| Name | Mikis Theodorakis (Μίκης Θεοδωράκης) |
|---|---|
| Landscape | no |
| Background | non_performing_personnel |
| Born | July 29, 1925 Chios, Greece |
| Genre | 20th century classical Greek music |
| Occupation | Composer, Politician |
| Years active | 1974 - 2006 |
| Label | Paredon Records Folkways Records |
| Url | http://www.mikis-theodorakis.net |
Politically, he identified with the left until the late 1980s; in 1989, he ran as an independent candidate within the centre-right New Democracy party in order for the country to come out of the political crisis that had been created due to the numerous scandals of the government of Andreas Papandreou and helped to establish a large coalition between conservatives, socialists and leftists. In 1990 he was elected to the parliament (as in 1964 and 1981), became a government minister under Constantine Mitsotakis, and fought against drugs and terrorism and for culture, education and better relations between Greece and Turkey. He continues to speak out in favor of left-liberal causes. He has consistently opposed oppressive regimes and was the key voice against the Greek Junta 1967-1974, which imprisoned him. He has expressed his views on Palestine, the War in Iraq, and Greek-Turkish-Cypriot relations. He has been mentioned as a candidate for the election as President of Greece, but he has refused to be considered.
Theodorakis's fascination with music began in early childhood; he taught himself to write his first songs without access to musical instruments. In Patras and Pyrgos he took his first music lessons, and in Tripolis, Peloponnese, he gave his first concert at the age of seventeen.
He went to Athens in 1943, and became a member of a Reserve Unit of ELAS. During the Greek Civil War, he was arrested, sent into exile on the island of Icaria and then deported to the island of Makronisos, where he was tortured and twice buried alive.
During the periods when he was not obliged to hide, not exiled or jailed, he studied from 1943 to 1950 at the Athens Conservatoire under Filoktitis Economidis,. In 1950, he finished his studies and took his last two exams "with flying colours". He went to Crete, where he became the "head of the Chania Music School" and founded his first orchestra. At this time he ended what he has called the first period of his musical writing.
His symphonic works: a Piano concerto, his first suite, his first symphony, and his scores for the ballet: Greek Carnival, Le Feu aux Poudres, Les Amants de Teruel, received international acclaim. In 1957, he won the Gold Medal in the Moscow Music Festival; President of the Jury was Dmitri Shostakovitch. In 1959, after the successful performances of Theodorakis's ballet Antigone at Covent Garden in London, the French composer Darius Milhaud proposed him for the American Copley Music Prize - an award of the "William and Noma Copley Foundation", which later changed its name to "Cassandra Foundation" - as the "Best European Composer of the Year". His first international scores for the film Ill Met by Moonlight and Luna de Miel, directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, were also very successful: The Honeymoon title song became part of the repertoire of The Beatles.
He founded the Little Orchestra of Athens and the Musical Society of Piraeus, gave many, many concerts all around Greece and abroad... and he naturally became involved in the politics of his home country. After the assassination of Gregoris Lambrakis in May 1963 he founded the Lambrakis Democratic Youth ("Lambrakidès") and was elected its president. Under Theodorakis's impetus, it started a vast cultural renaissance movement and became the greatest political organisation in Greece with more than 50.000 members. Following the 1964 elections, Theodorakis became a member of the Greek Parliament, associated with the left-wing party EDA. Because of his political ideas, the composer was black-listed by the cultural establishment; at the time of his biggest artistic glory, a large number of his songs were censored-before-studio or were not allowed on the radio stations.
During 1964, he wrote the music for the Michael Cacoyiannis film Zorba the Greek, whose main theme, since then, exists as a trademark for Greece. It is also known as 'Syrtaki dance'; inspired from old Cretan traditional dances.
Theodorakis has always combined an exceptional artistic talent with a deep love of his country. He is also committed to heightening international awareness of human rights, of environmental issues, and of the need for peace. It was for this reason that he initiated, together with the renowned Turkish author, musician, singer, and filmmaker Zülfü Livaneli, the Greek–Turkish Friendship Society.
