Josef Maria
Mayer
”I will sing the chaste, the flowry, the girl with golden crowns,
You were ordained with the towers of the sea-girt Cypros!”
(Homer)
”I will sing the chaste, the flowry, the girl with golden crowns,
You were ordained with the towers of the sea-girt Cypros!”
(Homer)
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Hilarion, Pope of the Maronite Church of Marion and the Patriarch of the Key islands greets San Marco in Venice and his beloved Schoschannim of Susa with a kiss of love! Beloved, you asked me to tell you of my island Cypros, that I will gladly do so. First I will tell you how it came about that I became Pope. I lived on Cypros and composed an heroic epic about the
Battle of Salamis, as the Greeks fight against the Persians, as I met Mary Metanoia. I loved her from the first glance of her beautiful eyes. She was so chaste that you could not desire her, but solely look at her with admiration. She took care of my soul, I believe in regular intercession prayers. One day she took me to the castle in the mountains of the Patron Saint Hilarion. This beautiful old castle, a forest of cedars in blue located with beautiful views of the fertile fields, was the place where the religion of love was celebrated. I loved Mary Metanoia so intimate that I felt I was burned in a fire and was raised as a phoenix, as a man with a new heart. So I stood in front of the virgin and gave her red roses, white roses and golden roses. But she in her universal love gave these roses to the whole world. I can still see the castle window, and she looked out, full of longing, full of lively hope of heaven... she saw
”above the horizon”, as in Papua New Guinea hope is called. She was very influenced by the Gospel, as I am now able to recognize. She was determined only by Jesus Christ and loved the font of all books and other mental manifestations, she believed in God's infinite mercy and
had a deep faith, out of which she would surrender to God humbly and said, “Not as I will, but the Lord's will be done to me!” Beloved, a painter who came from Italy, and which saw her, wanted to paint her. He called himself Alessandro the penitent, for he had for a long time painted pagan images of Venus, but now he had repented and wanted to paint Our Lady. Then he saw Mary Metanoia and took her to his model for Our Lady. She loved the poor children of the ghettos with very rich merciful love, both the Greek and Turkish. A small child from Medina she had accepted as a spiritual mother, as it had been baptized, he was called Yussuf. Now she sat in the midst of a crowd of black-haired Greek and Turkish children, the little baptized Yussuf on her lap, a pomegranate reserved, he waved to the painter. I will only write as I saw the face of Mary Metanoia. About her long blond curls she wore a bright red veil which had a transparent hem. The veil fell over her hair, but her face was still visible, her beautiful face could be seen in any case. She had light brown skin, a narrow nose and a fine lean, unvarnished lips of a beautiful reddish color. Her delicate eyebrows arched beautifully
above the eyes, which were blue and green, looking with infinite melancholy. She looked like a dream, like a melancholy dream of true beauty and eternal love. In fact, she was very depressed. The melacholiy she called her “thorn in the heart”. But this sadness led her repeatedly for nights to be in tears at the sight of her Greek shepherds to do carpet in her cell and repentance before Jesus Christ. He has granted her abundant grace, because the extent of the atonement is measured with the measure of grace. Well, she died young, at fourty years. What the doctors ever say, I'm sure she died of her melancholy longing of the soul, her longing for paradise. I was called to her deathbed, the small Yussuf sat and held her beautiful head and cried, I knelt at her feet and splashed them with bitter tears. As she looked out of her deep lunar soft eyes, rapt to heaven, she smiled and whispered: “I see my Saviour near... God is Love, therefore love one another, love the children of God!” So she died, by her angel’s kiss she breathed out her soul. Oh my friends, I can not think of that, without being sad and pious. I want to love no other woman after my love for Mary Metanoia! I went to the monastery, became a Augustinian monk. Jesus Christ called me then in an appearance on the day of the Virgin Mary's ascension to be Pope of the Maronite Church. With my power of attorney of being Pope I beatified the holy Virgin of Mercy: Sancta Mary Metanoia! I'm sure she prays for me. The people worshiped her and had in a cave the devotional painting, by Allesandro the penitent established. Even an icon painted by Saint Mary Metanoia herself, a vision from the castle of her soul, will be worshipped there in honor of her, it shows Jesus Christ as the phoenix of resurrection in paradise of Eternal Life! - Beloved, now I will tell you in my epistles the images of this beautiful island. You love the classical poetry, you will also hear of the birth of Venus, which in the Homeric Poems was called Charis. She looked certainly as Saint Mark's sister, your young spouse Schoschannim of Susa. Homer calls
Charis “the Chaste, floury girl with golden crowns”. Lots of flowers will bloom, much wine will be poured out, because I know to rejoice. Finally together we want to celebrate Easter with the Cypriots. Jesus Christ truly lives, our Lord! To your beautiful souls commended, I greet you,
Pope Hilarion of Marion.
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Pope Hilarion writes at the witching hour to the dialectician from Piazza San Marco
and his pretty sister of Saint John, Saint Mark and Saint Schoschannim: Greetings
with a kiss of love! Beloved, there is so much to tell, so I start! I’m living up here in Marion. The modern people call the city Annapolis, but I call it as an ancient humanist Marion. I’m living in a small house next to the small Maronite Church, manage the key. It is only a small chapel, because we are only a few pious people here, the most people are schismatics, or, even worse, heretics. What you charismatic Christians biblically call “stewardship”, that is with a prophetic word “Holy bag”, to me the budget is above my head. I therefore have a female housekeeper, the Roman Anna Perennis Corinna. She is about my age (I often feel so old!) and is an hardworking woman. She said she wanted in her youth do something meaningful for humanity. Now she looks oddly enough the meaningful fact for me to keep away the worries. She can not be dangerous for me, because God gave me a dream of a chaste love for her as her brother. She greets you warmly. Dear ones, I like to think back to the time, when we always prayed so beautiful in Corinth together and talked diligently in tongues. At that time we also talked about the conversion of Saul, whose name was Paul after his conversion. Something like that I want to tell you today. It is in this pious legend of the Maronite Church to those Virgin, the island Cypros is dedicated to. So listen with the ears of your soul: - During the great religious controversy which led to the Church schism confusing, there were some people, which the icons of the Virgin Mary especially disliked. They could not believe what about one of the nicest icon was told. The Evangelist Luke was not only a doctor who spoke a very sophisticated Greek (he writes the choicest Greek of the New Testament, only the poet of the letter to the Hebrews it likewise good), but Luke was also a gifted painter. Since he the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ have seen with his own eyes
and saw her as the first Christian, the first Saint and honored her as God’s chosen Mother, he painted an icon of her. This icon was a long time in Constantinople to be seen, where they looked at it in awe. The schismatics dispute, but it was torn down by protesters from the church, then the Iconoclasts threw it into the Mediterranean See. The Lord, however, after the
Psalmist, sitteth upon the flood, he moved the Mediterranean See, that the sea presented the icon intact at the beach of Cypros. I do not know in which bay the beautiful image was washed up. Some think it have been by the rock Petra tou Romiou. In any case, the icon was found by a fisherman and hidden in a cave. Later, when some Cypriots again found home to the beautiful religion, they built a monastery about this icon and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary of the golden pomegranate. In the tongue of the island this means the Monastery of Chrysoroyiatissa. This is a very beautiful word. To her this island is consecrated. But now to the Conversion of Saul to Paul. The same virgin once met the boy Eustace. He was in his
youth a great admirer of Robespierre and then of Napoleon Bonaparte. One day he wandered through a cedar wood and cypress wood on the Five Finger Mountains, he there met a deer. Now he was an avid hunter and wanted with his gun to shoot this deer. Then he saw but suddenly in the impressive antlers of the noble animal shining a golden cross and heard a voice: “Eustace, Eustace, why are you persecuting and blaspheming me?” Because he realized that Jesus Christ lived, he fell immediately to the face in the moss on the forest floor and wept bitter tears of repentance. With his eyes as he re-opened, he saw an icon. As the icon he considered, a wonderful fire awoke in his heart, and he became a great lover of God and of neighbor. Therefore he called the icon: the icon of Saint Mary of the Wood. It was in the Venetian time this name of the Virgin Mother built a convent in which the icon still is. - So much for today. I hope you are still not fallen in the heretic religion, but have a heart for the beautiful religion, which in its fullness is only in the Maronite Church. However that may be, connected in the Lord Jesus Christ, greets you: Your loving brother -
Hilarion of Marion.
