... his
ultimate aim was to reform the Orthodox Church
along Calvinistic lines." Additional review is
found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Lucaris
Excerpt from
http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/cyril_lucaris
"In 1653 Patriarch Cyril opened a school called
Athoniada at Mount Athos, but the Orthodox and
Catholics insisted to the Turkish authorities
that this should be closed."
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Athos
It reads (excerpt):
"Despite the fact that most time the monasteries
were left on their own, the Ottomans heavily taxed
them and sometimes they seized important land parcels
from them. This eventually culminated in an economic
crisis in Athos during the 17th century. This led to
the adoption of the so called "idiorrhythmic" lifestyle
(a semi-eremitic variant of Christian monasticism) by
a few monasteries at first and later, during the first
half of the 18th century, by all. This new way of
monastic organization was an emergency measure taken
by the monastic communities to counter their harsh
economic environment. Contrary to the cenobitic system,
monks in idiorrhythmic communities have private property,
work for themselves, they are solely responsible for
acquiring food and other necessities and they dine
separately in their cells, only meeting with other
monks at church. At the same time, the monasteries'
abbots were replaced by committees and at Karyes the
Protos was replaced by a four member committee.[8]"
So, what's the big picture here? What are the repeating
patterns for us today?
First, there were threats internal within the religious
communities.
Second, there were external threats with Islam terrorists,
their expanding war-machine and Turk deal-making.
Third, the taxes were escallating out of sight that
forced monasteries to become independent for providing
their own food and other necessities.
Fourth, decisions were being made by committees.
Fifth, the ultimate goal of creating centers of
learning were shut down by the politically connected.
It sounds very much like a match to our times with lots
of terrorists, false church leaders, polititians cutting
back-room deals with rising taxes, a ground-swell of
survivorist movement for living unplugged from the world
system and a take-it-or-leave-it mentality for abusing
the faithful.
Finally, I found a copy of the confession of Patriarch
Cyril II as located at:
http://www.crivoice.org/creedcyril.html
Strange, but it reads very similar to something we might
expect from a more modern source other than 1629.
