Собор Василия Блаженного/Saint Basil's Chathedral/Cathédrale Saint-Basile-le-Bienheureux de Moscou 450 years

The Cathedral of the Protection of Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat (Russian: Собор Покрова пресвятой Богородицы, что на Рву), popularly known as Saint Basil's Cathedral (Russian: Собор Василия Блаженного) (or in Swedish Vasilijkatedralen/russian: Собор Василия Блаженного), is a Russian Orthodox church erected on the Red Square in Moscow in 1555–61.

It was built on the order of Ivan IV ('Ivan the Terrible') of Russia to commemorate the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan.
The original building was known as "Trinity Church" and later "Trinity Cathedral" and contained eight side churches arranged around the ninth, central church of Intercession. The tenth church was erected in 1588 over the grave of venerated local saint Vasily (Basil).
In the 16th and the 17th centuries the church, perceived as the earthly symbol of the Heavenly City, was popularly known as the "Jerusalem" and served as an allegory of the Jerusalem Temple in the annual Palm Sunday parade attended by the Patriarch of Moscow and the tsar.

Without going in to details one can say that this cathedral has become a symbol not only for Moscow but for the whole of Russia and as such it's at least as important as the Red Square or Kremlin and to the Christians of course much more important than any of the other buildings.

According to some traditions the architect Postnik Yakovlev was blinded by 'Ivan the Terrible' after finishing this church and this because Ivan didn't want him to be able to create a equally beautiful building again!

(Photo of the St Basil Cathedrale taken from: https://rees.sas.upenn.edu/about/spotlight/saint-basils-cathedral-moscow-russia)

(Picture/painting of Ivan the Terrible copied from: http://www.masterandmargarita.eu/images/02themas/verschrijkkelijke.jpg)

(Picture/painting Saint Vasily/Basil copied from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ee/Saint_Vasily.JPG)

(The Jerusalem Temple during Solomo copied from: http://www.arounddeglobe.com/solomon-temple-the-temple-in-jerusalem/)

Dalai Lama retires?

Dalai Lama recently declared that he will put forward a proposition that allows him to withdraw from the political responsibility in connection to the next meeting with the government-in-exile in March this year.

Next summer Dalai Lama - or Tenzin Gyatso - will become 75 and he has for long stressed the importance of creating a government of younger politicians, elected by the Tibetan people.

This might be a move in order to give the movement more strength and credibility among the Chinese leaders but also worldwide as some influential debaters oppose the religious leadership, as this would become a sort of theocracy, not in accordance with modern, democratic rules.

If the government-in-exile is 'converted' into a regular political body this might give them a greater strength and a formal status or position in the eyes of the World Community.

I doubt that Dalai Lama will leave the international scene, he will just concentrate on other tasks related to the liberation movement, aiming at an independent Tibet, free from the dictatorial rule of China.

On the other hand, Dalai Lama has himself been accused of trying to create a very top-down society with himself as both spiritual and political leader and this has caused negative publicity.

Now he can fully concentrate on the spiritual side, as important as the political I would say.

Representatives for the government-in-exile says that it might be difficult for some of them to accept the stepping down of Dalai Lama as the political leader and China says this is just a "trick" to fool the world.

They argue that the Lama will continue to act 'behind the curtains' and that nothing will change and as the Chinese government looks upon the Lama as an extremist - or why not a 'terrorist', using the now common word for all kinds of uprising, whether or not legitimate - they want him out of the way, declaring that the Chinese government are to decide who should become the next Lama. The Chinese government wants to decide who is the 'legitimate' lama, not leaving it to the religious community or the people.

This might lead to a situation with two religious leaders, one sanctioned by China, the other by the religious community and the people: 'Divide and Rule'!

Dalai Lama has now lived in exile since 1959.

Books I've recently read:

Fred Deux is a local artist, living in La Châtre.
His art reminds somewhat about H.R. Giger but has its own specific style.
I will hopefully write about his art for a journal in Stockholm later on.
This not least as Fred Deux deserves being better known, outside France.

This book gives us an insight into one of the worst mass murderers of all time, Mao Zedong.
We are presented a person, not only hungry for power but also loving to see people suffer,
leaving his own family and others behind, using every single person for his own purposes.
Mao was also a perverted person, loving to see his troups torture, rape and humiliate
both women, men, children and elderly people, just because he saw them as
an obstacle for his ambition to become The Great Leader but also Leader of the World!
To this one can add that he was an incredibly coward person, avoiding all confrontation,
hiding himself behind collaborators and his life guard,
being a highly uncharismatic and deeply evil person.