From 1981, Theodorakis had started the fourth period of his musical writing, during which he returned to the symphonic music, while still going on to compose song-cycles. His most significant works written in these years are his Second, Third, Fourth and Seventh Symphony, most of them being first performed in the former German Democratic Republic between 1982 and 1989. It was during this period that he received the Lenin Peace Prize. He composed his first opera Kostas Kariotakis (The Metamorphoses of Dionysus) and the ballet Zorba the Greek, premièred in the Arena of Verona during the Festival Verona 1988, a ballet which has a tremendous success worldwide. During this period, he also wrote the five volumes of his autobiography: The Ways of the Archangel (Οι δρόμοι του αρχάγγελου).
In 1989, he started the fifth period, the last, of his musical writing: He composed three operas (lyric tragedies) Medea, first performed in Bilbao (1 October 1981), Elektra, first performed in Luxembourg (2 May 1995) and Antigone, first performed in Athens' Megaron Moussikis (7 October 1999). This trilogy was complemented by his last opera Lysistrata, first performed in Athens (14 April 2002): a call for peace... With his operas, and with his song cycles from 1974 to 2006, Theodorakis ushered in the period of his Lyrical Life.
Theodorakis is Doctor honoris causa of several universities, including Montreal, Thessaloniki, and Crete, and was nominated by the Greek people for the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2000.
and Greek prime minister George Papandreou]] Now he lives in retirement, reading, writing, publishing arrangements of his scores, texts about culture and politics. On important occasions he still takes position: in 1999, opposing NATO's Kosovo war and in 2003 against the Iraq War. In 2005, he was awarded the Sorano Friendship and Peace Award, the Russian International St.-Andrew-the-First-Called Prize, the insignia of Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of Luxembourg, and the IMC UNESCO International Music Prize, while already in 2002 he was honoured in Bonn with the Erich Wolfgang Korngold Prize for film music at the International Film Music Biennial in Bonn (cf also: Homepage of the Art and Exhibition Hall Bonn). In 2007, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the distribution of the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent.
A final set of songs entitled: Odysseia was composed by utilizing poetry written by Costas Kartelias for lyrics. Created in 2007, Theodorakis achieved the distinction of producing one of the largest works by any composer of any time.
Reference: Guy Wagner. Chairman of the International Theodorakis Foundation FILIKI. List of works based on the research of Asteris Koutoulas, published in O Mousikos Theodorakis.
*I had three lives (Poetry by Mikis Theodorakis in English, Translated by Gail Holst)
Category:1925 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Greek classical musicians Category:Greek composers Category:Greek exiles Category:Greek film score composers Category:Greek MPs 1981–1985 Category:Greek prisoners and detainees Category:Lenin Peace Prize recipients Category:Opera composers Category:People from Chios
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Elijah |
|---|---|
| Feast day | July 20 |
| Venerated in | Judaism Islam Christianity (Roman Catholic Church Maronite Church Anglican Communion Eastern Catholic Churches Eastern Orthodox Church Lutheranism) |
| Imagesize | 220px |
| Caption | Elijah reviving the Son of the Widow of Zarephath by Louis Hersent |
| Birth place | Tishbe, Gilad |
| Titles | Prophet |
| Attributes | Prophet |
| Best known for | being Israel's most famous prophet his brave challenge to Baal's prophets on Mount Carmel his ascent to heaven in a whirlwind |
Elijah () or Elias , ; Arabic:إلياس, Ilyās), whose name (El-i Yahu) means "Yahweh is my God" (אלי — my God; יהו — short form of Tetragrammaton, YHWH), according to the Books of Kings was a prophet in the Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Ahab (9th century BCE).
