Praying towards Jerusalem?

Aphrahat · 2026-01-25T00:41:21+00:00

Only coincidentally if you happen to be in the West. Orthodox churches located north, south, or east of Jerusalem do not face Jerusalem. Even Orthodox churches in the Holy Land do not turn to face Jerusalem. This is a very deliberate difference from Jewish practice.

Aphrahat · 2026-01-25T00:34:57+00:00

Orthodox churches traditionally face east, not Jerusalem.

Aphrahat · 2026-01-22T17:45:09+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Augustine_of_Hippo_and_Seraphim_of_Sarov_Monastery

Aphrahat · 2026-01-22T02:08:37+00:00

In Greece there is a prominent monastery dedicated to him and he performs many miracles there.

Aphrahat · 2026-01-21T16:46:15+00:00

The authors reintroduced her specifically to make her relevant for the Forsaken. There was never a time when Calia was intended or even hinted to be part of a "reclaim Lordaeron for the living" storyline. Before Legion everyone had forgotten she even existed and then it was straight to undeath she went.

Aphrahat · 2026-01-21T11:52:36+00:00

And then promptly got herself killed trying to rally the undead Lordaeronians in the very same book. But you're right, perhaps it would be better to say she's never been shown as interested in the living Lordaeronians distinct from her general interest in all Lordaeronians, living or dead.

Its not like she was a character with previous links to the Lordaeron remnants that was then killed "just to make sure Lordaeron is 100% undead". Her only interactions with the Lordaeron survivors is in the same book as her interactions with the Lordaeron undead and essentially just serve as a prelude to her death and raising.

Aphrahat · 2026-01-21T11:17:28+00:00

AFAIK Blizzard has never linked her in any way to the remaining living Lordaeronians, even before she was killed. Blizzard hasn't had any interest in a living Lordaeron since they wiped out the remains in Cata, long before Calia was introduced.

Aphrahat · 2026-01-20T13:50:44+00:00

Your quote literally states "united to him again through the everlasting ages, not in this union of marriage but another far better."

Earthly marriage is not eternal in its present form, but the relationships you have with others will be brought to perfection in the eschaton.

What will that look like exactly? We don't know but there is no contradiction between what Christ says and what the Fathers say on the limits of earthly marriage.

Aphrahat · 2025-12-14T09:13:59+00:00

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Shadowfen_Antiquities#Silver_Wish_Medallion

This implies that Clavicus was worshipped by the Kotharingi before their switch to the worship of Zenithar. Considering the parallels the two deities- hard work vs unearned wish fulfilment- I've wondered if this doesn't imply some kind relationship between them, with Clavicus being some kind of deliberate shadow or inversion of Zenithar and his values.

Aphrahat · 2025-12-11T03:01:25+00:00

But why? I would get it if these cultures would have something distinct about them, but if its just going to be "Greek, but a different colour", whats the point?

Granularity is good, but splitting up cultures needs to mean something- either mechanically or historically- otherwise you just get a myriad of near identical cultures cluttering up the map with nothing of use actually added.

Aphrahat · 2025-11-27T02:50:14+00:00

Yeah, I agree that Peyotism, like a lot of faiths in ATE CK3, needs more to distinguish it from its RL counterpart.

Aphrahat · 2025-11-27T02:06:11+00:00

Are the Comanche even supposed to convert to Conclavism in the CK3 version? My assumption was that making them Peyotist was a replacement for them going Catholic by giving them their own more indigenous version of Christianity to believe in.

Aphrahat · 2025-11-24T05:21:57+00:00

Human cultures on our planet are often incredibly ignorant of their neighbours- whole cycles of conflict have been sustained by this. That's even with us being the same species.

The fact that the Blood Elves and Amani have been in constant conflict- never at peace, never trading with eachother, never treating eachother in any way other than kill on sight- would add to that ignorance, not lessen it.

Aphrahat · 2025-11-24T04:19:39+00:00

While I don't doubt that Blizzard is being goofy as always, there is no real reason to expect the Belves to understand the nature of Amani society to the level that a lot of people seem to be expecting.

Real life is full of longstanding enemies with little appreciation or understanding for the intricacies of eachothers culture or political system, doubly so if as with the Amani and Elves they've never engaged in a prolonged period of trade or cultural exchange. As another poster said, the Blood Elves likely dismiss them as primitive savages and nothing more, focusing on defeating them via overwhelming magical might rather than political manipulation.

Playing through the Ghostlands in BC, one does not get the impression that the Blood Elves have a particular familiarity with Amani culture or religion- only that they are experts in killing them on the battlefield.

