Primum non nocere. First do no harm. This edict has been part of medical ethics since the time of the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, in the fifth century B.C. It is found in the Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of medical writing attributed to Hippocrates. The original Hippocratic oath includes: I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
St. Philaret (Drozdov) notes: “The path of a missionary is not an easy one.”[2] The wise hierarch gave his advice to the missionary to the Altai, Archimandrite Macarius (Glukharev), that he should view the missionary work he has taken up with “a cautious eye. This is an evil age, it does not readily trust pure goodness; it greedily snatches any opportunity for complaint and slander. The sting of mockery, even if it’s unfounded, can sometimes wound and cause harm to the achievements of good endeavors”
A visit from a bishop can turn any ordinary Sunday service into something extraordinary.
Yale historian Jeroslav Pelikan wrote, "Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western Culture for almost 20 centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left?"
Near the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite commemorates the 5th-century ascetic who became an ancient sensation by living atop a tall pedestal for decades to demonstrate his faith. Krak des Chevaliers, an awe-inspiring castle near Homs, was a fortress for the order of the Knights Hospitaller in their quest to defend a crusader kingdom. Seydnaya, a towering monastery in a town of the same name, was probably built in the time of Justinian.