According to the Books of Kings, Elijah defended the worship of Yahweh over that of the more popular Baal, he raised the dead, brought fire down from the sky, and ascended into heaven in a whirlwind (either accompanied by a chariot and horses of flame or riding in it). In the Book of Malachi, Elijah's return is prophesied "before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord," making him a harbinger of the Messiah and the eschaton in various faiths that revere the Hebrew Bible. Derivative references to Elijah appear in the Talmud, Mishnah, the New Testament, and the Qur'an.
In Judaism, Elijah's name is invoked at the weekly Havdalah ritual that marks the end of Shabbat, and Elijah is invoked in other Jewish customs, among them the Passover seder and the Brit milah (ritual circumcision). He appears in numerous stories and references in the Haggadah and rabbinic literature, including the Babylonian Talmud.
In Christianity, the New Testament describes how both Jesus and John the Baptist are compared with Elijah, and on some occasions, thought by some to be manifestations of Elijah, and Elijah appears with Moses during the Transfiguration of Jesus...
In Islam, the Qur'an describes Elijah as a great and righteous prophet of God, and one who powerfully preached against the worship of Ba'al.
Elijah is also a figure in various folkloric traditions. In Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania, he is known as "Elijah the Thunderer" and in folklore is held responsible for summer storms, hail, rain, thunder, and dew.
As King, Ahab exacerbated these tensions. Ahab allowed the worship of a foreign god within the palace, building a temple for Baal and allowing Jezebel to bring a large entourage of priests and prophets of Baal and Asherah into the country. It is in this context that Elijah is introduced in as Elijah "The Tishbite". He warns Ahab that there will be years of catastrophic drought so severe that not even dew will fall, because Ahab and his queen stand at the end of a line of kings of Israel who are said to have "done evil in the sight of the Lord."
Elijah's challenge, characteristic of his behavior in other episodes of his story as told in the Bible, is bold and direct. Baal was the Canaanite god responsible for rain, thunder, lightning, and dew. Elijah not only challenges Baal on behalf of Yahweh, the God of Israel, he challenges Jezebel, her priests, Ahab, and the people of Israel.
After more than three years of drought and famine, God tells Elijah to return to Ahab and announce the end of the drought: not occasioned by repentance in Israel but by the command of the Lord, who had determined to reveal himself again to his people. While on his way, Elijah meets Obadiah, the head of Ahab's household, who had hidden a hundred prophets of the God of Israel when Ahab and Jezebel had been killing them. Elijah sends Obadiah back to Ahab to announce his return to Israel.
At this point Elijah proposes a direct test of the powers of Baal and Yahweh. The people of Israel, 450 prophets of Baal, and 400 prophets of Asherah are summoned to Mount Carmel. Two altars are built, one for Baal and one for Yahweh. Wood is laid on the altars. Two oxen are slaughtered and cut into pieces; the pieces are laid on the wood. Elijah then invites the priests of Baal to pray for fire to light the sacrifice. They pray from morning to noon without success. Elijah ridicules their efforts. They respond by cutting themselves and adding their own blood to the sacrifice (such mutilation of the body was strictly forbidden in the Mosaic law). They continue praying until evening without success.
Elijah now orders that the altar of the Yahweh be drenched with water from "four large jars" poured three times (). He asks God to accept the sacrifice. Fire falls from the sky, igniting the sacrifice. Elijah seizes the moment and orders the death of the prophets of Baal. Elijah prays earnestly for rain to fall again on the land. Then the rains begin, signaling the end of the famine.
Elijah travels, for forty days and forty nights, to Mount Horeb, where Moses had received the Torah. Elijah is the first and only person described in the Bible as going back to Horeb after Moses and his generation had left Horeb several centuries before. He seeks shelter in a cave. God again speaks to Elijah (): "What doest thou here, Elijah?". Elijah did not give a direct answer to the Lord's question but evades and equivocates, implying that the work the Lord had begun centuries earlier had now come to nothing, and that his own work was fruitless. Unlike Moses, who tried to defend Israel when they sinned with the golden calf, Elijah bitterly complains over the Israelites' unfaithfulness and says he is the "only one left". Up until this time Elijah has only the word of God to guide him, but now he is told to go outside the cave and "stand before the Lord." A terrible wind passes, but God is not in the wind. A great earthquake shakes the mountain, but God is not in the earthquake. Then a fire passes the mountain, but God is not in the fire. Then a "still small voice" comes to Elijah and asks again, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" Elijah again evades the question and his lament is unrevised, showing that he did not understand the importance of the divine revelation he had just witnessed. God then sends him out again, this time to Damascus to anoint Hazael as king of Syria, Jehu as king of Israel, and Elisha as his replacement. , Israel.]]
