Maria
Christmas, the Birth of the New Man. December 25.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Paul the Apostle had a view of the birth of Jesus as a major cosmic event which brought a “new man” who would undo the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. The Pauline perspective puts an emphasis in the birth of a new man and a new world with the birth of Jesus Christ. The first source stating December 25 as the date of birth of Jesus was Hippolytus of Rome, one of the most important early Christian theologians, assuming that the conception of Jesus took place at the Spring equinox, on March 25, and then added nine months. There is historical evidence that by the middle of the 4th century the Christian churches of...
The Execution of the Romanov Family. July 17, 1918.
The Ural Regional Soviet agreed in a meeting on 29 June that the Romanov family should be executed. Only seven of the 23 members of the Central Executive Committee were in attendance, three of whom were Lenin, Sverdlov and Felix Dzerzhinsky. It was agreed that the presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet should organize the practical details for the family’s execution and decide the precise day on which it would take place when the military situation dictated it, contacting Moscow for final approval. The killing of the Tsar‘s wife and children was also discussed but had to be kept a state secret to avoid any political repercussions; German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach made repeated enquiries to the Bolsheviks concerning the family’s well-being. As Trotsky would later expl...