If the Chinese government has the ambition being regarded seriously
It would be of outmost importance to take a stand against this dictator,
his rule and clear up the history by pointing at the terror of Mao:s regime,
declaring this epoch the greatest failure in the history of China.
Unfortunately it seems as if the next Chinese leader is less liberal,
more conservative and nationalistic but the future will tell.

This also goes for the left wing parties in Europe.
If they would like to be taken serioulsy by others than their own voters,
they should publically race their voice and criticize the Mao-era.
They should also question the current leaders as many of them
have been raised and politically trained during this terrible period in Chinese history.

In times when the 'Green Peril' has displaced the 'Read Peril' when it comes to terror,
I recommend people to read this book (unfortunately only written in Swedish as far as I know).
It takes a broad and deep look into the history of Islam and the Arab origin of this world religion.
We get to follow the islamic influence in the history of Europe and we realize that
without Islam or muslims, Europe actually could have been
even more uncivilized than it today de facto is.
The contributions on every level - literature, music, science - are extensive and important.
Can Islam and muslims be said to share most ideas emerging from the Quran
or is the Holy Scripture interpreted differently depending on who you are,
where you live, your upbringing and historical circumstances?
I would say the latter even if both the fundamentalistic islamists
and the opponents to islam - for different reasons - tries to depict the muslim Umma as united.

This is an interesting book about the history of the Celtic women.
It displays the strong and independent women at the time when
an almost 'matriarchal' society could have been said existing.
We also get to see how men in reality and throught 'myth-making'
tried to diminish the female influence and power
displaying the women as dangerous and the source of evil.
Not much has changed!

This last book is interesting for all of you who think that meritocracy actually exists.
The author on the contrary displays how you reach a level of incompetence,
often the highest level of your career, more or less because of your incompetence
or the fact that you were competent at lower levels in the hierarchy
but not up to the highest post you've reached, as one confound certain competence with others.
This latter is explained with the facta that one can't allow
a competent person running a company or an organization.
I believe we've often noticed this phenomena.

Revival of Islamic Research

For all of you who judges Islam after the most extreme followers, it might be interesting to read about and discover other voices in the Islamic world e.g. Shaykh-ul-Islam Pr. Dr. Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri (the link in the name).

"Shaykh-ul-Islam Pr. Dr. Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri is the founding leader of Minhaj-ul-Qur’an International (MQI), an organization with branches and centres in more than 90 countries around the globe, working for the promotion of peace and harmony between communities and the revival of spiritual endeavour based on the true teachings of Islam", as it says on his homepage.

This is a Pakistani born man who tries to emphasize the peaceful and more 'sensible' sides of Islam, displaying that it's fully compatible with a life in the world of today, not necessarily needing a theocratic society.

As in all religions, political ideologies and so forth there are representatives who, for different reasons, can't accept the existence of other faiths or beliefe systems and this leads to a form of extreme fundamentalism.

Some people I've met in my earlier work within the Church of Sweden, often used to say that being a fundamentalist is only standing on the foundation of the belief system, that is to say the Torah (Tanakh), the Bible, the Qur'an or any political document like Das Kapital.
This is of course lingustically correct but most fundamentalists not only base their view on their own interpretation of the 'holy scripture' - or the interpretation accepted within a certain social context - they fight others who interpret the same text in another way and even more so people who does not accept their belief system at all.

Some would say that the 'holy texts' mentioned above are never subject to interpretation as they are given to us, humans, in its entirety by Jahve/God/Allah, faultless, for us to follow to the letter.

Of course this is not true as the will of a supreme being never can be deducted from these texts and history shows that different believers tend to interpret the texts differently.

Using arguments implying that "I have understood the text correctly but not them..." is of course not at all a valid argument.

These scriptures are documents expressing the belief in a supreme being and documents expressing how this supreme being is supposed to have acted with humans, will act and what is the outermost will of this supreme being. It's not "the Word of God" - ipsissima verba, as one say.
How can I know that?

Of course I can't know that this is the case but neither can anyone other human know that it's the opposite.

We can believe in one way or another but the very truth about the mysteries of life, can't be revealed in this life, at least as long as no supreme being reveal it to us, physically here and now.

I do however accept that people believe in these scriptures in this very direct form but likewise I want them to respect my view and others.

Take a look at what mister Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has to say on these issues through the link above.

(Photo Dr. Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri copied from: http://img.youtube.com/vi/yWhB3Xo7JK0/0.jpg)
(Photo Quran copied from:https://aboutislam.net/reading-islam/understanding-islam/how-do-we-know-that-the-quran-is-from-god-5-proofs/)