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RU 07/2006 - TURKEY, AUSTRIA


- TURKEY: The Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I, Bishop of the last 2000 Christian Greek-Orthodox still living in Constantinopolis (named 'Istanbul' by the Turks), but who is above all honorary primate of the world's Orthodox Churches, is increasingly exposed to the risk of being expelled to Greece, according to the international news agencies. Recently, a bomb was thrown in front of the Patriarch's cathedral, the center of Orthodoxy 'Phanar', with with great material damage, but no human casualties. The Turkish administration inspires growing vexations for the patriarchy. In the streets, the extremist parties collect signatures requiring the expulsion of the patriarch. By the end of 2005 they already claimed 3 million signatures collected since October 2005. The chief of this operation, Mouammar Karabulut, President of the nationalistic movement 'National Strength Platform', declared that when 5 million signatures are reached, the petition will be handed over to the President of the Turkish Republic, Ahmet Necdet Sezer. The patriarch complains: "Our liturgical celebrations are interpreted as demonstrations of force, and our pastoral visits as missionary enterprises... They want to make everything what our patriarchy is doing, look like something political." He explains: "Our problem is not with the people, but with the bureaucracy." His final words being: "With God's grace, we firmly carry on our task, motivated by our duty". It is in this context that it's necessary to see the visit of Benedict XVI in Turkey, now programmed for end of November 2006. This visit already apprears problematic, since half of the members of the Turkish Parliament voted against it. One thing ought to be certain: if the Turks really expel Bartholomew from his two-thousand years old seat in Constantinople, the hopes of Turkey to adhere to the E.U. become irredeemable, in spite of the manoeuvering of certain Americans, Onusians and other Freemasons. And the pope - who is a declared enemy of Turkish membership to the European Union - may well announce it 'urbi et orbi'. - (ru; cf. EDM 129; SOP Feb. 2006).

- AUSTRIA: In this year of the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Salzburg and all of Austria are celebrating a great festival. Since he was born on January 27th at 8 P.M., the main event - a jubilant triduum - began this year precisely on that day, at the same hour, by the tolling of all the bells of Salzburg. Then, from 11 AM to 6 PM, Mozart's music was played, and people danced for 3 days in the old city. Further, on each Sunday of the year 2006, except during Lent and Advent, a celebration will be held with a Mozart Mass in one of the main churches of the old city (cathedral, church of the Franciscans, collegiate church Saint Peter...). Two special weeks, from October 22nd to November 5th, 2006, will finish the year of Mozart in Salzburg: there will be free religious concerts every day in the old city, under the somehow surrealist theme: 'Imprints on the soul', according to the famous word of Franz Schubert,: "Oh Mozart, immortal Mozart, how numerous, indeed, how innumerable are the salutary signs of a more luminous and better life that you have engraved on our souls!" But was Mozart not a Freemason? His letters, especially to his father Leopold, a very strict Catholic, seems to indicate the opposite: "I always have God before my eyes... He never abandons His servant." From Paris he wrote to his father: "Here in Paris, I never neglect visiting Our-Lady of Victory" to pray my Rosary... Aged 25, he writes to his father, on June 13th 1781: "I go to Mass every Sunday, and when possible also on workdays." The death report mentions 'a bible of 1679, very worn'. In Leipzig, Protestant city by excellence, he declares to the cantor of the church where had worked Johann Sebastian Bach: "You Protestants, you cannot feel what it means to say AGNUS DEI QUI TOLLIS PECCATA MUNDI, DONA NOBIS PACEM! But when, since early childhood, a person has been introduced as I was, into the mystical sanctuary of our religion, when he has so eagerly waited with a burning heart, for the service, without knowing what he wanted precisely, and then, when leaving the church, finding himself with a lighter heart like, a kind of inner elevation, without really knowing what he had done to get it, when were declared happy those who were kneeling during the moving AGNUS DEI and received Holy Communion, and while they were receiving the Sacrament, the music seemed to say, in a soft joyous voice from the bottom of the heart, to the one wo was kneeling down: BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT etc., that's quite something else!" - Some people have endeavered to present Mozart as a libertine, a delinquent, which he absolutely was not. Even his quality as a Freemason as from 1784 doesn't prove anything, since until the French Revolution 5 years later, freemasonry didn't imply the anti-Catholic fanaticism which later became an integral part thereof - and was therefore solemnly condemned by the Church -, but it earlier was rather considered by the common people as something humanitarian and compatible with the Faith. The proof: that same year, his very pious father also became member of a loge. - However, Mozart's heavenly music is only a window towards the paradise, not a door. The door is the holy Sacraments of the salvation instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ and offered until the end of times by His Church. But isn't it necessary first to look at Paradise through the window, in order to trigger the desire to reach it by the big door? The biggest religious and musical theme, for Mozart, was the Incarnation. It is as if this Christian mystery had also achieved itself in his music: the divine tie between Heaven and Earth, between God and man, the finally found harmony between the spirit and the flesh. Mozart died in Christ's peace on December 5th, 1791, "without having been afraid of death", he stated, while he was creating his two finest religious works: the anthem AVE VERUM, and the REQUIEM. R.I.P.! - (ru; cf. JF Jan.27, RB Jan.30)  

- - O.A.M.D.G. - -



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