God again speaks to Elijah and sends him to confront Ahab with a question and a prophecy: "Have you killed and also taken possession?" and, "In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick up your own blood" (). Ahab begins the confrontation by calling Elijah his enemy. Elijah responds by throwing the charge back at him, telling him that he has made himself the enemy of God by his own actions. Elijah then goes beyond the prophecy he was given and tells Ahab that his entire kingdom will reject his authority; that Jezebel will be eaten by dogs within Jezreel; and that his family will be consumed by dogs as well (if they die in a city) or by birds (if they die in the country). When Ahab hears this he repents to such a degree that God relents in punishing Ahab but will punish Jezebel and their son--Ahaziah.
Elijah continues now from Ahab to an encounter with Ahaziah. The scene opens with Ahaziah seriously injured in a fall. He sends to the priests of Baalzebub in Ekron, outside the kingdom of Israel, to know if he will recover. Elijah intercepts his messengers and sends them back to Ahaziah with a message. In typical Elijah fashion, the message begins with a blunt, impertinent question: "Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron?"(). Ahaziah asks the messengers to describe the person who gave them this message. They tell him he wore a hairy coat with a leather belt and he instantly recognizes the description as Elijah the Tishbite.
Ahaziah sends out three groups of soldiers to arrest Elijah. The first two are destroyed by fire which Elijah calls down from heaven. The leader of the third group asks for mercy for himself and his men. Elijah agrees to accompany this third group to Ahaziah, where he gives his prophecy in person.
|}
The final mention of Elijah in the Hebrew Bible is in the Book of Malachi, where it is written, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." That day is described as the burning of a great furnace, "... so that it will leave them neither root nor branch." () Traditionally, in Judaism, this is taken to mean the return of Elijah will precede the Messiah. In Christianity it is traditionally believed that the return of Elijah will precede the final tribulation and judgment.
In the New Testament, Jesus would say for those who believed, John the Baptist was Elijah, who would come before the "great and terrible day" as predicted by Malachi.
In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist was asked by a delegation of priests if he was Elijah. To which, he replied "I am not ()." The author of and however, makes it clear that John was Elijah but was not recognized as such. In the annunciation narrative in Luke, an angel appears to Zechariah, John's father, and tells him that John "will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God," and that he will go forth "in the spirit and power of Elijah ()."
However, Jesus' ministry had little in common with that of Elijah; in particular, he preached the forgiveness of one's enemies, while Elijah killed his. Miracle stories similar to those of Elijah were associated with Jesus (e. g. raising of the dead, miraculous feeding). Jesus implicitly separates himself from Elijah when he rebukes James and John for desiring to call down fire upon an unwelcoming Samaritan village in a similar manner to Elijah. Likewise, Jesus rebukes a potential follower who wanted first to return home to say farewell to his family, whereas Elijah permitted this of his replacement Elisha.
During Jesus' crucifixion, some of the onlookers wonder if Elijah will come to rescue him, as by the time of Jesus, Elijah had entered folklore as a rescuer of Jews in distress.
At the summit of an unnamed mount, Jesus' face begins to shine. The disciples who are with Him hear the voice of God announce that Jesus is "My beloved Son." The disciples also see Moses and Elijah appear and talk with Jesus. Peter is so struck by the experience that he asks Jesus if they should not build three "tabernacles": one for Elijah, one for Jesus and one for Moses.
