Answering his cell, for what he assumed was another banker with more bad news, he heard a friend, Steve, on the other line, asking him to drop everything and fly to Ethiopia. A group of German-based photographers, Steve explained, traveling in Ethiopia, had just rescued a young girl named Bale--a child about to be murdered by elders from her remote village.
Although temperatures had dipped into the 20s and a bone-chilling wind blew over the Susquehanna River on Jan. 15, the Rev. Stephen Vernak and other Orthodox clergymen barely shivered as they stood by the riverbank.
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Then novice Igor Brus walked up and told me conspiratorially, “Don’t sleep tonight, or you’ll sleep through the whole Kingdom of Heaven! Come at midnight to the well. We’ll look at the bottom and see if the Lord will give us a sign—if it will “boil” as it is blessed. Tomorrow is the “Jordan”
The vision given to us in Theophany is something else entirely. Through his baptism, Christ sanctifies the waters so that we might be sanctified by the waters of baptism. Water becomes a means by which humanity is perfected and the world as a whole reflects the glory of God to a greater degree.
Every year the Russian Orthodox Church blesses the waters in Bristol Bay. This year however, the blessing carried with it a concerned message from the church. With the potential development of the Pebble Mine in this region, Bishop Benjamin Peterson traveled to this part of Alaska with a sense of urgency and a special message for the people of the region. This short video was taken in January of 2011 in several villages around Bristol Bay.
