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| Internet Users by Language (Chart by Jeff Ogden) |
Monkeys have been known for their endless hopping about (or is that rabbits?) from one thing to another.
Monks, on the other hand, have been known for their profound stillness, as well as for their ability to calm what the Buddhists call "monkey mind." That is – until the Internet began penetrating the monastery walls…
After that, all you-know-what began to break loose. Suddenly cloistered residents were being bombarded with ideas and images that threatened their peace of mind (not to mention their eternal future).
That is when Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, began to get concerned. Reuters reports that "during a trip to the Zograf monastery in Greece," Kirill shared these thoughts: Many monks act, in my view,
quite unreasonably. On the one hand, (monks)
leave the world in order to create favorable
conditions for salvation, and on the other hand,
they take their mobile telephone and start to enter the
Internet where, we know, there is a large number of
tempting and sinful things.
Interestingly, the Patriarch himself uses the Internet in order "to seek out information." This was conveyed to
Reuters by an
official of the Orthodox Church who asked to remain anonymous.
Now, does this mean that Kirill is engaging with "tempting and sinful" sites? Not necessarily. The Internet - like the world itself - is a mixture of sinful and soulful. It is certainly possible to focus upon the soulful within both.
Nevertheless, hypocrisy (do as I say, not as I do) seems a bit more on the sinful side of the mix…
Resources
http://news.yahoo.com/head-russian-church-urges-monks-shun-internet-110258646.html
Copyright June 15, 2013 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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