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Syrian Christian

After the Synod on the Middle East, there are questions about the Christian presence in the region. Maalula and Seidnayya, Syrian rocks that tell the early days of Christ's followers in the region. Visit of 2005.

Leaving the amazing Tues Mousa and the rocky desert between Damascus and Homs, a narrow and picturesque valley leading from Yabrud to a fascinating town by the name: Maalula, the foothills of the snow still dell'Antilibano, set in a strip Green shows that the moisture of the valley. My companion tells me with some pride that the town is popular with the Syrian people not so much for the beauty of art, nature skinned or the tradition of a distant time of original Christianity, more prosaically as the beauty of young girls and its women. Cost as it is true. Popping up everywhere, from the most unexpected angles, without being caged in diving suits worthy of tissue, certainly more resourceful than they are normally Syrian women ...

A Maalula's not all, of course, the beautiful and ancient. As the monastery of Santa Tecla, Deir Mar Takla. It seems to be in siq at Petra, in a narrow canyon and mysterious that is said to have miraculously been opened by the passage of Santa Tecla, in fact, a follower of St. Paul on the run, and then martyred on place. Syria does not cease to surprise with its amazing ability to create myths, to pull out of its cylinder saints of every type and origin.

Further down, below the modern convent dedicated to the saint, like a fortress full of modesty (forgive me the anacoluthon) para before the pilgrim is the monastery of St. Sergius, Deir Mar Sarkis, which in some parts dating back to III-IV century. And her altar date to pre-Christian era: it is semi-circular and not flat - such as requiring the first bishops, not to confuse the Christian with the pagan ritual - while maintaining those channels and those edges for holding the blood of animal sacrifice cult ancestral region. The young priest, that seems to claim to be himself a relic of the early days of Christianity, offers me a glass of sweet wine - delicious, to tell the truth - is produced from the vineyards of the monastery and then lean sings only for me the Lord's Prayer Aramaic: the dialect of the place is the same (it seems that way) that Jesus spoke in Palestine.

The monastery also announces an original shape limestone, perforated like a Swiss cheese with countless caves that had all sorts of use, except perhaps that of the hermitage. From these ravines out goats, sheep, cows, chickens, rabbits and humans seem to ch goats, rabbits ...

Another twenty miles of intoxication, following a mountain range that seems to the gaping of a wound never healed, and here's another cluster of houses, another that climbs up a hill crowned by another cluster of domes this time. Here Seidnayya, one of the oldest places of pilgrimage in the Middle East: here is conserved in a dark ravine carved into the crypt of the main church, a Marian image, an icon ahead of its time, said none other than painted that the Evangelist Luke himself. All sorts of miracles attributed to the icon, not only by Christians of different Churches, but also by Muslims. Him into zigzag staircase built recently with cheesy material to allow more comfortable ascent to the shrine, the veiled women are actually more numerous than those bare-headed. Mingle with the Orthodox monks who guard the shrine with an iron discipline, without compromising in any way to anarchy and tourists. I also beak a violent reprimand for having dared to photograph the image, thereby committing an act of sinful consumerism ...

Getting lost in the courtyards, terraces, in the roofs, in the intricate steps of the monastery is pleasant and contagious, especially when has the consciousness to discover one of the oldest places of Christian faith, after Jerusalem, of course built to replace, or more precisely to overlap, an ancient pagan temple, greek or roman, who knows. Anyway here faith is not an opinion, is as strong as a rock. That of the Christians and the Muslims. Maria ago by trait-d'union between the faithful of both religions, perhaps not by chance. Perhaps it is a prophecy.

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Auvers-sur-Oise, Van Gogh and strikes


While France live moments of high political tension and social, a visit to the country that houses the remains of Van Gogh (a Rome in recent weeks which dedicates a major exhibition) can teach a sense of proportion. It was in 1993.

The country church immortalized by Flemish painter in the last glimpses of his troubled career of a man stands in the modest farming, so similar yet so different to the painting, almost not real copy. Power of art power of imagination! Reluctantly I climb the four steps of the parish materials, which now appears to me disfigured in its architectural simplicity of the usual paraphernalia of care: make political ads rosaries books magazines.

Imagine being able to meet in an old neo-Gothic vaults priest helpless or illusions that warms my heart, as in Emmaus, I listen to calm and loving, as well of Samaria, which I understand acute and merciful, as the angel of the empty tomb, reproaching me with a dramatic "Do you love me more than these?". There are days like that. The priest is seriously, but young and dynamic, agile as a grasshopper, worried that everything runs smoothly for the ceremony which will begin here shortly. I am not worthy of a look of course. Better that way. Better to emigrate from this church, today for some reason without the Blessed Sacrament. Who knows where they have hidden, as if you were ashamed of his presence.

days are blue like the sky that surrounds the arches of the schizoid crowd of Antwerp, crazy for love. Behind the church, over a meadow of buttercups drunk, lie the graves of the brothers Van Gogh, Vincent and Theo, tied up in life, united in the same burial ground. Elsewhere, people dashing in the footsteps of the man who blinded his lifetime did not sell anything, Van Gogh Museum, MOMA, and Musée d'Orsay Héremitage overflowing with people hungry to see, swallow and digest a few minutes in his brush strokes of genius. Without much success, tomorrow a Cezanne or a Michelangelo advertised will take the place of the Flemish art in a confuzione supermarket.

Auvers-sur-Oise has instead peace of mind. What they are worth the ashes of a painter, even the best? Dust. Van Gogh, a eunuch of life. But his ashes are encased by a thick pad ivy silent. A masterpiece of divine simplicity, that Vincent would certainly have approved.

