Remembrances for December – 2023

 

Dear friends, if you have time, please pray for these members of the Southern family on the day they reposed.  Many thanks.

But one may ask:  ‘What good does it do to pray for the departed?’  An answer is offered here:  https://orthochristian.com/130608.html

Along with prayers and hymns for the departed:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6je5axPodI

3 December

William Grant Still, born in Mississippi, raised in Arkansas, and a well-respected musical composer.

https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/william-grant-still-1775/

6 December

Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, he had the difficult task of leading the South during the War, and was unjustly tortured by his Yankee captors for two years after the ordeal had ended.  Interestingly, his death occurred on the feast day of one of the Church’s most beloved saints, Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker (the same St Nicholas associated with the Christmas season).  There have been a number of times when St Nicholas has miraculously interceded on behalf of those wrongfully accused; perhaps we will find in the Eternal Day that there was some connection between St Nicholas and Pres Davis during his imprisonment.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/clyde-wilson-library/a-sacrifice-for-his-people-the-imprisonment-of-jefferson-davis/

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2019/12/06/103484-saint-nicholas-the-wonderworker-archbishop-of-myra-in-lycia

10 Dec.

Gov Francisco Hector, an active governor of Spanish Louisiana (1791-7), some of whose more far-seeing plans went unfulfilled because of geopolitical events outside his control.

https://64parishes.org/entry/francisco-luis-hector-baron-de-carondelet

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hector-baron-de-Carondelet

12 Dec.

Andrew Lytle of Tennessee, one of the great men of the South of any age.

https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/andrew-nelson-lytle/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/86282498/andrew-nelson-lytle

14 Dec.

General George Washington, probably Virginia’s and Dixie’s most famous son.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/washington-vs-lincoln/

15 Dec.

Maggie Lena Walker, an enterprising black business woman whose talents allowed her to found, among other things, the St Luke Penny Savings Bank and build it up into an organization with 1,500 branches.

https://www.biography.com/scholar/maggie-lena-walker

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9104631/maggie-lena-walker

17 Dec.

John Stewart, a free black man from Virginia who became a great preacher amongst the Wyandott Indians in Ohio.

https://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/r-s/stewart-john-1786-1823/

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/stewart-john-1786-1823/

https://www.wyandot.org/stew1.htm

https://www.wyandotte-nation.org/culture/history/published/missionary-pioneer/

18 Dec.

Antoine Dubuclet, one of the most successful free black plantation owners in Louisiana and the whole South.  He would later serve as Louisiana’s State Treasurer.

http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/famouscreoles/johnaudubon/johnaudubondubuclet.html

19 Dec.

Thomas Holley Chivers of Georgia, a talented poet, a doctor, and an acquaintance of Poe.

https://allpoetry.com/Thomas-Holley-Chivers

24 Dec.

Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Moon, the self-sacrificing Virginia missionary to China.

http://cgbcbelton.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/lottie-moon1.pdf

http://bpnews.net/53987/chinese-government-designates-lottie-moons-church-as-historical-site

Also, to celebrate some of the saints of December from the South’s Christian inheritance of various lands, follow these links on over:

https://southernorthodox.org/orthodox-saints-for-dixie-december/

https://confiterijournal.blogspot.com/2019/12/happy-feast-for-saints-of-december.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Orthodoxy in Bayou Land’

 

It is not unusual to run across ancient things in Northeast Louisiana – Native American arrowheads and burial mounds, old French and Spanish names and settlements, and petrified wood here and there.

But, strange as it will sound, the most ancient of them all arrived here only in the 20^th century, carried here by a band of Greek immigrants:  the Orthodox Church, the oldest of the Christian confessions, tracing Her lineage back to the Holy Apostles themselves.  But even more than this, being the Divine-human Body of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, She shares in His timelessness.

Greeks Arrive in Monroe

Other Orthodox ethnic groups were present in the area prior to the arrival of the Greek (among them Arabs, Serbs, and Macedonians)¹, but the Hellenes would arrive in such numbers that they quickly became the predominant representative of the Orthodox Faith in Northeast Louisiana.