In this appearance, Elijah is generally seen as a witness of the prophets and Moses as a witness of the law for the divinely announced "Son of God."
| Honorific prefix | Prophet |
|---|---|
| Imagesize | 255px |
| Caption | Daniele da Volterra's imagining of The Prophet Elias (or Elijah), known in Islam as Ilyas |
| Other names | Hebrew Bible: Elijah, New Testament: Elias |
| Name | Ilyas Prophet, Messenger, Seer, Reformer |
| Birth date | 9th Century B.C. |
| Birth place | Tishbe (according to the Hebrew Bible) |
| Known for | Prophesying against Ba'al worship |
| Footnotes | Elijah is also venerated as a prophet in Judaism and Christianity. |
Ilyās (Arabic:إلياس is a Islamic prophet mentioned in the Qur'an. In the Bible he is known as Elijah, or in the New Testament as Elias. He is also a highly regarded prophet in Judaism and Christianity. He is seen by Muslims to be the prophetic predecessor to Elisha, known in Islam as Al-Yasa. While neither the Bible nor the Qur'an mentions the genealogy of Elijah, some scholars of Islam believe he may have come from the priestly family of the prophet Aaron (Harun). It is believed by some scholars that Elijah was raised up as prophet for the Israelites, following the death of the great prophetic king Solomon (Sulayman).
Most scholars agree with the Hebrew Bible story, that Elijah preached to the Kingdom of Israel, ruled over by Ahab and later his son Ahaziah. He is believed to have been a prophet of the desert - like John the Baptist (Yahya ibn Zakariyya). Both Ahab and Ahaziah were prone to lapse into the worship of Ba'al, which involved the worshiping of nature-powers and so forth. Elijah preached with zeal to Ahab and his wife Jezebel - who was partly responsible for the worship of false idols in this area. Nevertheless, the majority of people refused to listen to Elijah's words and so, after Elijah, Elisha - his disciple - had to continue preaching the message of Islam to Israel.
and Cherisher and the and Cherisher of your fathers of old?"|Qur'an, chapter 37 (As-Saaffat), verse 123-126}}
The Qur'an makes it clear that the majority of Elijah's people denied the prophet and continued to follow idolatry. However, it mentions that a small number of devoted servants of God among them followed Elijah and believed and worshiped the . The Qur'an says:
}}
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In the second place of praise, Elijah is praised alongside three other prophets of God:
}}
Renowned translator and commentator Abdullah Yusuf Ali offers interesting commentary on the previous line, saying that Elijah, Zechariah (Zakariya), John the Baptist (Yahya) and Jesus (Isa) were all spiritually connected. He says that John is referred to as Elijah in the New Testament, and John's father was Zechariah, who, in turn, was Jesus' uncle. Moreover, one of the prophets present at the Transfiguration of Jesus in the New Testament was Elijah. Finally, these four prophets are mentioned together in the line above.
From the time of Malachi, who says of Elijah that God will send him before "the great and dreadful day" (Mal. 3:23), down to the later stories of the Chasidic rabbis, reverence and love, expectation and hope, were always connected in the Jewish consciousness with Elijah.
Three different theories regarding Elijah's origin are presented in the Aggadah literature: (1) he belonged to the tribe of Gad (Midrash Genensis Rabbah lxxi.) (2) he was a Benjamite from Jerusalem, identical with the Elijah mentioned in I Chron. viii:27 (3) he was a priest.
That Elijah was a priest is a statement which is made by many Church fathers also (Aphraates, "Homilies," ed. Wright, p. 314; Epiphanius, "Hæres." lv. 3, passim), and which was afterward generally accepted. In some later works some rabbis speculate that he is to be identified with Phinehas (Pirḳe R. El. xlvii.; Targ. Yer. on Num. xxv. 12)
Mention must also be made of a statement which, though found only in the later Kabbalistic literature (Yalḳuṭ Reubeni, Bereshit, 9a, ed. Amsterdam), seems nevertheless to be very old (see Epiphanius, l.c.). According to this legend Elijah was really an angel in human form, so that he had neither parents nor offspring. See Melchizedek.
