Religious-extremist - With Love In Christ

The Holy Snakes of Virgin Mary

The phenomenon of the Holy Snakes of the Virgin Mary has been occurring for centuries during the festivities to the Theotokos between August 5 and August 15 in the village of Markopoulo on the island of Kefalonia, Greece.

The small black snakes appear at the Eastern Orthodox Church of Panagia of Langouvarda on the site of a monastery, established as a nunnery and dedicated to Our Lady of Langouvarda.

The myth about these snakes is attached to the year the monastery was attacked by pirates in 1705. The Orthodox nuns prayed fervently to the Virgin Mary for protection and were subsequently transformed into the snakes to avoid being taken as prisoners.

The snakes have a small cross on their head and their tongues are also in the shape of a cross. They are known to belong to the Telescopusfallax species, also known as the European Cat Snake, and they appear in and around the courtyard of the church, on the walls and on the bell tower.

The snakes show no fear while the services are held and are harmless during the festivities. As soon as the Liturgy concludes on the 15th of August, they become hostile and aggressive and disappear back into the wilderness of the area. The snakes cannot be found until the following year.

The inhabitants of the villages consider them to be holy, collecting them and setting them on the silver icon of the Virgin of the Snakes (Panagia Fidoussa). It has been documented by the locals that during World War II and the year of the island’s destructive 1953 earthquake in August, the snakes failed to appear.

The locals now use this as a sign that if the snakes do not show just before the 15th of August that something bad is imminent.

Why Eve Was More Courageous Than Adam

Why did the serpent not attack the man, rather than the woman? You say he went after her because she was the weaker of the two.

On the contrary. In the transgression of the commandment, she showed herself to be the stronger... For she alone stood up to the serpent. She ate from the tree, but with resistance and dissent and after being dealt with perfidiously.

But Adam partook of the fruit given by the woman, without even beginning to make a fight, without a word of contradiction - a perfect demonstration of consummate weakness and a cowardly soul. The woman, moreover, can be excused; she wrestled with a demon and was thrown. But Adam will not be able to find an excuse... he had personally received the commandment from God.

☦︎ St. Irenaeus, 2nd Century

Trawling through Orthodox tags and it’s like 50% my own posts, what the heck guys. My back hurts from carrying the Orthoblr universe.

Nice addition. “That’s rather nice” would functionally mean the same as “that’s quite nice,” in which case, “quite” would be an appropriate replacement for “rather” in Luke 11:28.

Mistranslation by the KJV, Luke 11:28

27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman called out from the crowd and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts which nursed you!”

King James Version

28 But Jesus said, “Yes, rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”

Eastern Orthodox Version

28 But Jesus said, “Yes, and more than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”

The Greek word menounge (μενοῦνγε), translated above in the text of verse 28 as “yea, more than that,” but rendered inaccurately in the KJV as "yea, rather," is the same word which occurs in Phil. 3:8, where the KJV gives Yea, doubtless, and in Rom. 10:18, where the KJV gives Yes, verily.

The force of menounge is that it corrects the previous statement, not by negating it, but by amplifying it.

Philippians 3:8 “Yes, without a doubt, I consider all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things. I consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ.”

Romans 10:18 “But I say, did they not hear? Yes, most certainly: Their sound went out into all the earth, Their words to the ends of the world.”

Evangelicals and opponents of traditional Christianity often frame this statement of Christ as proof that His Mother was not holy or deserving recognition, that she was merely a vessel with little importance, and this perspective directly results from a mistranslation of Christ’s words.

Indeed, blessed is she who contained the Uncontainable: Christ our God.

Understand that Luke’s Gospel was originally written in Greek, so perhaps we ought to study the original language that the scriptures were written in to have a better understanding of Christ’s life-giving message.

Exterior view of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ

Late 1880s