The early 20^th century was a time of intensified conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Greece, as well as financial hardship for the Greeks, which led many to seek out more favorable living conditions elsewhere, including here in this corner of the South.²

The first public record of Greeks in this region is a 1911 advertisement for the Greek American Confectionary Company that was located at the time at 236 Desiard St. in Monroe.  It was owned by Mr. George Vambis, who is listed in the city directory as living in Monroe in 1912; and in 1920, according to the U. S. census, in Ruston.³

More would arrive shortly.  A partial check of immigration records shows several new Greek arrivals to U. S. shores between 1908 and 1911 being naturalized in Ouachita Parish between 1923 and 1928.⁴

As the Greek community grew and became better organized, plans were made and put into motion to regularize their religious life:

 

Throughout the 1940s Orthodox Christians in this area went to Shreveport for their church services, baptisms, and weddings. Then, in 1951, a group of about twenty Monroe families purchased a house on 1104 North Fourth Street with the hope of converting it into a church when a priest could be found. In the fall of 1952 Father Spyridon Markopoulos arrived to serve the budding community and to celebrate the first Orthodox liturgy in Monroe. By 1953 the Fourth Street house had been paid off, and there was talk of fulfilling the dream of many an immigrant group: the building of a church.

 

Things moved quickly. Our current Forsythe Street property was acquired in 1954 and construction began immediately on the church. Father Spyridon, Mr. Kokkinos, and Mr. Primos must have kept the contractor’s feet to the fire, for by August the church was finished and the first liturgy was celebrated there. The first baptism, that of Kosta Kolokouris, was held in November of that year.

 

The enthusiasm of the parishioners was contagious; individuals donated pews, chandeliers, icons. Many non-Orthodox friends pitched in and the little church was soon furnished in proper Orthodox fashion. In 1956 the community was confident enough to play host to a three-state district convention of AHEPA, which was attended by over 350 people. And soon the city of Monroe became acquainted with old-world traditions: the Good Friday procession outside the church, the Grecian dinners, Easter bread, and baklava.⁵

The Greeks would not remain in an isolated ghetto.  They acclimated to this part of the world, such that ‘in November of 1979 another milestone was reached with the arrival of the first American-born priest to serve the church, Father David Buss.’⁶

And a few more changes would be in store for the parish as the 20^th century ended and the 21^st began:

 

Though old-style immigration has largely ceased, the church ministers today to a different sort of immigrant: expatriates from Shreveport and Boston, Orthodox from many national backgrounds–Greek, FYROM, Russian, Ukranian, Serbian, Arabic, as well as Americans of European, African, and Asian ancestry. The church also serves as a spiritual beacon to Orthodox students from Greece, Cyprus, and the Middle East. It offers them a place to worship, to congregate, to feel a little less far from home.

 

With more than half a century behind it, Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church now looks to the future. Its 2000-year-old Orthodox services are partly in English now, its congregation a comfortable ethnic mix, its outlook decidedly American. Yet this Orthodox spiritual home in northern Louisiana remains true to its original character: a small outpost of the Church of the Christian East ministering to an ever-changing flock of faithful.⁷

Greece and Dixie

The predominantly Greek manifestation of the Orthodox Faith in Northeast Louisiana is perhaps a Providential gift, for Southerners have always had a soft spot in their hearts for Greek culture.  Many Southern buildings, from plantations to courthouses, included ancient Greek elements.  Similarly, the works of Homer and other ancient Greek writers adorned many a Southern bookshelf, from colonial days onward⁸, and many antebellum Southern universities required students to read and translate works in the Greek language, ranging from Xenophon to Saint John’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles⁹.  And major Southern literary figures, including Edgar Allen Poe and Andrew Lytle, drew inspiration from the Greek past¹⁰.

 . . .

The rest is at https://southernorthodox.org/orthodoxy-in-bayou-land/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Riches to Rags’

 

A disturbing (but unfortunately all too common) scene developed in New York City recently:

A social media influencer’s giveaway in Union Square Park Friday quickly descended into chaos, with the young attendees throwing bottles, jumping on vehicles and screaming ‘F–k the PD” — as NYPD cops were assaulted and some eventgoers were nearly trampled.