In the same cave where God once appeared to Moses and revealed Himself as gracious and merciful, Elijah was summoned to appear before God. By this summons he perceived that he should have appealed to God's mercy, instead of becoming Israel's accuser. The prophet, however, remained relentless in his zeal and severity, so that God commanded him to appoint his successor (Tanna debe Eliyahu Zuṭa viii.).
The vision in which God revealed Himself to Elijah gave him at the same time a picture of the destinies of man, who has to pass through "four worlds." This world was shown to the prophet in the form of the wind, since it disappears as the wind; storm () is the day of death, before which man trembles (); fire is the judgment in Gehenna, and the stillness is the last day (Tan., Peḳude, p. 128, Vienna ed.).
Three years after this vision (Seder 'Olam R. xvii.) Elijah was "translated." Concerning the place to which Elijah was transferred, opinions differ among Jews and Christians, but the old view was that Elijah was received among the heavenly inhabitants, where he records the deeds of men (Ḳid. 70; Ber. R. xxxiv. 8), a task which according to the apocalyptic literature is entrusted to Enoch.
But as early as the middle of the 2nd century, when the notion of translation to heaven was very much changed by Christian theologians, the assertion was made that Elijah never entered into heaven proper (Suk. 5a). In later literature paradise is generally designated as the abode of Elijah (compare Pirḳe R. El. xvi.), but since the location of paradise is itself uncertain, the last two statements may be identical.
One such decision was whether the Passover seder required four or five cups of wine. Each serving of wine corresponds to one of the "four expressions of redemption" in the Book of Exodus:
"I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an out-stretched arm and with great acts of judgment, and I will take you for my people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians" ().
The next verse, "And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord." () was not fulfilled until the generation following the Passover story, and the rabbis could not decide whether this verse counted as part of the Passover celebration (thus deserving of another serving of wine). Thus, a cup was left for the arrival of Elijah.
In practice, the fifth cup has come to be seen as a celebration of future redemption. Today, a place is reserved at the seder table and a cup of wine is placed there for Elijah. During the seder, the door of the house is opened and Elijah is invited in. Traditionally, the cup is viewed as Elijah’s and is used for no other purpose.
One such story is that of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi. The rabbi, a friend of Elijah’s, was asked what favor he might wish. The rabbi answered only that he be able to join Elijah in his wanderings. Elijah granted his wish only if he refrained from asking any questions about any of the prophet’s actions. He agreed and they began their journey. The first place they came to was the house of an elderly couple who were so poor they had only one old cow. The old couple gave of their hospitality as best they could. The next morning, as the travelers left, Elijah prayed that the old cow would die and it did. The second place they came to was the home of a wealthy man. He had no patience for his visitors and chased them away with the admonition that they should get jobs and not beg from honest people. As they were leaving, they passed the man’s wall and saw that it was crumbling. Elijah prayed that the wall be repaired and it was so. Next, they came to a wealthy synagogue. They were allowed to spend the night with only the smallest of provisions. When they left, Elijah prayed that every member of the synagogue might become a leader.
Finally, they came to a very poor synagogue. Here they were treated with great courtesy and hospitality. When they left, Elijah prayed that God might give them a single wise leader. At this Rabbi Joshua could no longer hold back. He demanded of Elijah an explanation of his actions. At the house of the old couple, Elijah knew that the Angel of Death was coming for the old woman. So he prayed that God might have the angel take the cow instead. At the house of the wealthy man, there was a great treasure hidden in the crumbling wall. Elijah prayed that the wall be restored thus keeping the treasure away from the miser. The story ends with a moral: A synagogue with many leaders will be ruined by many arguments. A town with a single wise leader will be guided to success and prosperity. “Know then, that if thou seest an evil-doer prosper, it is not always unto his advantage, and if a righteous man suffers need and distress, think not God is unjust.”
