I’ve been trying to do a little scanning today, but not getting very far. I have a copy of Michael Bourdeaux’s Patriarch and Prophets : Persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church (1968) here to do. Interesting he salutes the courage of the people of Czechoslovakia in the introduction — the “Prague Spring” had just been crushed, one imagines.
They say that today is the most depressing day of the year (how encouraging!) Dark with heavy rain this lunch time — just turning to hail! –, and the high winds are blowing down trees. There’s something to be said for spending winter in a warm climate every year, you know!
I’m going into hospital later on today, for a small procedure. I’m told that it is not very risky, but it doesn’t sound much fun. With luck I won’t know anything about it. I’d appreciate prayer that all goes well all the same.
UPDATE (4/1/12): just to say that I am out and had the all-clear, and am waiting for the sedation to disappear. Apparently I shouldn’t drive, use heavy machinery, or make any financial decisions. Not sure whether blogging is allowed, tho.:)
Praying!
Thank you!
You have my prayers too.
Dear Roger,
I hope the operation was successful. For patristics, you have done more than dozens of universities combined. From the standpoint of the diffusion of Christian education, you have done more than several centuries of popes combined.
Thanks to the Internet, you have your own university with your own endowed chair, a publishing venture through which you can issue new material and make available old treasures, and a “bookstore” which gives things away for free.
Onward and Upward!!
Your admirer,
Robert Bedrosian
Many thanks everyone for your prayers. It all went well, and wasn’t even distressing. Rather blotto at the moment from the anaesthetics, but home safe and sound.
@Robert: thank you for your much too kind words. But your own work on Armenian translations dwarfs anything I have done, and will be remembered long after I and everything I have attempted have vanished into “death’s dateless night”.
Hey Roger, I tried looking over the web for this and have so far not found it, so I hope you don’t mind me asking, what are your credentials/education? If you’d rather not disclose that publicly, please email me. Thanks!
Bernard – I am going to be presumptious here because I know Roger can answer for himself – but you can satisfy your curiosity by looking in his newly published book! 😉
Roger – good to hear the proc went well. Speedy recovery!
Hi Bernard,
I’m a nobody. I have no relevant credentials or formal education whatsoever — I’m purely an interested amateur in my areas of interest, focused on doing something to promote interest in, and knowledge of, those areas. You can’t use me as an authority on anything, if that was the issue. A quotation from me has no academic value! Which is why I concentrate on making stuff available, or researching up things, rather than pontificating.
If you’re asking from the point of view of a note in an academic article, the Tertullian Project has been reviewed in the Chronica Tertullianea et Cyprianea in Revue des Études Augustiniennes, thanks to the kindness of Dr Pierre Petitmengin, but of course he isn’t responsible for me in any way. But I’ve seen this used as grounds for a reference in the past. In general, however, you should verify everything against the quoted sources yourself (and I try always to give these).
KP kindly mentioned the “Eusebius: Gospel Problems and Solutions” book that I edited. This is still going through peer-review, however.
I hope that helps!
All the best,
Roger Pearse
Ah okay, well regardless, I appreciate the work you do and making some of these things more accessible to us laymen.
Sorry to disappoint! But I don’t think relying on “authorities” on matters of controversy is safe anyway. In most disciplines in the humanities, the consensus of scholars reflects the views of those who control university appointments. In Patristics longer ago, in the days when the church fathers were controversial, this meant that the scholars were catholic in catholic countries and protestant in protestant countries, and batted for their own side accordingly. Nothing was gained by that.
Whatever you do, don’t change any passwords or attempt to reformat your entire hard drive. I know of one case in which a man lost thousands of dollars worth of data, irretrievably, when he only attempted to switch his computer off Daylight Savings Time while in a mental fog.
Good points! Thankfully the worst I did was talk to a recruitment agent while completely fuddled. It may cost me money, but not much else.