Van Gogh experienced the eternal absurdity of reconciling the world to his God has started a hundred times. The centunesima was fatal. But I am sure, in agony, he wanted to start over again. The blood of black gunpowder stopped him.

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67. Freedom

The Monaco Ziyou a day so he turned to his Zen master:
"Life in this monastery is only made of exhausting ritual, demanding obligations of whom do not even understand the meaning. It 's a life as a slave Do not think anything can be achieved by withdrawing the sacred right to personal freedom! "
master replied calmly:
"In freedom you've decided to take the votes, just six hours if you want free to leave."
Ziyou not know what to reply and after a moment's hesitation, took leave of the master.
Since then, most did not complain, he remained in the monastery until the end of his days, hoping to attain enlightenment.

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Serbia, peace between 10,000 years

1999: interview with the then Catholic Archbishop of Belgrade, Franc Perko, a character well known in Belgrade, which was then Metropolitan Archbishop. Very interesting read it again after the events in Genoa.

Born in '29, Franc Perko is Slovenian. He welcomes me into his study load of books, magazines and knick-knacks, which shows a vast culture and cultivated: it is a theologian and orientalist "basilica." He was sentenced to four years in prison, who served from '55 to '58 just in Belgrade. Archbishop smokes a pipe and has a frank talk.

Just today we celebrate Cyril and Methodius, the evangelists of the Balkans. What do you suggest the events of the patrons of Europe "two lungs", along with Benedict?

"In the current difficult situation it is very important that the church contributes to the creation of a new mentality of forgiveness, coexistence, and why not, mutual love. Between individuals and between ethnic groups. Peace depends on this change in attitude, but can not be done overnight. Needless to delude themselves. It is a challenge, a responsibility not only for the Catholic Church, but also for the Orthodox and the Muslim community. I think My church is ready to take this step, which indeed is already doing. But I am happy that the Orthodox Church has launched in the same direction, admitting some mistakes in the past. It is a hope, we must be patient and optimistic. "

The propaganda of the regime is intrusive. But even in the West often do not have full information. So you paint the Serbs as evil and almost belligerent ...

"No. All people are equal. Some people from ethnic Serbs are under the influence of evil, that's another story. But people like it exists in all people. So you can not even divide the population between good and bad, but there is something that, in my opinion, has distorted the political horizon, religious and social development: the idea of \u200b\u200bGreater Serbia, which would be Defence (and won) against those who threaten its existence. In the second last Balkan war, that of '91, paradoxically only defenders were in conflict: tell me, is not difficult to stop a war when there's only one striker, one culprit? The current regime has used this idea of \u200b\u200ba Greater Serbia in the recent conflict: Serbia would not exist without Kosovo. Some religious leaders have repeatedly supported this idea, since the war with Croatia, I know for sure in the days before the war, influential clergymen in Krajina launch and sustain this theory. On that occasion he was even refused a Croatian plan (called the Z4), a high degree of autonomy for the region. And now, after redistribution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, signed in Dayton, Greater Serbia is no more. It is true, it is clear the spectrum of a Greater Albania, which argues, inter alia, in the ethnic cleansing carried out by Kosovar Albanians in a number of villages inhabited by Serbs, even before the latter conflict. It is time to stop these lies and political history. "

Balkan card is awesome for mixing ethnic. It would be definitely possible to divide the ethnic groups? Would rather not plan for their peaceful coexistence?

"divide the ethnic groups in the Balkans is absolutely impossible, as demonstrated by the war in Bosnia and now Kosovo conflict. Again, more than a political (though necessary) we need a change of mentality to reach the consciousness that we must live together. Only this is the future, to which all religious communities must work together. You know, for example codes of revenge between the Albanians in Kosovo Catholics had proposed and carried out a general pardon for all Albanians, Catholics or Muslims who they were. The accounts had been cleared. But Catholics Albanians had not addressed this call to forgive one another as Serbs and Roma. Would now be appropriate to do so. True, there are thousands of deaths that weighed on the scales, but without resetting the vendettas will not be able to get out alive. The Catholic Church is ready to take this step, we hope that they are also Catholics. "

Europe is uncertain, because in her womb gave birth to this war, settled with the American bombers. What role can still play the old continent?

"Europe has made many mistakes, but has also had its merits. Without his presence - I say this without qualms - things would have been much worse. After the collapse of Communism, which had been silenced by fear of the ethnic strife by giving fifty years of apparent peace to the Balkans, social movements have been restarted. Younger people, rightly, no longer tolerate to remain under the domain of adults. Russia itself, with its fifteen major ethnic groups, is on the verge of explosion. I think the process of African decolonization teach us something: the boundaries, whatever they are, must remain intact. This principle has saved Africa from total anarchy. In the Balkans held until it came up this idea of \u200b\u200ba Greater Serbia, and everything is blown into the air. Bosnia has been saved thanks to this principle of the immutability of borders. I believe the same will happen with Kosovo. Autonomy of individual regions, yes. Independence, no. "

In his view, what are the positive sides of the Serbian people?

"The hospitality, friendship and respect, especially - actually - for those on their side. A young Serbian student said to me one day: we are friends, because then we do not have the same language? I replied that we had to respect each and love, but in diversity. The Serbs are also excellent not only in football but also in culture. It is a proud and noble people. "

When will true peace in the Balkans?

"Between 10,000 years."

10 000 without discount?

"Unless providence does not intervene. This I hope and believe. "