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The friend, the lover, Pope Hilarion of Marion writes to Schoschannim the beautiful and San Marco the prudent. The God who sees you and has a lot of patience with me, may bless you!
Beloved, this epistle is specifically aimed at the noblewoman of Susa, because in your last epistle, she wrote: “ Oh flowers...” I hear her sighing and understand, since your Venice is only marble and water. But here everything awakens the longing for the Garden of Eden. I want to you, my sister, that I can show Cypros to you, how this island is crownned by flowers, yea, a sea of flowers stands for perfect beauty. Especially the time from march to may in all places, the best time of the year this island is very floriferous. First, there are the many
different orchids with her sensual beauty, but in addition the nun-like tulips, the warlike virgin and the amazon iris traverse the meadows, the wild poppies bleed their dreamy milk and look with modest red cheeks, the golden rape beguiles the birds with his beguiling scents, bewildering, especially I love the peach trees, which they say in China, they have the peaches of immortality. In summer, the island is totally gold, because the dress of the cornfields is a golden robe, embroidered with the flowers of evergreen bushes. In the mountains you can sing it too: O conifer, o coniferous tree, you are also green in summer! Comes the autumn, then there are blooming the purple and chaste and white crocuses, the golden bells of the daffodils, the delicate tender anemones, hyacinths and the magnificent Ophelia of crinoids. In the forests there can be found above all the Aleppo pine, at high altitudes, the bizarre black pines. In the mountains, cedars especially stood as kings and cypresses as mourners of the dead. The Australian eucalyptus tree sighs after the flight of the Australian funeral swan. The olive trees are festooned with green emeralds or those delicious fruits, of which Saint Peter
in Rome liked to eat, the branches are nourished, however are likened by the goddess of Wisdom and dedicated to peace and Noah's dove. Here are your apple blossoms to find, o Schoschannim, in addition to the fraternal bright pear and cherry blossoms. The almond trees, that VanGogh painted so beautifully, are standing here as the painters model. In the plains there is the tree of Daphne, wich laurel is called, named after Petrarch's Laura, the love of the poet, who has been crowned on the Capitoline with the muses’ laurel wreath. Banana and citrus fruits give the best color of yellow and orange. But above all, rejoice, dear San Marco, here are growing the richest fruits of vines. Especially the excellent wine of the Mesaoria is fine, but also about other wines I want to talk to you on occasion. The sting of the bush
Macchia won here much space. More often than the goat is the mouflon Agrinon, the shy mountain sheep. The male wild sheep have impressive curved horns and keep the females, especially in the Troodos Mountains. Also there are wild leopards and wild asses, and the deer of Eustace, - God is gracious, - look now and then, he is noble and unsociable. Of course, here are sneaking also around the women legs the cats to the front of the houses. In the woods there are chasing some hares and rabbits, and I love the purple fox, which the poet calls Renard, and the nimble climbers squirrels that I think you have called red devils of the woods, but that is wrong, because they are very fond. But to my favorites, the owners of wings: there are on the Cypros island Cetti's warbler, which does not mean that they always whistle when they see a silken dress, there are seen the wild doves coo and coo and coo like Don Giovanni, as well as the bird of the Emperor Frederick of Sicily, the falcon, the minstrel bird, but the most majestic bird in the mountainous region is the imperial eagle - Long live our Emperor by the Grace of God! But I've finally repealed the flamingos that rest in the winter at the salt lakes of Larnaca on the trip to Lanzarote and La Palma. The lead male bird dances to impress the females, approach them publicity-wise, and when a female keeps silent, it is agreed and gives her consent, and then devour the flamingo man the necks of the flamingo woman in tender and graceful turns, what to see is very beautyful. Their rosane color is, because the are feeding on the crustaceans and algae. This leads us back to the water, and that's the element of Cypros, so here is at home, my good San Marco, the Venus of your veins. I look forward to your mutual bliss, now back in my cell, to the font of love, and greet you both with a pious and respectful greeting!
Hilarion.
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Pope Hilarion to his gracious sister Schoschannim of Susa and the learned brother San Marco of Venice: I greet you with a kiss of love, and God bless you for your sake! Dear ones, this time I will tell you about the place where I live as Bishop of Marion, and the mountain of the West, fabout the Olympus. So I’m living in Marion. It is called today Indianapolis, Marion is the city of the cities of Cypros. It is isolated with beautiful beaches on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It was among the Achaeans around 1000 BC a City-Kingdom, at the time when King David made Jerusalem to the royal city. By Persians, Ptolemies and Turks often destroyed, Marion arose again and again. In the picturesque fishing port I would like to eat with you between colorful boats and wicker baskets a whitefish meal, dear ones, and to drink wine from Mesaoria. – But to the beautiful myth of Marion, I will tell you of the Venus of Marion. Venus, the sea-borne goddess by Plato is called Urania: the Heavenly Beauty. In the Nabatean Petra she was called Queen of Heaven, Melitta. How shall I call her? I want to call her Venus – she who rose at the rock Petra tou Romiou ashore and went to Marion. Where she went, there grew myrtles, blooming white and red and gold roses, looking ashamed to the chaste dreamy poppy, and drunk the milk of consolation, bees humming since the may is flowering, there sang the swallow and the sparrow, there cooed the pigeons of eternal true love, and also the eternally faithful prophet bird, the swan flew with Venus, who was so white that he kept her for his Heavenly She-swan. She enlightens the mornig like a diamond of the morning-star, which is the homeland of the lovers in heaven. It was on a Friday in April, when she stepped in a shady alcove between fig trees. She lay her rose-red coat down, the green sandals, and undressed herself also of her white silk's dress and got into the water in the bathroom, in the rocks niche rested, and washed herself. - On the way back from Troy once came the son of Theseus, the king of Athens, the youth Akamas to Marion. He went to the fig trees and saw a white she-swan rest on the water. The Athenian was so chaste that he the naked Venus of Marion didn’t see, but look into her soul, which was so white like a white swan. The Virgin now was so chaste that she, as the youth her saw, grabbed her purple mantle of a queen and veiled her naked body. But she allowed him to look her ivory white shoulders. Then he looked into her face, and it was overwhelmed with a great grace and beauty. Her eyes were green as the sea, where there is a blue sky reflected, her lips were as narrow rose petals. In love for such a loveliness, he plucked the red roses on the edge of the Grotto and presented them to her. They spent three days in pure love. When she was asleep, he woke up and looked in the mosses and coveted the sleeping goddess with her golden locks of the beautiful forehead. After three days but had the daughter of Jove gone back to Mount Olympus, back to the apartment of the king of the gods. Akamas lived thereafter only by the memory of the Venus of Marion. - Beloved, that bath in which the Heavenly Queen bathed, is called the Fontana Amorosa. Whosoever a drop of that water drinks, is with unquenchable love recorded. I confess to you, I drank of that fountain of love, and since that moment I am filled with high holy charity for Saint Mary Metanoia and pray, that I can enter soon the bliss of souls, the paradise of God's love! - But even to talk about the Olympus, which you will like, there rises the Cypriot pine and black pine, cedars and cypresses ascend the winding paths, through a mulberry grove, along flowering peach orchards, there are mountain sheep, and in the ether the imperial eagles eyed, until one of the Caledonia waterfalls comes. Finally, you reach the village Troodos. There is a Monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is with you in the beautiful Venice and there is called Madonna. There is a jewel of the belt of Mary, wich she at her asumption to heaven has given to the earth. This is the belt, said a German poet, that holds the raging universe’s delight together! In this monastery many lovers ask for the intercession of the Blessed Mary Aphroditissa. From this monastery there is a narrow path to the location Omodhos that is dedicated to the Holy Cross. There I sat on a chair made of oak wood, this epistle writing to you, remembering that the splinter of the Holy Cross me also pierced my heart and wounded me to death, that only the dear God my Savior still can heal me. - Greet the communion of saints of Venice! Yours,
Hilarion of Marion.