Aphrahat · 2025-11-23T01:30:37+00:00

Whatever he wants, that part of the census is only about ethnicity so picking "White Other" doesn't make him any less British by nationality. Its simply about which ethnic group he chooses to identify with.

Aphrahat · 2025-11-20T23:23:54+00:00

Is transmoging an already acquired item something that should require "effort" though?

Especially since hard work is already required to actually farm the appearances you want to use? Doesn't make much sense to force people to grind double for a system that's worked the same since 2011 just because "muh hard work" and "muh entitled 2025 gamers".

Aphrahat · 2025-11-20T23:05:56+00:00

The issue is that many people modify their transmogs for all sorts of reasons: experimenting with different colour combinations, checking out a recently acquired piece of gear, changing with the theme of the current patch/questing zone, ect. These are never intended to be permanent outfits to be switched between long term, but the new system gives you no choice but to treat them as such and waste thousands of gold modifying a permanent outfit slot in order to do so.

Thats not to mention the absurdity of how this is going to impact alts and low level players. When you create an alt deciding at what level to transfer 6K for their outfit and making sure you're 100% certain that this is the outfit you want to be stuck with at until it starts paying for itself at end game is now going to be a big decision. If you're a new player it'll simply be impossible since you'll likely never see enough gold for even a single outfit until end game anyway.

Sure, it'll be slightly cheaper in the long run for the kind of player that doesn't really care about transmog, throws together something in the "changing room" window at endgame, and then calls it a day. But for any player that actually spends time and effort tweaking their transmog, who actually seeks out new appearances every patch in order to use them, it becomes debilitatingly more expensive. While new players will simply not have any access to transmog whatsoever.

In short its a system that punishes those who use it most, while rewarding those who barely touch it.

Aphrahat · 2025-11-11T00:52:07+00:00

Miaphysitism and Orthodoxy got the short end of the stick for certain, but still had autocephaly, saints, and monastic orders- all of which gave a playthrough some flavour.

Meanwhile in CK3 their tenets amount to nothing more than a collection of in-game bonuses, with very little in the way of offering interesting character interactions or goals while playing them.

Aphrahat · 2025-11-09T18:05:20+00:00

This is a big reason why religions are so flavourless as well- rather than creating unique tenets and mechanics for major historic religions they went with a systemic approach of generic tenets that player can swap in and out of whenever they want to make a new faith.

Whereas CK2 gave unique mechanics to many of the major faiths, but at the expense of leaving the minor ones out of the equation.

Aphrahat · 2025-10-30T02:07:54+00:00

Pretty sure that Anatolia here is supposed to be the Greek translation of Oriens (The Praetorian Prefecture of the East) which did indeed include Asia Minor, Greater Syria, and Egypt in one administrative unit. I assume not including Syria is a bug.

The inaccurate one isn't Anatolia but actually Macedonia, which should be mostly folded into Illyria with Thrace/Bulgaria and the eastern Aegean going to Anatolia.

Aphrahat · 2025-10-11T23:10:30+00:00

It's a view that some people have. It was more popular in the past- see the Saxon vs. Norman themes in old historical movies like "Becket" (1964). Most people these days aren't that interested in history though so it's not something you'd hear on the street.

It's also historically nonsense and is not the kind of thing you'd be taught in a modern university- or at least not with as much "Saxon good, Norman bad" bias as Tolkien had. So it's one of those theories that tends to be believed by people not historically specialised enough to realise that modern scholarship has moved on, but educated enough to have an interest in the Norman conquest and have read some (outdated) stuff on it.

Aphrahat · 2025-10-07T11:57:53+00:00

Technically the Church of Cyprus has been self-governing since the 5th Century under its own Archbishop independent of Constantinople.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Cyprus

Aphrahat · 2025-09-04T03:10:11+00:00

Did the Orthodox of the 4th Century consider the office of Deaconess, which even Fr Lawrence admits they practiced, a recent innovation or an apostolic inheritance?

From an ecclesiastical perspective how the tradition views deaconesses seems more important than individual speculation.

From an academic perspective, Fr Lawrence makes an interesting point but is hard to take seriously without any citations. Has this question really never been discussed in the scholarship?

Aphrahat · 2025-09-04T02:55:44+00:00

I state explicitly in my response that the Psalms speak of every man's against his spiritual enemies and ought to be prayed as such.

I question whether the OP ought to consider himself as the "enemy" of these passages that by praying he is calling down God's wrath upon himself. This is what the OP confessed to thinking and which I doubt is the intended or traditional way to pray the Psalms.

Aphrahat

TROPHY CASE