 

Twitch gamer Kai Cenat, who has over 20 million followers on the gaming platform, scheduled the real-world meet-up at 3:30 p.m. and planned to give away PlayStation 5s, computers, microphones and other gaming accessories.

 

But within a half-hour, the crowd of nearly 1,000 kids broke down into chaos with the attendees tossing cones and brawling.

 

--The New York Post via Newswars.com.

There are reasons this sort of thing keeps happening.  We have become much too one-sided in our focus in the US and in the West in general:  We have reduced life to a pursuit of money and acquiring stuff.  The generally accepted theory of government gives credence to this.  Per John Locke, James Madison, Frederick Bastiat, and other modern political philosophers of the West, it exists mainly to protect the property of citizens.  Even thinkers like Marx aren’t far different, using government as a way to redistribute property to the proletariat.

Contemporary Western heroes, too, reinforce this mindset:  They are often men like John D. Rockefeller, men who are exemplars of the ‘rags to riches’ story, who rose from poor beginnings to become extraordinarily wealthy.

Some of the virtues of these men, like thrift and a good work ethic, are commendable, but, as we are increasingly seeing, they are not enough to ward off the moral sickness that is convulsing the body and soul of the West.  Western society needs a bit of balance in her view of what constitutes ‘the good life’.  To that end, instead of exalting solely the ‘rags to riches’ stories, some effort ought to go into the praise and exaltation of the lives of those who traded their earthly riches for rags so that they might attain the greatest treasure of all – union with God Himself.

St. Theodora, a 17^th-century saint of Romania, is an excellent example of the latter.  She left everything – possessions, family, physical comfort, etc. – in order to pursue God.  The following are some selections from her holy life:

 . . .

The rest is at

https://thehayride.com/2023/08/garlington-riches-to-rags/

Or here:

https://orthodoxreflections.com/riches-to-rags/

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘The Good Shepherd Solution’

 

Kaisar recently wrote a good article about the relevance of Julius Caesar, and we hope he will not mind us borrowing the form of his essay’s title for our own use.

But it is from an essay by Padraig Martin that we will quote from initially.  He wrote in his post of July 4^th, 2023,

 

Generally, the most successful revolutions occur when a large body of combat trained persons feel disenfranchised by the current regime and they enjoy leaders who can set aside their egos to lead in a measured way. Such revolutionary leaders are rare. In fact, they are almost impossible to find. For every one George Washington, there are thousands of Stewart Rhodes.

Self-sacrifice:  This is a virtue that is essential for any uprising against an unjust power.  Without it, and without the love that animates it – love for God, kinsmen, land, culture, etc. – there would be nothing to generate and sustain the energies necessary to face the hardships of confrontation and war with the enemy power.  These virtues are woefully lacking in Southern ‘leadership’ today, even amongst those who are typically more well thought of, like a Gov. DeSantis of Florida.  Men like him, uS Sen. Cruz of Texas, etc., are not willing ‘to lay down their lives for the sheep’ (St. John’s Gospel 10:11), they are not willing to suffer and die for the well-being of other Southerners.

It is imperative, if we are to have a successful uprising against an evil ruling class in the DC swamp and elsewhere, that these virtues be inculcated in our people, particularly our leaders, the aristoi, by learning about Southern leaders who possessed them, like a Gen. John Bell Hood of Texas, men who literally lost arms and legs fighting off the Yankee invaders but who then valiantly got back onto the saddle to continue the fight rather than retire from the war, though they were well entitled to do that.

Particularly important and nourishing in this regard are the lives of Christian martyrs and confessors, those with the purest love for God and country.  One in particular stands out:  St. Tsotne Dadiani, from the country of Georgia, a country which was baptized into Christ in the 4^th century.  Here is his story:

 . . .

The rest is at https://identitydixie.com/2023/08/07/the-good-shepherd-solution/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!