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Hilarion the sinner to Saint Schoschannim and San Marco: the grace of God may be with us all! Beloved, you asked in your letter, how we are living with the Turks on the island Cypros? Well, I want to mention all the devastation that are here presented, some Crusader castle to rubble and ashes, many a monastery ruins converted and many a cathedral in a mosque transformed. But I want to emphasize a praise: Suleiman the Magnificent and his beautiful mistress Zuleime! Finally, I will tell you more about the honorable grave of the grandmother of the King of Jordan. - Suleiman the Magnificent lived in a palace in the old town of Famagusta, as the Greeks, of Magosa, as the Turks call. He lived within the walls, with views on the Diamond Tower and the citadel, which adorns the lion of Saint Mark, and which the people call the citadel of Othello, because once Il Moro, the Moor, prevailed, which is he whom Shakespeare took for the model of his tragedy. He also saw through the sea gate to Varoscha, which is a ghost town. In his magnificent palace he lived as once the kings of Jerusalem, Armenia and Cypros. He walked from his palace, from whose ivory ornaments he was delighted with Turkish baths, Turkish delights, Turkish honey, he by the Adriatic Sea Gate with the lions on the beach at the last watch of the night walked to from beach to beach, bay to bay, from Palm Beach to Corral Bay until he came to the bay of Petra tou Romiou, located close to Paphos Ktima. He was not a strict Moslem, although he also suras of the Koran every day read and prayed, yet he was on Cypros a great connoisseur of unveiled women become his namesake emulating. Well, he had walked through the night, a great connoisseur of the stars. Especially he had looked up to the constellation Virgin, which he called in oriental idolatry Fatima. When he was in the Bay of the bays, the beach arrived, he went straight up in the morning. He stood in the brown grasses, shuffled his feet in his sandals in the pebbles. The rocks were grotesquely shaped out into the sea. The water was green, with white foam, which the waves on the beach contributed and laid at the feet of Suleiman the Magnificent. In the light blue skies stood alone beautifully the morning star. Like a diamond flashed his light through the clear ether. The green of the sea swam with the light blue of the sky, to the rays of the young sun. All this resulted in a kind of magical lighting that is deep painted in the soul of Suleiman. Because he had a vision - he wondered whether he was insane or whether even the Djinn-demons of Satan proofed him - he was suspended above the sea a woman of nicest beauty. Her hair flowed down to her bare body. The skin was light brown by the sun of Cypros. Her face was thin and adorable charming. Her eyes looked like the sparkling morning star, veiled by long eyelashes. She chatted with the slender hands the hair, colored by Cypriot henna, before the breasts, disguised so the two young doves. Suleiman the Magnificent closed with showers of delight his eyes to fix this image in his mind forever. When he opened his eyes again, the vision was gone. Maybe it was the mirage of which it was said that she lived in Messina? Because he heard a young girl laughing. Surprised, he looked around. There he saw a young girl in a white robe and a curry-colored skirt and dancing. She danced gorgeous, movable like an of a flute beguiled snake, she squirmed under the palm trees. Her fair hair in curling locks fell long, her brown face seductive innocence looked to him. Suleiman was completely infatuated. She moved and had all the poses of the Medicean Venus, the Venus of Knidos, the Venus of Praxiteles, the Venus Callipigos, the smiling Venus, the Venus Frigida, and lured to him and called him: Darling! He walked after the hips swinging girl. By Allah and his prophet, said Suleiman the Magnificent, who are you? I'm Zuleime, she laughed, cooing like a dove. She had around the wrist a necklace strung with tiny white pearly mussels. About the lake flew white gulls. He was the king of Jerusalem, Armenia and Cypros and found a bride. And he called his Zuleime: Fatima, Rose of Magosa, Augusta of Famagusta, Coral of the Corral Bay, slender palmtree of Palm Beach, and together they entered the mosque and exaggerated idolatry. - But now, dear ones, you saints of Susa and Venice, I will tell you of his grandmother's death. Beyond the great salt lake Lamaca, honoring the resurrected Lazarus as orthodox Christians, the infidels have built a mosque grave. This is called Hala Sultana: Dear mother. Surrounded by palm trees and cypresses here the nurse of Muhammad was buried. The Arabs call it Haram Ummah, and all the turkish ships when they come near this place on the coast, the flag reduce. Behind the prayer niche leads a passage to the grave chamber. The grave is covered. About the shelter there is a large stone, that on the death day of the Umma Haram from Mecca to Cypros flew and hovered there for a time over the grave. By it lying three smaller stones, which Ummah on the eve of the death of Haram from the Millo of Jerusalem came and broke across the Mediterranean Sea and to Cypros swam. Others say, however, that angels some stones of Mount Sinai contributed here. Located in a room next to the grave chamber is the grave of the grandmother of the king of Jordan. From there, we have to go necessarily to the salt lake, the result of a curse of Saint Lazarus. A vine (there once flourished many grapevines) refused the Saint, whom Jesus Christ has raised from the dead, his berries, Lazarus cursed the vineyard, and the place turned into a barren salt lake. God, however, turned the desert into beauty while collecting there, as I have already reported, the rose-pink flamingos. Our soul overwinters at the cursed salt lake, but once we will raise and fly over the sea of death to the island of the blessed, where the palms of eternal life grow! Until then, tenderly devour your necks, you my dear Cypriot flamingo pair!
Yours, Hilarion, slave of Jesus Christ.
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Hilarion of Marion to the dear sister Schoschannim and the teachers of the Gospel Saint Mark: All the best! - Beloved, tonight is a quiet melancholy in my soul and I think back with nostalgia at the time, when Saint Mary Metanoia on Earth was staying. Maybe me writing to you can be a little comfort for me? – A man can not write of Cypros without telling a story about Paläa of Paphos. Once again I have come to speak about the rock of the Romans, Petra tou Romiou. Today I stood on the dark beach and saw the three rocks in the blue ocean’s rest, and the waves broke on the rocks. The sky was light and bright and clouds like mother-of-the-pearl sailed quietly through the air. Here the Marion-niche of Venus for the first time have been seen, they certainly came from the mornig-star, the kingdom of love, because the ideas and ideals of the beautiful love are there at home. And yes she is also known as: the Mother of Fair Love. She built in Paläa in Paphos, not far from the beach, a sanctuary. There a black stone is anointed, I do not know if it was a black onyx, anointed with myrrh. They offered up oblations, chestnuts and whitefish and myrtles to the Magna Mater. - At this point I will tell you from the myths of the district of Paphos. This is the story of Pygmalion: Disgusted by the fornication withdrew, the artist formed in solitude the marble from the Cararra-mountains to an image of Venus. The figure was completely out of the dream of his soul ascended, I do not know if its inspiration to the genius can be traced back. The image corresponded so much with his ideal, that he in love ensued for the marble beauty. Heavenly love have had pity on the dreamy artist and sent him a Cypriot maiden who in incredible extent resembled the ideal of his soul, which was the beautiful maiden Galathea. Drawn in a golden shell chariot, with snow-white dolphins, the beautiful Galatea sailed over the sea. Young Tritons blew on spiral conches praise to her beauty. Marine old men swam to the sea and the sky was young to their eyes. Her golden hair blowing in the wind, the wind was blowing her rose-colored coat over the ivory-white shoulders and tossed her, the youngsters breasts veiled chaste. She drove in her car to the golden beach of Paphos Ktima, since Pygmalion thought and dreamed in his musical melancholy, and she kissed him, kissed him as his ideal, he kissed the idea of the eternal beauty, the beautiful love herself in the Virgin Galathea, who met him. - Another myth I say that does not come originally from Cypros but from Delphi, where the navel of the world is, but because it is for the love content, it has also its place in Paläa Paphos. Apollo, the god of prophets and poets, immortalized the beautiful nymph Daphne. He sang her to his golden lyre and chants her grace and sweetness. Apollo did not cease to woo her, and followed her. She fled before the stormy god. At the moment, he caught her, she pleaded to the king of the gods, who her in a laurel bush transformed. Apollo never ceased to love Daphne, and because he was with the Muses, he announced the edict that truly holy singing poets of love should be crowned with the laurel wreath. Her love in this honor Dante and Petrarch were partakers of this because of Beatrice and because of Laura, whom he compared to Daphne. - Finally, I will tell you from the cult of the dying and resurrecting demi-god Adonis. His cult originated in the Near East, he was kept holy in Paläa Paphos. Adonis was the most beautiful of all the children of men, however ugly and disfigured by a monster to death wounded. He died in a grove of olive trees in Idalion. The beautiful goddess Venus which once of many people was beloved as a sinful mistress considered, but for the nobler spirits and lovers of Wisdom she is a princess of beautiful love, who loved the demi-god Adonis and bewailed him with bitter tears. She sat in her ever renewing virginity and beautiful grace in the flowing dress on the meadow, and across her lap lay the dead body of Adonis, the son of Myrrha, wearing only a loincloth. But in the spring was celebrated in the Near East and Western Paläa Paphos the awakening of Adonis. With him awake the lilies and the roses and all the nature. Maidens singing and dancing to the harps and cymbals come into the sanctuary and cheer: Celebrate Adonis! Come and celebrate him, because Adonis is risen, that's why we him celebrate! Since then is praised the sacred marriage in which the priestesses of love on behalf of the congregation of the virgins with the beautiful god married themselves. Then all of them go into the sacred garden, because they dance in white robes, round dances in ecstatic joy and happy laughter! - Beloved, I was comforted to write to you really. I recommend your souls to the intercession of the Saint Mary Metanoia and to Our Lady Aphroditissa: O clemens, o dulce, o venusta Maria! The next time I will write to you from New Paphos and the whipping post of Paul. I greet you with a kiss of love, asking you to write, and please my greeting goes also to the Assembly in your house. Yours,
Hilarion of Marion.
4
Pope Hilarion to his gracious sister Schoschannim of Susa and the learned brother San Marco of Venice: I greet you with a kiss of love, and God bless you for your sake! Dear ones, this time I will tell you about the place where I live as Bishop of Marion, and the mountain of the West, fabout the Olympus. So I’m living in Marion. It is called today Indianapolis, Marion is the city of the cities of Cypros. It is isolated with beautiful beaches on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It was among the Achaeans around 1000 BC a City-Kingdom, at the time when King David made Jerusalem to the royal city. By Persians, Ptolemies and Turks often destroyed, Marion arose again and again. In the picturesque fishing port I would like to eat with you between colorful boats and wicker baskets a whitefish meal, dear ones, and to drink wine from Mesaoria. – But to the beautiful myth of Marion, I will tell you of the Venus of Marion. Venus, the sea-borne goddess by Plato is called Urania: the Heavenly Beauty. In the Nabatean Petra she was called Queen of Heaven, Melitta. How shall I call her? I want to call her Venus – she who rose at the rock Petra tou Romiou ashore and went to Marion. Where she went, there grew myrtles, blooming white and red and gold roses, looking ashamed to the chaste dreamy poppy, and drunk the milk of consolation, bees humming since the may is flowering, there sang the swallow and the sparrow, there cooed the pigeons of eternal true love, and also the eternally faithful prophet bird, the swan flew with Venus, who was so white that he kept her for his Heavenly She-swan. She enlightens the mornig like a diamond of the morning-star, which is the homeland of the lovers in heaven. It was on a Friday in April, when she stepped in a shady alcove between fig trees. She lay her rose-red coat down, the green sandals, and undressed herself also of her white silk's dress and got into the water in the bathroom, in the rocks niche rested, and washed herself. - On the way back from Troy once came the son of Theseus, the king of Athens, the youth Akamas to Marion. He went to the fig trees and saw a white she-swan rest on the water. The Athenian was so chaste that he the naked Venus of Marion didn’t see, but look into her soul, which was so white like a white swan. The Virgin now was so chaste that she, as the youth her saw, grabbed her purple mantle of a queen and veiled her naked body. But she allowed him to look her ivory white shoulders. Then he looked into her face, and it was overwhelmed with a great grace and beauty. Her eyes were green as the sea, where there is a blue sky reflected, her lips were as narrow rose petals. In love for such a loveliness, he plucked the red roses on the edge of the Grotto and presented them to her. They spent three days in pure love. When she was asleep, he woke up and looked in the mosses and coveted the sleeping goddess with her golden locks of the beautiful forehead. After three days but had the daughter of Jove gone back to Mount Olympus, back to the apartment of the king of the gods. Akamas lived thereafter only by the memory of the Venus of Marion. - Beloved, that bath in which the Heavenly Queen bathed, is called the Fontana Amorosa. Whosoever a drop of that water drinks, is with unquenchable love recorded. I confess to you, I drank of that fountain of love, and since that moment I am filled with high holy charity for Saint Mary Metanoia and pray, that I can enter soon the bliss of souls, the paradise of God's love! - But even to talk about the Olympus, which you will like, there rises the Cypriot pine and black pine, cedars and cypresses ascend the winding paths, through a mulberry grove, along flowering peach orchards, there are mountain sheep, and in the ether the imperial eagles eyed, until one of the Caledonia waterfalls comes. Finally, you reach the village Troodos. There is a Monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is with you in the beautiful Venice and there is called Madonna. There is a jewel of the belt of Mary, wich she at her asumption to heaven has given to the earth. This is the belt, said a German poet, that holds the raging universe’s delight together! In this monastery many lovers ask for the intercession of the Blessed Mary Aphroditissa. From this monastery there is a narrow path to the location Omodhos that is dedicated to the Holy Cross. There I sat on a chair made of oak wood, this epistle writing to you, remembering that the splinter of the Holy Cross me also pierced my heart and wounded me to death, that only the dear God my Savior still can heal me. - Greet the communion of saints of Venice! Yours,
Hilarion of Marion.
5
Hilarion the sinner to Saint Schoschannim and San Marco: the grace of God may be with us all! Beloved, you asked in your letter, how we are living with the Turks on the island Cypros? Well, I want to mention all the devastation that are here presented, some Crusader castle to rubble and ashes, many a monastery ruins converted and many a cathedral in a mosque transformed. But I want to emphasize a praise: Suleiman the Magnificent and his beautiful mistress Zuleime! Finally, I will tell you more about the honorable grave of the grandmother of the King of Jordan. - Suleiman the Magnificent lived in a palace in the old town of Famagusta, as the Greeks, of Magosa, as the Turks call. He lived within the walls, with views on the Diamond Tower and the citadel, which adorns the lion of Saint Mark, and which the people call the citadel of Othello, because once Il Moro, the Moor, prevailed, which is he whom Shakespeare took for the model of his tragedy. He also saw through the sea gate to Varoscha, which is a ghost town. In his magnificent palace he lived as once the kings of Jerusalem, Armenia and Cypros. He walked from his palace, from whose ivory ornaments he was delighted with Turkish baths, Turkish delights, Turkish honey, he by the Adriatic Sea Gate with the lions on the beach at the last watch of the night walked to from beach to beach, bay to bay, from Palm Beach to Corral Bay until he came to the bay of Petra tou Romiou, located close to Paphos Ktima. He was not a strict Moslem, although he also suras of the Koran every day read and prayed, yet he was on Cypros a great connoisseur of unveiled women become his namesake emulating. Well, he had walked through the night, a great connoisseur of the stars. Especially he had looked up to the constellation Virgin, which he called in oriental idolatry Fatima. When he was in the Bay of the bays, the beach arrived, he went straight up in the morning. He stood in the brown grasses, shuffled his feet in his sandals in the pebbles. The rocks were grotesquely shaped out into the sea. The water was green, with white foam, which the waves on the beach contributed and laid at the feet of Suleiman the Magnificent. In the light blue skies stood alone beautifully the morning star. Like a diamond flashed his light through the clear ether. The green of the sea swam with the light blue of the sky, to the rays of the young sun. All this resulted in a kind of magical lighting that is deep painted in the soul of Suleiman. Because he had a vision - he wondered whether he was insane or whether even the Djinn-demons of Satan proofed him - he was suspended above the sea a woman of nicest beauty. Her hair flowed down to her bare body. The skin was light brown by the sun of Cypros. Her face was thin and adorable charming. Her eyes looked like the sparkling morning star, veiled by long eyelashes. She chatted with the slender hands the hair, colored by Cypriot henna, before the breasts, disguised so the two young doves. Suleiman the Magnificent closed with showers of delight his eyes to fix this image in his mind forever. When he opened his eyes again, the vision was gone. Maybe it was the mirage of which it was said that she lived in Messina? Because he heard a young girl laughing. Surprised, he looked around. There he saw a young girl in a white robe and a curry-colored skirt and dancing. She danced gorgeous, movable like an of a flute beguiled snake, she squirmed under the palm trees. Her fair hair in curling locks fell long, her brown face seductive innocence looked to him. Suleiman was completely infatuated. She moved and had all the poses of the Medicean Venus, the Venus of Knidos, the Venus of Praxiteles, the Venus Callipigos, the smiling Venus, the Venus Frigida, and lured to him and called him: Darling! He walked after the hips swinging girl. By Allah and his prophet, said Suleiman the Magnificent, who are you? I'm Zuleime, she laughed, cooing like a dove. She had around the wrist a necklace strung with tiny white pearly mussels. About the lake flew white gulls. He was the king of Jerusalem, Armenia and Cypros and found a bride. And he called his Zuleime: Fatima, Rose of Magosa, Augusta of Famagusta, Coral of the Corral Bay, slender palmtree of Palm Beach, and together they entered the mosque and exaggerated idolatry. - But now, dear ones, you saints of Susa and Venice, I will tell you of his grandmother's death. Beyond the great salt lake Lamaca, honoring the resurrected Lazarus as orthodox Christians, the infidels have built a mosque grave. This is called Hala Sultana: Dear mother. Surrounded by palm trees and cypresses here the nurse of Muhammad was buried. The Arabs call it Haram Ummah, and all the turkish ships when they come near this place on the coast, the flag reduce. Behind the prayer niche leads a passage to the grave chamber. The grave is covered. About the shelter there is a large stone, that on the death day of the Umma Haram from Mecca to Cypros flew and hovered there for a time over the grave. By it lying three smaller stones, which Ummah on the eve of the death of Haram from the Millo of Jerusalem came and broke across the Mediterranean Sea and to Cypros swam. Others say, however, that angels some stones of Mount Sinai contributed here. Located in a room next to the grave chamber is the grave of the grandmother of the king of Jordan. From there, we have to go necessarily to the salt lake, the result of a curse of Saint Lazarus. A vine (there once flourished many grapevines) refused the Saint, whom Jesus Christ has raised from the dead, his berries, Lazarus cursed the vineyard, and the place turned into a barren salt lake. God, however, turned the desert into beauty while collecting there, as I have already reported, the rose-pink flamingos. Our soul overwinters at the cursed salt lake, but once we will raise and fly over the sea of death to the island of the blessed, where the palms of eternal life grow! Until then, tenderly devour your necks, you my dear Cypriot flamingo pair!
Yours, Hilarion, slave of Jesus Christ.
6
Hilarion of Marion to the dear sister Schoschannim and the teachers of the Gospel Saint Mark: All the best! - Beloved, tonight is a quiet melancholy in my soul and I think back with nostalgia at the time, when Saint Mary Metanoia on Earth was staying. Maybe me writing to you can be a little comfort for me? – A man can not write of Cypros without telling a story about Paläa of Paphos. Once again I have come to speak about the rock of the Romans, Petra tou Romiou. Today I stood on the dark beach and saw the three rocks in the blue ocean’s rest, and the waves broke on the rocks. The sky was light and bright and clouds like mother-of-the-pearl sailed quietly through the air. Here the Marion-niche of Venus for the first time have been seen, they certainly came from the mornig-star, the kingdom of love, because the ideas and ideals of the beautiful love are there at home. And yes she is also known as: the Mother of Fair Love. She built in Paläa in Paphos, not far from the beach, a sanctuary. There a black stone is anointed, I do not know if it was a black onyx, anointed with myrrh. They offered up oblations, chestnuts and whitefish and myrtles to the Magna Mater. - At this point I will tell you from the myths of the district of Paphos. This is the story of Pygmalion: Disgusted by the fornication withdrew, the artist formed in solitude the marble from the Cararra-mountains to an image of Venus. The figure was completely out of the dream of his soul ascended, I do not know if its inspiration to the genius can be traced back. The image corresponded so much with his ideal, that he in love ensued for the marble beauty. Heavenly love have had pity on the dreamy artist and sent him a Cypriot maiden who in incredible extent resembled the ideal of his soul, which was the beautiful maiden Galathea. Drawn in a golden shell chariot, with snow-white dolphins, the beautiful Galatea sailed over the sea. Young Tritons blew on spiral conches praise to her beauty. Marine old men swam to the sea and the sky was young to their eyes. Her golden hair blowing in the wind, the wind was blowing her rose-colored coat over the ivory-white shoulders and tossed her, the youngsters breasts veiled chaste. She drove in her car to the golden beach of Paphos Ktima, since Pygmalion thought and dreamed in his musical melancholy, and she kissed him, kissed him as his ideal, he kissed the idea of the eternal beauty, the beautiful love herself in the Virgin Galathea, who met him. - Another myth I say that does not come originally from Cypros but from Delphi, where the navel of the world is, but because it is for the love content, it has also its place in Paläa Paphos. Apollo, the god of prophets and poets, immortalized the beautiful nymph Daphne. He sang her to his golden lyre and chants her grace and sweetness. Apollo did not cease to woo her, and followed her. She fled before the stormy god. At the moment, he caught her, she pleaded to the king of the gods, who her in a laurel bush transformed. Apollo never ceased to love Daphne, and because he was with the Muses, he announced the edict that truly holy singing poets of love should be crowned with the laurel wreath. Her love in this honor Dante and Petrarch were partakers of this because of Beatrice and because of Laura, whom he compared to Daphne. - Finally, I will tell you from the cult of the dying and resurrecting demi-god Adonis. His cult originated in the Near East, he was kept holy in Paläa Paphos. Adonis was the most beautiful of all the children of men, however ugly and disfigured by a monster to death wounded. He died in a grove of olive trees in Idalion. The beautiful goddess Venus which once of many people was beloved as a sinful mistress considered, but for the nobler spirits and lovers of Wisdom she is a princess of beautiful love, who loved the demi-god Adonis and bewailed him with bitter tears. She sat in her ever renewing virginity and beautiful grace in the flowing dress on the meadow, and across her lap lay the dead body of Adonis, the son of Myrrha, wearing only a loincloth. But in the spring was celebrated in the Near East and Western Paläa Paphos the awakening of Adonis. With him awake the lilies and the roses and all the nature. Maidens singing and dancing to the harps and cymbals come into the sanctuary and cheer: Celebrate Adonis! Come and celebrate him, because Adonis is risen, that's why we him celebrate! Since then is praised the sacred marriage in which the priestesses of love on behalf of the congregation of the virgins with the beautiful god married themselves. Then all of them go into the sacred garden, because they dance in white robes, round dances in ecstatic joy and happy laughter! - Beloved, I was comforted to write to you really. I recommend your souls to the intercession of the Saint Mary Metanoia and to Our Lady Aphroditissa: O clemens, o dulce, o venusta Maria! The next time I will write to you from New Paphos and the whipping post of Paul. I greet you with a kiss of love, asking you to write, and please my greeting goes also to the Assembly in your house. Yours,
Hilarion of Marion.
7
To San Marco, with wine, and Schoschannim, with olive oil, which Hilarion often did weal in Corinth, where we spoke in tongues, Hilarion writes this from Marion in Cypros: I greet you again with a kiss of love! - Beloved, I secretly hope, you didn’t have your interest in Cypros lost, so wag I, to write you today from New Paphos. - New Paphos, or the Royal domain Ktima that before the third millennium was called Souskia is surrounded by citrus groves and vineyards. The Romans called it holy capital of all Cypriot towns: the Augusta of Augustus. Paul and Barnabas, who on Cypros was born, the son of consolation, and Joseph was named, came to a mission trip to this island. Paul converted here Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul. - First I want to lead you into the old houses. In the House of Dionysos there is a mosaic of the divine sufferer Ulysses in the Strait of Messina. In the next room is shown the youth Narcissus, of the nymph Echo was dismissed and now the echo of the echo images his beloved soul. Heavenly love has had pity on the languishing and turned him into a daffodil that carries his name. Then you see the wine-god himself, in a carriage drawn by black panthers, musicians accompany him, farmers take the harvest of wine, there are swarming rabbits and birds. To you, San Marco dear, I'd like to dedicate the mosaic from the first wine drinker! Dionysus is seen as a guest by the Athenian king Ikarios, they talk about the art of winemaking, listening to the sweet nymph sitting there, Acme. Ikarios donates the sacred drink some goatherds, who believe he would poison them by the concoction of magic, then they killed him, Ikarius is recorded in the mythology as the first martyr of the wine-god. – How Apollo loved Daphne, I’d said to you already. But how the king of gods loved the boy Ganymede, do you know that? He tore him out from the vale of tears, on the eagle’s wings he took him in the Sky-castle where Ganymede became cupbearer to the gods. Also there is seen an image of the virgin Leda, whom the god visited as a swan. He embraced her, she gave herself to him in her embrace, the eye of the swan and the eye of the virgin went one into one, that was a Mystical Union born in the soul, that brings forth the most beautiful woman in Greece, the Spartan Helen, who has been the high trophy of the noble Greeks before the gates of Ilion in Asia. In the house of the aeon is the price of beauty before all the mermaids to the virgin Cassiopeia granted; Zeus the father of the gods, Helios, his son, the sun, and the virgin Minerva, Goddess of wisdom, do look and confirm the victory of Kassiopeia. In the House of Theseus, king of Athens, there is seen how he is gone in the dangerous labyrinth, because the monster lurking was in the middle of it, and the assistance of the Cretan princess Ariadne leads him out. Even Achilles, the friend of Patroclus is seen in the picture. Three Fates look at him and remind myself that even an Achilles will not escape his fate. Finally, in the house of Orpheus, the poet-seer has to look like it with his lyre, tuned into the harmony of the spheres, the trees of the forest's subsequent calls and tames the wild beasts, he, who to the stars of the virgin, the swan and the lyre, brings his love Eurydice, up from the grave, as he propheceyed her. - Now to the Frankish Church of Saint Francis, who was a second Christ and an Orpheus with his singing to the sparrows and who had made the sparrows pious. Before the gate of the church stands a column that was flogged one day when Saint Paul applied the gentiles. He praised the emperor indeed not as Lord and God, but praised the unknown God, his Son Jesus Christ as the Saviour, sent to a predetermined day as judge of the living and the dead, as it witnessed the Apostles Creed, and therefore were called all the people to repentance. Here in Paphos was Saint Paul also in a spiritual battle with the occult sorcerer Bar-Jesus, like a little later wrestled even Saint Peter spiritually with Simon Magus, who himself called the power of God. Paul took the magician his eye-sight. The blind man from Paphos undulates to the Church of the Holy Solomonis at Apostolos Pavlos Avenue. She was martyred with her seven sons in the second century in the time of persecution of Christians in Cyprus and with the red martyrdom was honored. Her joy in the Lord was a palm and the crown of eternal life! - We too, dear ones, shall be ready at all times, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully to confess as the only name under heaven in which salvation is, and we want to walk in his footsteps, and our cross we take up every day. He may bless you!
To San Marco, with wine, and Schoschannim, with olive oil, which Hilarion often did weal in Corinth, where we spoke in tongues, Hilarion writes this from Marion in Cypros: I greet you again with a kiss of love! - Beloved, I secretly hope, you didn’t have your interest in Cypros lost, so wag I, to write you today from New Paphos. - New Paphos, or the Royal domain Ktima that before the third millennium was called Souskia is surrounded by citrus groves and vineyards. The Romans called it holy capital of all Cypriot towns: the Augusta of Augustus. Paul and Barnabas, who on Cypros was born, the son of consolation, and Joseph was named, came to a mission trip to this island. Paul converted here Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul. - First I want to lead you into the old houses. In the House of Dionysos there is a mosaic of the divine sufferer Ulysses in the Strait of Messina. In the next room is shown the youth Narcissus, of the nymph Echo was dismissed and now the echo of the echo images his beloved soul. Heavenly love has had pity on the languishing and turned him into a daffodil that carries his name. Then you see the wine-god himself, in a carriage drawn by black panthers, musicians accompany him, farmers take the harvest of wine, there are swarming rabbits and birds. To you, San Marco dear, I'd like to dedicate the mosaic from the first wine drinker! Dionysus is seen as a guest by the Athenian king Ikarios, they talk about the art of winemaking, listening to the sweet nymph sitting there, Acme. Ikarios donates the sacred drink some goatherds, who believe he would poison them by the concoction of magic, then they killed him, Ikarius is recorded in the mythology as the first martyr of the wine-god. – How Apollo loved Daphne, I’d said to you already. But how the king of gods loved the boy Ganymede, do you know that? He tore him out from the vale of tears, on the eagle’s wings he took him in the Sky-castle where Ganymede became cupbearer to the gods. Also there is seen an image of the virgin Leda, whom the god visited as a swan. He embraced her, she gave herself to him in her embrace, the eye of the swan and the eye of the virgin went one into one, that was a Mystical Union born in the soul, that brings forth the most beautiful woman in Greece, the Spartan Helen, who has been the high trophy of the noble Greeks before the gates of Ilion in Asia. In the house of the aeon is the price of beauty before all the mermaids to the virgin Cassiopeia granted; Zeus the father of the gods, Helios, his son, the sun, and the virgin Minerva, Goddess of wisdom, do look and confirm the victory of Kassiopeia. In the House of Theseus, king of Athens, there is seen how he is gone in the dangerous labyrinth, because the monster lurking was in the middle of it, and the assistance of the Cretan princess Ariadne leads him out. Even Achilles, the friend of Patroclus is seen in the picture. Three Fates look at him and remind myself that even an Achilles will not escape his fate. Finally, in the house of Orpheus, the poet-seer has to look like it with his lyre, tuned into the harmony of the spheres, the trees of the forest's subsequent calls and tames the wild beasts, he, who to the stars of the virgin, the swan and the lyre, brings his love Eurydice, up from the grave, as he propheceyed her. - Now to the Frankish Church of Saint Francis, who was a second Christ and an Orpheus with his singing to the sparrows and who had made the sparrows pious. Before the gate of the church stands a column that was flogged one day when Saint Paul applied the gentiles. He praised the emperor indeed not as Lord and God, but praised the unknown God, his Son Jesus Christ as the Saviour, sent to a predetermined day as judge of the living and the dead, as it witnessed the Apostles Creed, and therefore were called all the people to repentance. Here in Paphos was Saint Paul also in a spiritual battle with the occult sorcerer Bar-Jesus, like a little later wrestled even Saint Peter spiritually with Simon Magus, who himself called the power of God. Paul took the magician his eye-sight. The blind man from Paphos undulates to the Church of the Holy Solomonis at Apostolos Pavlos Avenue. She was martyred with her seven sons in the second century in the time of persecution of Christians in Cyprus and with the red martyrdom was honored. Her joy in the Lord was a palm and the crown of eternal life! - We too, dear ones, shall be ready at all times, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully to confess as the only name under heaven in which salvation is, and we want to walk in his footsteps, and our cross we take up every day. He may bless you!
