Philoumenos of Jacob’s Well: The Birth of a Contemporary Ritual Murder Myth

“Philoumenos of Jacob’s Well: The Birth of a Contemporary Ritual Murder Myth”

By David Gurevich and Yisca Harani

Israel Studies

Volume 22, Number 2, Summer 2017

pp. 26-54

Abstract

In 1979, the Orthodox monk Philoumenos Hasapis was violently murdered in Jacob’s Well Church in Nablus. His death was described as a ritual murder performed by a fanatical Jewish-Israeli group. Philoumenos was later sanctified by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The story gained publicity among Orthodox Christian communities around the world and was accredited by various NGOs and scholars. However, the factual basis of the event dismissed any ritualistic motives or collective accusations for the murder. The development patterns of the popular narrative are assessed against the backdrop of similar accusations levied against medieval Jewish communities in Europe, as well as contemporary framing of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the media. The conclusions suggest reasons for the wide publicity that the narrative received, based on the cultural context of its target audience, the interests of the Orthodox Church, and the role of political actors involved.

A Buddhist Woman Who Became an Orthodox Christian After a Vision on Holy Thursday

Holy Monastery of Saints Marina and Raphael in Xylotymbou

By K. Triantaphylou

From my five-day stay in Cyprus I will record due to brevity only what lessons I learned at the Holy Monastery of Saint Marina and Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene in Xylotymbou of the Holy Metropolis of Kition. The spiritual father, serving priest and founder of this Monastery was Protopresbyter Kyriakos Panagiotou, who among other things has a sweet voice. Because of his sweet voice, the late Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus had him ordained as his deacon, but he refused, saying he preferred to serve as a priest in his village.

Relationship Between Orthodoxy and Karate

Nobuyuki-Gheoghe Nukina, Japanese karate fighter and teacher, in the second part of his interview (see first part here about his conversion to Orthodoxy) to Pemptousia, talks about the relationship between Orthodoxy and karate, as he sees it and how he teaches it to his students.

The Conversion of a Japanese Shintoist/Buddhist to Orthodox Christianity

Nobuyuki-Gheoghe Nukina, a Japanese karate fighter, was interviewed by Pemptousia upon a recent visit to Mount Athos, in which he speaks about how he became Orthodox, and briefly talks about Orthodoxy in Japan.

"For the Sake of the World: The Spirit of Buddhist and Christian Monasticism" (Book Review by Fr. John Romanides)

For the Sake of the World: The Spirit of Buddhist and Christian Monasticism

By Patrick G. Henry and Donald K. Swearer

Reviewed by John S. Romanides

The authors of this valuable and interesting book understand "contemplation" and an "urge for transcendence" to be a basic similarity between Buddhist and Christian monasticism. This is true for Augustinian neo-Platonism, which is the position adopted by this book as normative for the Christian monastic tradition.

However, the Augustinian synthesis between neo-Platonism and the Bible was never accepted in the East, and was rejected in the West by both Celtic and Gallo-Roman monasticism. It did not, finally, take hold in Merovingian Gaul; this is why St. Gregory of Tours, an admirer of Sts. Basil and John Cassian, never mentions Augustine. That is to say, such Gallo-Romans as Sts. Martin of Tours, Aridius, Patroclos, and the Lombard Stylite Vulfailac belong to the same biblical tradition as the fathers in the East. In 529 Emperor Justinian closed the Platonic school of Athens, and when Augustine's writings became known in the East he was dropped from the list of "fathers of the church," as these were understood there.