Dr. Patsavos and Fr. Calivas
Faculty singing the Greek national anthem.
Mr. Dean Limberakis, my voice instructor.
Dr. Christos Yanaras receiving an honorary doctorate from Holy Cross.
My friend Fr. Makarios 'Dickey' Nganga.
I told him he shouldn't hide the fact that he's African so much.
When George got on the stage a chant of 'four more years' went up.
Archbishop Demitrios
I overexposed this picture, but I think I did something interesting with it.
This one two.
Back to normal.
Part of the group at our chilly May barbeque.
Yes, it's chilly in Boston it's still chilly in late May.
Inchworm
An acrobatic squirrel I found outside a dorm window.
Icon I just found of the six-winged seraphim.
The Hebrew seraphim 
is the plural form of seraph, meaning fiery or burning. The first known use of the word comes in the Biblical Old Testament once in Isaiah 6:2, 6 –
v2 – Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
v3 – And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
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In his work Celestial Hierarchy St. Psudeo-Dionysius the Areopagite envisions the seraphim as being the rank of angels closest to God.
“The name Seraphim clearly indicates their ceaseless and eternal revolution about Divine Principles, their heat and keenness, the exuberance of their intense, perpetual, tireless activity, and their elevative and energetic assimilation of those below, kindling them and firing them to their own heat, and wholly purifying them by a burning and all- consuming flame; and by the unhidden, unquenchable, changeless, radiant and enlightening power, dispelling and destroying the shadows of darkness” vii
Fresco from the Holy Monastery of Dionisiou, Mt. Athos. Ca. 1545
I had a great Holy Week and Pascha this year. This was one of the best ones I’ve had since my very first, and maybe also my first at seminary. I went for most of the services to Holy Resurrection in Alston, my semi-regular parish in Boston. The church is a Bulgarian parish, so they use the Slavonic style and everything is in English. It’s a lot like the chanting I knew in Taiwan. Since they’re a tad conservative I didn’t feel comfortable carrying around a camera, but I did take a brief video with my phone. For Agape Vespers, I went to the chapel at Holy Cross. Then to the barbecue afterwords. Some of the students started a Greek dance and I grabbed my camera. I took some of the best photos of my life. I had some spectacular close-ups and brilliant action shots. The girls looked beautiful and they guys looked alright, too. These were great photos. At least, I choose to think of them that way. We’ll never know, because when I pulled the camera from my eye to get a preview I realized I hadn’t put a memory card in the camera. Oh, well. Here’s the video.
Cherry Blossoms
A little War of the Roses between Greece and Taiwan after a flower show. Nothing very significant about it, just a funny row between my two favorite countries.
The China Post news staff–Greece reportedly is retaliating against Taiwan for being snubbed at the just concluded Taipei International Flora Expo.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday confirmed that Greece has banned Taiwan’s national flag at the Kifissia Flower Show being held near its capital of Athens.
The ban has been described by an opposition legislator here as Greece’s revenge after its representative in Taiwan was cold-shouldered by Taipei City at the flora expo’s closing ceremony on April 25.
These are the new pictures I’ve added to the photo album. WordPress makes this super easy.
One of the geese who hangs out on the school's front lawn. I named him Charlie.
Charlie and his wife. The female had a nest of eggs in the hollow nook of a tree. One day I saw them at the pond with a flock of chicks.
John reads the gospel at Stephanos's wedding in Teleturgics.
When Stephanos moved out he emptied his leftover liquor by pouring it into his friends.
We walked to a pub that evening. It started pouring down as we walked back.
Archbishop Demetrios at graduation in 2010.
Fr. Evangelos exiting the graduation ceremony.
Zipporah, Francis, and Fr. Evangelos. Three of my friends from Africa.
Mike makes good use of the sofa he bought for the lounge.
In January, 2011 during Christmas break there was a major blizzard.
Sitting on a pile of snow.
Out my window. Winter was crazy in 2011 and it kept snowing into late March.
This is my post on my new blog. My old blog had become too complex for my busy lifestyle and no one was reading it anyway. I got used to using WordPress for my other, far more interesting blog Far Eastern Transfigurations and found it was easy to work with, so I’ve spent the last week and a half transferring everything here. Hopefully I’ll be posting photos, videos, and other nonsense here most often than before. I think my last post on the other server was in 2009. All my photos and videos are still here. I didn’t transfer everything into WordPress. There were too many pages with too many pictures, so I left some on static pages. So some of the pages may not link properly or may have pictures that don’t show. I did repost a few posts from my previous blog.
I’ve also started a Twitter feed. We’ll see how well I keep up with it. My Twitter name is 6wingedpilgrim. Named for the six-winged Seraphim.
I redid everything here so my friends and family can follow what I’m doing this summer while I’m traveling around Europe, and about 6 months after that when I go back to Taiwan.
That’s all for now, look for my next post with photos I’ve taken since my last blog nearly two years ago. Look at my pictures and watch the videos if you’ve never seen my blog before. Enjoy.
Today there was a parade for Greek Independence Day. The actual day of
Greek independence was on Annunciation in the middle of Lent, a time
when we don’t celebrate much, so the parade was today. I can’t say I’m a
fan of nationalism in any form, but I can enjoy participating with
people in things that are important to them. Being in the parade myself I
only got to take pictures of our group, and it was hard taking shots
among a crowd, plus at midday the light was too bright. Still, I got a
few good shots. Enjoy!
A few more pictures are on the Greek Independence Day photo page.