Elijah encountered Lilith and instantly recognized and challenged her, "Unclean one, where are you going?" Unable to avoid or lie to the prophet, she admitted she was on her way to the house of a pregnant woman. Her intention was to kill the woman and eat the child.
Elijah pronounced his malediction, "I curse you in the Name of the Lord. Be silent as a stone!" But, Lilith was able to make a bargain with Elijah. She promises to "forsake my evil ways" if Elijah will remove his curse. To seal the bargain she gives Elijah her names so that they can be posted in the houses of pregnant women or new born children or used as amulets. Lilith promises, "where I see those names, I shall run away at once. Neither the child nor the mother will ever be injured by me."
In Western Christianity, the Prophet Elijah is commemorated as a saint with a feast day on 20 July by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Catholics believe that he was unmarried, celibate.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite, he is commemorated on the same date (in the 21st century, Julian Calendar 20 July corresponds to Gregorian Calendar 2 August). He is greatly revered among the Orthodox as a model of the contemplative life. He is also commemorated on the Orthodox liturgical calendar on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (the Sunday before the Nativity of the Lord).
Elijah is revered as the spiritual Father and traditional founder of the Catholic religious Order of Carmelites. In addition to taking their name from Mt. Carmel where the first hermits of the order established themselves, the Calced Carmelite and Discalced Carmelite traditions pertaining to Elijah focus upon the prophet’s withdrawal from public life. The medieval Carmelite Book of the First Monks offers some insight into the heart of the Orders' contemplative vocation and reverence for the prophet.
The prophet Elijah's feastday is celebrated on July 20 of the Carmelite Liturgical Calendar.
After this vision had closed, another great and glorious vision burst upon us; for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us, and said: Behold the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come—To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse—Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.This experience forms the basis for the church's focus on genealogy and family history and belief in the eternal nature of marriage and families.
Latter-day saints make a difference between the personal name Elijah and the title Elias however, and thus also accept John the Baptist as having the "spirit of Elias".
In one Eastern-European folklore tale, Elijah is portrayed in his "Thunderer" persona:
Once Jesus, the prophet Elijah, and St. George were going through Georgia. When they became tired and hungry they stopped to dine. They saw a Georgian shepherd and decided to ask him to feed them. First, Elijah went up to the shepherd and asked him for a sheep. After the shepherd asked his identity Elijah said that, he was the one who sent him rain to get him a good profit from farming. The shepherd became angry at him and told him that he was the one who also sent thunderstorms, which destroyed the farms of poor widows. (After Elijah, Jesus and St. George attempt to get help and eventually succeed).
In Greece, churches dedicated to the Prophet Elijah are often built on mountain tops; this is believed to have resulted from a conflation of Elijah (Greek Helias) with the Sun-God Helios. See Elias for further discussion.
Alternatives have been proposed for many years; for example Adam Clarke treats it as a discussion already of long standing. Objections to the traditional translation are that ravens are ritually unclean (see ) as well as physically dirty; it is difficult to imagine any method of delivery of the food which is not disgusting. The parallelism with the incident that follows, where Elijah is fed by the widow, also suggests a human, if mildly improbable, agent.
Prof. John Gray chooses Arabs, saying "We adopt this reading solely because of its congruity with the sequel, where Elijah is fed by an alien Phoenician woman." His translation of the verses in question is:
And the word of Jehovah came to Elijah saying, Go hence and turn eastward and hide thyself in the Wadi Kerith east of the Jordan, and it shall be that thou shalt drink of the wadi, and I have commanded the Arabs to feed thee there. And he went and did according to the word of Jehovah and went and dwelt in the Wadi Kerith east of the Jordan. And the Arabs brought him bread in the morning and flesh in the evening and he would drink of the wadi.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that Elijah returned on April 3, 1836 in an appearance to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, fulfilling the prophecy in Malachi.
The Bahá'í Faith believes Elijah returned as the Biblical Prophet John the Baptist and as the Báb who founded the Bábí Faith in 1844.
Category:Books of Kings Category:Hebrew Bible people Category:Old Testament saints Category:People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar Category:Prophets of Islam
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Costa-Gavras |
|---|---|
| Imagesize | 150px |
| Birthname | Constantinos Gavras |
| Birth date | February 12, 1933 |
| Birth place | Loutra Iraias, Greece |
| Spouse | Michèle Ray-Gavras (?-?) |
| Occupation | film director and producer}} |
Costa-Gavras, (short for Constantinos Gavras or Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς) born 12 February 1933 is a Greek filmmaker, who lives and works in France, best known for films with overt political themes, most famously the fast-paced thriller, Z (1969). Most of his movies were made in French; starting with Missing (1982), several were made in English.
Costa Gavras was president of the Cinémathèque Française from 1982 to 1987, and again from 2007 to the present. He is a first cousin of recording artist Jimmie Spheeris, filmmaker Penelope Spheeris, and musician Chris Spheeris. His daughter Julie Gavras and his son Romain Gavras are also filmmakers.
Gavras and co-writer Jorge Semprún won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Film Screenplay. L'Aveu (The Confession, direction, 1970) follows the path of Artur London, a Czechoslovakian communist minister falsely arrested and tried for treason and espionage in the Slánský 'show trial' in 1952.
State of Siege (1973) takes place in Uruguay under a conservative government in the early 1970s. In a plot loosely based on the case of US police official and alleged torture expert Dan Mitrione, an American embassy official (played by Yves Montand) is kidnapped by the Tupamaros, a radical leftist urban guerilla group, which interrogates him in order to reveal the details of secret US complicity with repressive regimes in Latin America.
Missing (1982) concerns an American journalist, Charles Horman, who disappeared in the bloody coup led by General Augusto Pinochet in Chile in 1973. Horman's father, played by Jack Lemmon, and wife, played by Sissy Spacek, search in vain to determine his fate. Nathaniel Davis, US ambassador to Chile from 1971–1973, a version of whose character had been portrayed in the movie (under a different name), filed a US$150 million libel suit, Davis v. Costa-Gavras, 619 F. Supp. 1372 (1985), against the studio and the director, which was eventually dismissed. The film won an Oscar for Best Screenplay Adaptation.
In Music Box (1989), a respected naturalized American citizen (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl) is accused of being a Nazi war criminal. The film is loosely based on the case of John Demjanjuk.
Amen. (2003), was based in part on the highly controversial 1963 play, Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel (The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy), by Rolf Hochhuth. The movie alleges that Pope Pius XII was aware of the plight of the Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, but failed to take public action to publicize or condemn the Holocaust. These issues have continued to be disputed, with the Vatican thus far declining to open to historians all of its archives relating to the extent of the Pope's knowledge during World War II.
In a broader sense, this emphasis continues with Amen. given its focus on the conservative leadership of the Catholic Church during the 1940s. In this political context, L'Aveu (The Confession) provides the exception, dealing as it does with oppression on the part of a Communist regime during the Stalinist period.
Gavras has brought attention to international issues, some urgent, others merely problematic, and he has done this in the tradition of cinematic story-telling. Z (1969), easily his most famous work, is an account of the undermining in the 1960s of democratic government in Greece, his homeland and place of birth. The format, however, is a mystery-thriller combination that transforms an uncomfortable history into a riveting story. This is a clear example of how he pours politics into plot, bringing epic conflicts into the sort of personal conflicts we are accustomed to seeing on screen.
His accounts of corruption propagated, in their essence, by European and American powers (Z, State of Siege and Missing) highlight problems buried deep in the structures of these societies, problems which not everyone is comfortable addressing. The approach he adopted in L'Aveu also subtly invited the audience to a critical look focused on structural issues, delving this time into the opposite Communist bloc.
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Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:People from Arcadia Category:Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:César Award winners Category:Edgar Award winners Category:English-language film directors Category:French film directors Category:Greek film directors Category:Greek immigrants to France Category:French people of Greek descent Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners
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