Hilarion of Marion.
8
Hilarion of Marion to San Marco, the owner of the manuscript of the minstrels, and his bride Schoschannim of Susa: You shall kiss one another all times with the Holy Kiss! Dear ones, I just awoke from a dream. Outside the window of my indicated dormitory on the morning still is the magnificent morning-star at work. A rooster crows as a herald of the morning star. I met like once the prophet Daniel a vision on the camp of the night. I was in the cypress forest Mesaoria level deep in the lost night, I dreamed, and out of the bushes eyes sparkled hungry
of wild leopards when I came to the minstrel Reinmar (you know I love german poetry). He wore a red coat and green trousers, he was holding a harp of ivory, and on his left shoulder a bird sitting, and on the right a nightingale, which sweetly chirped. Since Reinmar said to me “Dear Hilarion, I will that you report of your love, the nightingale is your angel. Saint Mary Metanoia calls your soul in the flowery gardens of heaven, your sweet lady!” As I followed him, we got deeper into the forest, and then ascended a hill, until we come to a garden of myrtle, the top of the hill looked as a rock, from which a source jumped. I just went over to the dawn. There floated down in a garment made of the very finest white linen Saint Mary Metanoia. She wore gold sandals on her bare feet. In the fair curls she wore a delicate golden circlet, adorned colorful gems like the tail of a peacock. When I saw her, my knees were trembling, all my life I felt sinful and unclean. She looked to me with her heavenly eyes that spread light the moon at night, shining like emeralds on the white throne of God! Under the gaze of her eyes, I was overcome by the divine sadness, that leads to repentance. With the wide sleeve of her falling veil-like garment she stroked my tearful eyes. As I had by her loving touch the eyes of the heart opened, I saw one in the rising dawn: The Mother of my Lord appeared in an aura of golden dawn to her head, she sparkles like the morning star. She bores a garment, which also covered her hair. Her coat was from sparse red-rose and adorned with golden floral designs, lowered by two angels in the highest sky a golden crown on her hair. Then I saw that she on the right arm had a child, and strangely enough, this child had the face of a responsible man! To the head of Jesus sparkles the full sun of the highest noon. He looked with compassionate glances in my heart - then pleaded I: Oh, my Lord! Have mercy, and remember that I am dust! And the Lord pointed with his finger to the Holy Bible, which lay open in his other hand. Because in my mind, the Word sounded in strange tongue: Rejoice in God's mercy and be not ashamed to praise him! - My heart, o dear ones, is after this dream full of love, for love reigns as queen of the universe, because God is gracious love! All the best!
Yours
Hilarion of Marion, Pope of the Maronite Church.
9
The Pope of Marion to the saints of Venice! God's grace and Christ’s peace and the love of the Holy Spirit be with you all! Beloved, in the Maronite Church, we sing a “great hymn akathistos”, a hymn that I wrote, it is called: the ABC of Mary:
A – apple garden of the New Adam
Hilarion of Marion to San Marco, the owner of the manuscript of the minstrels, and his bride Schoschannim of Susa: You shall kiss one another all times with the Holy Kiss! Dear ones, I just awoke from a dream. Outside the window of my indicated dormitory on the morning still is the magnificent morning-star at work. A rooster crows as a herald of the morning star. I met like once the prophet Daniel a vision on the camp of the night. I was in the cypress forest Mesaoria level deep in the lost night, I dreamed, and out of the bushes eyes sparkled hungry
of wild leopards when I came to the minstrel Reinmar (you know I love german poetry). He wore a red coat and green trousers, he was holding a harp of ivory, and on his left shoulder a bird sitting, and on the right a nightingale, which sweetly chirped. Since Reinmar said to me “Dear Hilarion, I will that you report of your love, the nightingale is your angel. Saint Mary Metanoia calls your soul in the flowery gardens of heaven, your sweet lady!” As I followed him, we got deeper into the forest, and then ascended a hill, until we come to a garden of myrtle, the top of the hill looked as a rock, from which a source jumped. I just went over to the dawn. There floated down in a garment made of the very finest white linen Saint Mary Metanoia. She wore gold sandals on her bare feet. In the fair curls she wore a delicate golden circlet, adorned colorful gems like the tail of a peacock. When I saw her, my knees were trembling, all my life I felt sinful and unclean. She looked to me with her heavenly eyes that spread light the moon at night, shining like emeralds on the white throne of God! Under the gaze of her eyes, I was overcome by the divine sadness, that leads to repentance. With the wide sleeve of her falling veil-like garment she stroked my tearful eyes. As I had by her loving touch the eyes of the heart opened, I saw one in the rising dawn: The Mother of my Lord appeared in an aura of golden dawn to her head, she sparkles like the morning star. She bores a garment, which also covered her hair. Her coat was from sparse red-rose and adorned with golden floral designs, lowered by two angels in the highest sky a golden crown on her hair. Then I saw that she on the right arm had a child, and strangely enough, this child had the face of a responsible man! To the head of Jesus sparkles the full sun of the highest noon. He looked with compassionate glances in my heart - then pleaded I: Oh, my Lord! Have mercy, and remember that I am dust! And the Lord pointed with his finger to the Holy Bible, which lay open in his other hand. Because in my mind, the Word sounded in strange tongue: Rejoice in God's mercy and be not ashamed to praise him! - My heart, o dear ones, is after this dream full of love, for love reigns as queen of the universe, because God is gracious love! All the best!
Yours
Hilarion of Marion, Pope of the Maronite Church.
9
The Pope of Marion to the saints of Venice! God's grace and Christ’s peace and the love of the Holy Spirit be with you all! Beloved, in the Maronite Church, we sing a “great hymn akathistos”, a hymn that I wrote, it is called: the ABC of Mary:
A – apple garden of the New Adam
B – bride of the
Holy Spirit
C – Christ’s
mother
D – divine
motherhood
E – Eve the
second
F – Feminine
eternal
G – God’s own
mother
H – Holy queen
I – Immaculate
heart
J – Jesus’ mother
K – kingdom of
the heavens
L – love’s queen
M – Mary
N – New Eve
O – oracle of the
prophets
P – patronesse of
the children of God
Q – queen of
heaven
R – rose of the
mystics
S – sinless woman
T – totally human
being
U – union of
mankind
V – Venus of the
third heaven
W – woman
X – Xian’s
emperess
Y – Yahweh’s
daughter
Z – zeal of love
to God
I do not know whether you want to sing in the church of Saint Mark the same hymn. But just look at the Maronite Church, our love is above all of our proclamation, Love is our teacher and master, and love is our inspiring wisdom - about what is sung in love, may God the
Lord probably all be pleased!
I greet you with the greetings of love -
Hilarion.
10
To San Marco and Schoschannim, the Saints, Hilarion writes: every day I think of you in a rich brotherly love. Beloved, slowly I approach the end of my reports from the island Cypros. Now I will tell you of the evangelists. The city of Larnaca is named after the Greek word Larnax, sarcophagus. In ancient times it was called the city of Kition. Therefore it is said in the Old Testament also Kittim when Cypros or the Greek islands or the entire Roman Kingdom is meant. Hail, Kition! At Pentecost, here are processions in honor of the rescue of Noah from the flood. They commemorate the ark, in which was the Word of God, and the Mother of God of the sea, in which was the Word of God, from whose womb mussel God's love in the world is given birth. The risen Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, who had loved the Lord, once Kition arrives. With Mary Magdalene and her sister was the saint by the Jews who did not believe in the Messiah Jesus, adrift been in a boat, wind and waves drove them into the bay of Kition. Lazarus was Bishop of Kition. (Magdalena drove up in the French Gulf de Lyon, where lie Les-Sainte-Maries-de-la-mer, which the german poet Mayer liked to wrote about.) In the ninth century was found in Kition the tomb of Lazarus, so called Kition Larnaca. On the bones of Lazarus the holy church was built, as Rome on the bones of Saint Peter, Venice on the bones of Saint Mark. Now to Barnabas, as the Cypriot Joseph was called by the apostles: the son of consolation. The son of consolation is the patron saint of Cypros. He came with the Apostle Paul from Jerusalem to Cypros. In a second trip to his native island (where on earth is home was) he was near Salamis stoned by Jews. “O days of Salamis,” the german poet Hölderlin wrote for his Diotima. The corpse of the son of consolation was buried by an unknown companion at an unknown location. But in the fifth century the Cypriot Archbishop Anthemion in a vision saw the grave of Saint Barnabas disclosed. Anthemion found the grave containing the remains of Saint Barnabas near Salamis. The body of the missionary holds in his hands a copy of the Gospel according to Matthew. Since that discovery, the Archbishop of Cypros has the right to sign in red ink, the law also has the Pope of the Maronite Church, since red is the color of love. Now to the Apostle Andrew, Saint Peter's brother. Once sailed the Apostle along the Cypriot coast. The captain of his ship was going blind for thirst, since the Apostle raised a source on a cape, which in his honor today is called Cape Andrew. Whether the Cape Andrew are the Klidhes islands, which being interpreted as key islands such are called, because of the supporter of the keys of heaven come over here, I do not know, and I do not invent a legend. Anyhow blooming on the key islands many red primrose. I sign in red ink:
Hilarion of Marion.
