Cleopatra #2, Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor is the face most people think of when they think of Cleopatra

There's just nothing like a Cecil B. Demille epic scene with thousands of extras.


Fifth Degree: Elizabeth Taylor
Famous for her violet eyes and many husbands, Ms Taylor is an icon of the American cinema.  Her career was at its height in the 1960s when she appeared with.....
Fourth Degree: Burl Ives,
in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."  We already reckonned Burl Ives at 4 degrees from John Paul II in the post on Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Here's the trailer to "Cat".

"From the 1940s through 1960, Burl Ives was considered America’s most authoritative interpreter of American folk songs. A mainstream figure (better known than Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie), his penetrating, tenor voice with its unique timbre was recognized by millions." -Ellen Harold and Peter Stone

 
Ives is remembered for his novelty songs from the 1960s, but his impact on American music is much deeper than that.  For a great article on Ives, go to the Association for Cultural Equality site.  This Alan Lomax site is dedicated to Lomax' lifetime passion, folkmusic.  While I'm sure that Ives and Lomax met, I cannot find a picture of it or any quotes from a meeting.  So I'm going to link Ives to Lomax via...

Third Degree: Woody Guthrie
Guthrie and Lomax collected folksong together as we see in this photograph from the American South.

Woody Guthrie on left, Alan Lomax at the right
children unknown

Second Degree: Alan Lomax 

received the National Medal of Arts from President Ronald Reagan.

First Degree: President Ronald Reagan

A former McCarthyist, President Reagan turned over a new leaf when he awarded Alan Lomax the Medal of Arts in 1986.  During the time of McCarthyism in the United States, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and Alan Lomax were black listed. 

Saint Paul

Blast from the East: Metania (Metanoia)

Ronald Reagan once tried to end the professional lives of Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and Alan Lomax, but he changed completely by the time he became president.  He turned away from the sin of bearing false witness and praised those he had persecuted.  This is very much like what Saint Paul did, only Reagan never acknowledged as president, his former McCarthyist work.

We are in the season of Great Lent.  Many priests (Western) will be taking out their rusty Greek and using the word, "metanoia" in their sermons.  In the East, we live this word physically in prayer.  During Great Lent, we say the Prayer of Saint Efraim several times each service and during The Divine Liturgy.  Prostrations are called "metania" in the Eastern Church.  Crossing one's self is a form of prostration before God.  Add a bow and it's more of a prostration.  Touch the floor as part of making your cross, and you're making a metania.  Get on your knees and face on the floor and that is a "full metania."  

The word "metania" literally means to change direction 180 degrees.  To switch direction, to go the other way.  Spiritually we are turning away from sin and toward Jesus Christs.  See here as Orthodox priests and deacons do full metanias and recite the prayer of Saint Efraim during Great Lent.  

Tom Hanks

This is the first in a series of January posts about the Greek connection to John Paul II and the papacy in our time.  Enjoy!

3 Degrees

Third Degree: Tom Hanks married Rita Wilson in an Orthodox Christian ceremony in 1988.  Here are a few pictures from their wedding reception.   They had a big fat Greek wedding with this guy as their DJ and emcee.

Greek dancing at their wedding in 1988

The happy couple in Life magazine

After a childhood dabbling in Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, and various Protestant sects, Tom Hanks grew into the Orthodox Church via his love for Rita Wilson.

Second Degree: Father John Bakas, Dean of St. Sophia Cathedral in Los Angeles, California.

Tom and Rita have received the body and blood of our Lord and Savior at the hand of this man, Father Bakas.  Father Bakas is a fascinating character to me.  I attended St. Sophia for the years of my graduate school education and a few beyond.

The tradition of the cathedral was to change priests every 4-6 years.  Father Bakas came to St. Sophia just after I moved from Los Angeles in 2000 and has been there ever since.  He seems to possess that illusive combination of piety and flash that is needed to survive the crowd in L.A.  The people of his flock are amazingly wealthy, demanding, and can be very difficult at times.  Father Bakas has struck a balance to lift every heart higher and challenge his flock spiritually without alienating them or rejecting them.  This is truly a great gift from God and my hat is off to Father Bakas!


First Degree: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I
Father Bakas told me through email that he met the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople (Istanbul) on several occasions.  His All Holiness was good friends with John Paul II. Click here for video of the two men. 

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope John Paul II

Did you know?

There is "one, holy, and apostolic church," and the Roman Catholic Church is just one part of it.  There is an Eastern branch as well.  Some elements of this branch are in full communion with Rome, they are Byzantine Catholics, Eastern Catholics, Maronites, Melikites, Chaldeans, Babylonians, and dozens of others.  Some elements of the Eastern branch are not in communion with Rome, these are the Orthodox Churches.  

The split (schism) between the Orthodox east and the Roman west took about 500 years to complete and began around 900 AD.  In that process  there were many betrayals and sins committed by both sides against each other.  One of the most egregious was the Fourth Crusade of 1205.  In that event, Roman "pilgrims" sacked Constantinople in a gleeful, frat-party-like spree.  The women were raped, men were killed for sport, holy sites were looted and desecrated, and the city was burnt to the ground.  The photo above of Bartholomew and John Paul II is of a liturgy in celebration of the return of the relics of St. Gregory the Theologian to the Orthodox Church.  Those relics were stolen during the Fourth Crusade.

As in any family, cruelty, indifference, arrogance, and lack of both humility and forgiveness are habits that feed upon themselves.  The centuries of sinful separation, between the Eastern and Western churches, that precede us cannot be undone by a mere 50 years of good will and friendship.  But, with the Holy Spirit, it is doubtful that we will have to wait 1000 years for a complete reconciliation.  

John Paul II is the pope in apostolic succession from Saint Peter.  Bartholomew I is the patriarch in apostolic succession from Saint Peter's brother, Saint Andrew.  It is unnatural and very wrong that brothers should be out of communion.  Both men strive to reunite the churches.  John Paul II as a saint and Bartholomew as the current Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul.