Liturgy (Greek: Λειτουργία) is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions.
The word, sometimes rendered by its English translation "service", may refer to an elaborate formal ritual such as the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy (Greek: Θεία λειτουργία) and Catholic Mass, or a daily activity such as the Muslim salat and Jewish services. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy is a communal response to the sacred through activity reflecting praise, thanksgiving, supplication, or repentance. Ritualization may be associated with life events such as birth, coming of age, marriage and death. It thus forms the basis for establishing a relationship with a divine agency, as well as with other participants in the liturgy. Methods of dress, preparation of food, olication of cosmetics or other hygienic practices are all considered liturgical activities.
The familiar sense of the word is an extension of the technical term in ancient Greek, leitourgia, signifying the often expensive offers of service to the people, and thus to the polis and the state. Through the leitourgia the rich carried a financial burden and were correspondingly rewarded with honours. The leitourgia became both mandatory and honorific, supporting the patron's standing among the elite. The holder of a Hellenic leitourgia was not taxed a specific sum, but entrusted with a particular ritual, which could be performed with greater or lesser magnificence. The chief sphere remained that of civic religion, embodied in the festivals: M.I. Finley notes "in Demosthenes' day there were at least 97 liturgical appointments in Athens for the festivals, rising to 118 in a (quadrennial) Panathenaic year." Eventually, under the Roman Empire, such obligations, known as Monera, devolved into a competitive and ruinously expensive burden that was not avoided[clarification needed] when possible.
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (Russian: Серге́й Васи́льевич Рахма́нинов) (Russian pronunciation: [sʲɪrˈɡʲej rɐxˈmanʲɪnəf]; 1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom that included a pronounced lyricism, expressive breadth, structural ingenuity, and a tonal palette of rich, distinctive orchestral colors. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output. He made a point of using his own skills as a performer to explore fully the expressive possibilities of the instrument. Even in his earliest works he revealed a sure grasp of idiomatic piano writing and a striking gift for melody.
Rachmaninoff was born on 1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 in Semyonovo, near Great Novgorod, in north-western Russia into a family of the Russian aristocracy, originally of partly Tatar descent, which had been in the service of the Russian tsars since the 16th century. His parents were both amateur pianists. When he was four, his mother gave him casual piano lessons, but it was his paternal grandfather, Arkady Alexandrovich Rachmaninoff, who brought Anna Ornatskaya, a teacher from Saint Petersburg, to teach the 9 year old Sergei in 1882. Ornatskaya remained for two or three years, until the family's house in Semyonovo had to be sold to settle debts and the Rachmaninoffs moved to Saint Petersburg.
John Chrysostom (c. 347–407, Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος), Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic sensibilities. After his death in 407 (or, according to some sources, during his life) he was given the Greek epithet chrysostomos, meaning "golden mouthed" in English, and Anglicized to Chrysostom.
The Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches honor him as a saint and count him among the Three Holy Hierarchs, together with Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzus. He is recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church. Churches of the Western tradition, including the Roman Catholic Church, some Anglican provinces, and parts of the Lutheran Church, commemorate him on 13 September. Some Lutheran and many Anglican provinces commemorate him on the traditional Eastern feast day of 27 January. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria also recognizes John Chrysostom as a saint (with feast days on 16 Thout and 17 Hathor).
The Greek is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Bill Raymond. The Greek is the head of an international criminal organization involved in narcotics and human trafficking. The Greek is a mysterious figure involved in numerous criminal activities. His given name is never mentioned on the show, and though he is known only as "The Greek", he has stated (in the episode Port in a Storm) that he is not actually Greek. A quiet and unassuming man, the Greek prefers to keep a low profile, operating all of his business through his lieutenant Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos. His smuggling organization operated from a small diner in Baltimore for years, and while Vondas would conduct business the Greek would listen in quietly at the counter. Nick Sobotka, upon seeing the Greek identify himself, was amazed that the shadowy figure had been in plain sight the entire time.
Despite his calm appearance, the Greek is cunning and ruthless, and only interested in facts that make him more money. Series creator David Simon has said that The Greek is an embodiment of raw unencumbered capitalism. Anyone interfering in this process is eliminated immediately, and he prefers to leave victims headless and handless to hinder identification.
The steam shall give birth to a glacier
The heath shall give way to sand
Bone shall become tusk
Hair shall become nail
Tooth shall cling to skull
Being shall become
The eternal return
Of fire
Asphault shall flow like water
Forest shall crowd out the worms
Nothing ever began
There was no dawn
The heat chars
The cold stabs
The wheat shall give way to chaff
Bone shall crack against bone
Being shall become
The eternal return
Floating upwards
Lungs filling up with air
As God inhales me
Into the impossible
I wave a sad goodbye
To each newly conquered territory
Nomad hearth
Consuming it's own home
The glow of warm joy
Leaving dry form
Carcass Ashes
True will
Green life scraped from copper vaults
Silver pins in crippled cartilage
Ballooning substrate of eternity
Without reason's diamond
Without imagination
True will
Inhalation
Magnet charger
Lightning Blaze
Everything that ever was
Slightly changes
Green life scraped from copper vaults
Silver pins in crippled cartilage
Ballooning substrate of eternity
The hero's statue drips with stones
Parched dried up like his bones
The tragic laurel goes
To the temples
As their doors come to a close
The lava blows
Vesuvius Blushes
Underneath his clothes
The tragic laurel goes
With the torso
Locked in contrappasto pose
The tragic laurel goes
The tragic laurel goes
Good genius
Offering itself in flickers
Everywhere fragile flashes
Wormholes into an unconceived future
Sun of Sun of Sun
Sun of Sun of Sun
Beads of acid
Bedfeathers flying
Through dried up gashes of air
Indices of the moment
When nature's necklace was clipped
And her pearls sprayed everywhere
Returner
Bursting Universal
Violation of the law
Renamer
God destroyer of a God
Returner
Violation of the law
Plant toxic bombs in marble tombs
Redeemer
Stream the universal us
Through optical ISP transmission lines
Crack my fathers' spines
And sail me to Chimera
Lay down a long leg
And elegant toe
I force through the opening
I claw through veil after veil
Absent purity
Painted dawn
Renihilation
Renihilation
Renihilation
Renihilation
I choke the apocalyptic trumpet
With my power
Resounding though the arcangel
Like marrow
Renihilation
Renihilation
Renihilation
Renihilation
Absent purity
Painted dawn
The future is nowhere
The past is gone
Renihilation
Renihilation
Renihilation
A cascade of lightning startles the firmament
A thousand black hooves clatter
Upon the mountain
Grey plume of dust
Red flag of blood
Blue shining blade of sky
Spark with no cause
Wound with no sword
Fresh skulls and supple bones
Golden helm of radiance
The incantation uttered by no one
The call to arms from nowhere
The message from the clarion
Resounded across deaf hills
Men awoke
And sprayed their blood upon the earth
Spark with no cause
Wound with no sword
Unseeing eye
O sail of skin tumbling in the air
Blowing anywhere
O absent law
Chattering useless teeth
Secreting quiet sweat
Mysterium
Mysterium
Mysterium
O mirror that does not reflect
O fire that illuminates nothing
But itself
O shadow of what never was
But seems to have been
And to have been lost
Mysterium
Mysterium
High gold
Holy noon
Ribbons of gas
Flailing across the Sun
Boil the anchors
Scatters the spangles
Lift up the limp red tongs
Scald the glowing gauntlets
And molten coin
Eradicate the shadows
Ignite the wool
High gold
Holy noon
Ribbons of gas
Gashed shoulders and crippled loins
Huge steampunk boulders
Nestling between cargo khaki knees
Magenta flush across your cheek
Eyes on the horizon
On the oasis siren
On pairs of Tits
Helicopter of vultures
Tornado senselessly a'whirl
You diagonalize
You tear the continents apart
And plunge into the gulf
And flush your eyes with crime
And hoard up all the rubles
Glory Bronze
Glory Bronze
Along
As the blood of God
Bursts the veins of time
Give your avatar a kiss
And the yoke weighed heavily
Upon the neck
And the tractors placed their tracks
Upon the cowering soil
The arrow cast
The bow pulled back
The arrow cast
And the chains were linked to other chains
Forged obliquely, freeing no one and everyone
Ecstatic rite
Divide the father
Ecstatic rite
Divide the father
From river to sea
The waves sing and shine
Untrained, unrestrained
Desiring nothing
From hill to vale
False horizon
Pointing nowhere
The sky is not blue
The air is not crisp
Brother, sister
Tear through the forest
Brother, sister
Tear through the forest
The sun doesn't set
It's bronze rays do not
Sparkle in the water
They do not brush against my lashes
As I stare
In vain the iron-wrought tower
Pierces heaven's dome
In vain the muscle tears it's fiber
Ten more fibers blossom in it's place
They tried to plant a flag
Behind the void
In vain the moat surrounds the castle
Mud skulks across it's bed
In vain contraction
In vain expansion
In vain our kinds seeks total order
There is a fissure at the heart of being
They tried to plant a flag
Good Genius
Offering Itself In Flickers
Everywhere Fragile Flashes
Wormholes Into An Unconceived Future
Sun Of Sun Of Sun
Beads Of Acid
Bedfeathers Flying
Through Dried Up Gashes Of Air
Indices Of The Moment
When Nature's Necklace Was Clipped
And Her Pearls Sprayed Everywhere