11
The Pope to Schoschannim of Venice, the beautiful, and San Marco, recently in Jesolo on the outskirts of Venice, writes your brother Hilarion: Maranatha! Beloved, the gospel according Hilarion ends like all the Gospels with the Ascension. I came before the Ascension Day to Venice in a vision. I saw you, my dear brother, built with strong short hair and clean shaven in the Roman fashion, from the Piazza San Marco in the golden swan, the state gondola Bucentoro is risen, twelve Privy Councillors by your side. You bear a purple velvet and golden jewelry. It was towards the end of the night, the secret councils carried torches of pine wood. In a little black swan standing by a gondola with a golden lyre the Venetian poet Pietro Tortellini dell'Olore, in his fair hair the laurel wreath which gave him his muse on the Roman Aventine. The Moors from the belfry struck with golden hammers the first morning hour. The Venetian noble people swam in colorfully decorated gondolas afterwards the Bucentoro, so this magnificent fleet swam to Maria Salute with the marble-white swan chest over the Grand Canal up to the open Adriatic Sea. Since you celebratst the Sacred Marriage and marriedst as a priest on behalf of the people of Venice the Venus of Venice, the Adriatic Venus, and didst the golden ring into the sea. And behold, on the green seas lay in a pearly mussel asleep the Adriatic Venus, in a white garment, with neck and shoulders free, and in her maroon hair was a white veil, white as sea foam, her eyes were half covered by lily-white lids, which weary as snow above the squint the eyes slumbered. The lips were flourishing life, as young may roses, her figure was stretched out in melodic line as the waves of rushing Adriatic Main. And she fished with her slender hands the golden ring from the sea and pulled it over her white finger. Because of that cheered all the people, the poet sang a wedding anthem. About the rushing scene smiled the Star of the Sea, and the poet went out in a hymn enthusiastic cheers: Ave maris stella! Salve stella matutina!
This concludes my Cypriot gospel.
Forever yours,
Pope Hilarion of Marion.
I do not know whether you want to sing in the church of Saint Mark the same hymn. But just look at the Maronite Church, our love is above all of our proclamation, Love is our teacher and master, and love is our inspiring wisdom - about what is sung in love, may God the
Lord probably all be pleased!
I greet you with the greetings of love -
Hilarion.
10
To San Marco and Schoschannim, the Saints, Hilarion writes: every day I think of you in a rich brotherly love. Beloved, slowly I approach the end of my reports from the island Cypros. Now I will tell you of the evangelists. The city of Larnaca is named after the Greek word Larnax, sarcophagus. In ancient times it was called the city of Kition. Therefore it is said in the Old Testament also Kittim when Cypros or the Greek islands or the entire Roman Kingdom is meant. Hail, Kition! At Pentecost, here are processions in honor of the rescue of Noah from the flood. They commemorate the ark, in which was the Word of God, and the Mother of God of the sea, in which was the Word of God, from whose womb mussel God's love in the world is given birth. The risen Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, who had loved the Lord, once Kition arrives. With Mary Magdalene and her sister was the saint by the Jews who did not believe in the Messiah Jesus, adrift been in a boat, wind and waves drove them into the bay of Kition. Lazarus was Bishop of Kition. (Magdalena drove up in the French Gulf de Lyon, where lie Les-Sainte-Maries-de-la-mer, which the german poet Mayer liked to wrote about.) In the ninth century was found in Kition the tomb of Lazarus, so called Kition Larnaca. On the bones of Lazarus the holy church was built, as Rome on the bones of Saint Peter, Venice on the bones of Saint Mark. Now to Barnabas, as the Cypriot Joseph was called by the apostles: the son of consolation. The son of consolation is the patron saint of Cypros. He came with the Apostle Paul from Jerusalem to Cypros. In a second trip to his native island (where on earth is home was) he was near Salamis stoned by Jews. “O days of Salamis,” the german poet Hölderlin wrote for his Diotima. The corpse of the son of consolation was buried by an unknown companion at an unknown location. But in the fifth century the Cypriot Archbishop Anthemion in a vision saw the grave of Saint Barnabas disclosed. Anthemion found the grave containing the remains of Saint Barnabas near Salamis. The body of the missionary holds in his hands a copy of the Gospel according to Matthew. Since that discovery, the Archbishop of Cypros has the right to sign in red ink, the law also has the Pope of the Maronite Church, since red is the color of love. Now to the Apostle Andrew, Saint Peter's brother. Once sailed the Apostle along the Cypriot coast. The captain of his ship was going blind for thirst, since the Apostle raised a source on a cape, which in his honor today is called Cape Andrew. Whether the Cape Andrew are the Klidhes islands, which being interpreted as key islands such are called, because of the supporter of the keys of heaven come over here, I do not know, and I do not invent a legend. Anyhow blooming on the key islands many red primrose. I sign in red ink:
Hilarion of Marion.
11
The Pope to Schoschannim of Venice, the beautiful, and San Marco, recently in Jesolo on the outskirts of Venice, writes your brother Hilarion: Maranatha! Beloved, the gospel according Hilarion ends like all the Gospels with the Ascension. I came before the Ascension Day to Venice in a vision. I saw you, my dear brother, built with strong short hair and clean shaven in the Roman fashion, from the Piazza San Marco in the golden swan, the state gondola Bucentoro is risen, twelve Privy Councillors by your side. You bear a purple velvet and golden jewelry. It was towards the end of the night, the secret councils carried torches of pine wood. In a little black swan standing by a gondola with a golden lyre the Venetian poet Pietro Tortellini dell'Olore, in his fair hair the laurel wreath which gave him his muse on the Roman Aventine. The Moors from the belfry struck with golden hammers the first morning hour. The Venetian noble people swam in colorfully decorated gondolas afterwards the Bucentoro, so this magnificent fleet swam to Maria Salute with the marble-white swan chest over the Grand Canal up to the open Adriatic Sea. Since you celebratst the Sacred Marriage and marriedst as a priest on behalf of the people of Venice the Venus of Venice, the Adriatic Venus, and didst the golden ring into the sea. And behold, on the green seas lay in a pearly mussel asleep the Adriatic Venus, in a white garment, with neck and shoulders free, and in her maroon hair was a white veil, white as sea foam, her eyes were half covered by lily-white lids, which weary as snow above the squint the eyes slumbered. The lips were flourishing life, as young may roses, her figure was stretched out in melodic line as the waves of rushing Adriatic Main. And she fished with her slender hands the golden ring from the sea and pulled it over her white finger. Because of that cheered all the people, the poet sang a wedding anthem. About the rushing scene smiled the Star of the Sea, and the poet went out in a hymn enthusiastic cheers: Ave maris stella! Salve stella matutina!
This concludes my Cypriot gospel.
Forever yours,
Pope Hilarion of Marion.
