Another friendly collaborator has sent us a translation of the flyer (original: front; back) distributed to potential counter-protesters on the day of the event (see also this older posting):
"WHO IS AGAINST THE BUILDING OF RELIGIOUS TEMPLES?
Who is against the building of the Church, is against God.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23.34)
Respected citizens,
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, pitied people for their ignorance. When he was unjustly and cruelly crucified, he prayed saying the words “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23.34). Even today, after more than 2000 years, in this year of 2009, many people, and among them those who declare to be believers, out of ignorance blaspheme our Lord Jesus Christ and crucify him again.
This week of the Easter Fast is called Veneration of the Cross. Bowing to the Holly Cross of Jesus Christ, let us not allow the antichrist to rule over us, but with pure heats, together, to welcome the building of the orthodox church of Saint Emperor Constantine and Empress Elena on the city square “Macedonia” in Skopje.
CHRIST AMONG US.
Respected citizens,
These days we are again witnessing instigations by certain segments, directly targeted against the building of the church of Saint Emperor Constantine and Empress Elena on the Macedonia Square in Skopje. Not debating their motives, it is essential to know that building of the church is nothing new. On the contrary, it represents an approximation of our main square to the appearance of the city squares in the world.
[Eds. Here are inserted photographs of “capital examples of city squares in the world from the Middle Ages to the present” in Rome, Moscow, Siena, Venice, and Prague. On the flipside is also a “Photograph of old Skopje and the church of Saint Constantine and Elena, destroyed by the earthquake in 1963. Today its remains are under the foundations of the GTC (shopping centre).”]
WHY DOES THE CHURCH ON THE CITY SQUARE NEED TO BE BUILT?
- Because it is an inseparable part of the capital examples of city squares from all over the world.
-To shape the non-urbanised city square.
WHY A CHURCH OF SAINTS EMPEROR CONSTANTINE AND ELENA?
- To bring back the memory of the saints of the destroyed church.
WHY A BELFRY?
- Because it serves as a vertical landmark for orientation, an axle for the street, and the striving for the faith.
THE CITIZENS OF SKOPJE DESERVE TO KNOW:
WHAT IS A CITY SQUARE?
A CITY SQUARE is non-built city area, surrounded by building blocks and streets that lead into it. A thoroughfare becomes a CITY STREET if surrounded by buildings and with street fountains; otherwise it would be just a plain road.
[Eds. Text under the images on the flipside of the flyer, second column, was illegible in the scan available to us.]
WHO WERE THE SAINT EMPEROR CONSTANTINE AND EMPRESS ELENA?
Constantine’s parents were the Emperor Constantius Chlorus and the Empress Elena. Chlorus had further children from another wife, but from Elena he had only one, Constantine. Constantine fought two great battles when he came to the throne: one against Maxentius, a tyrant in Rome, and the other against Licinius not far from Byzantium. At the battle against Maxentius, when Constantine was in great anxiety and uncertainty about his chances of success, a shining cross, surrounded by stars, appeared to him in the sky in full daylight. On the cross were written the words: ‘In this sign, conquer!’ The wondering Emperor ordered that a great cross be put together, like the one that had appeared, and be carried before the army. By the power of the Cross, he gained a glorious victory over enemies greatly superior in number. Maxentius drowned himself in the Tiber. Immediately after this, Constantine issued the famous Edict of Milan, in 313, to put an end to the persecution of Christians. Conquering Byzantium, he built a beautiful capital city on the Bosphorus, which from that time on was named Constantinople. At that time, Constantine fell ill with leprosy. The pagan priests and doctors advised him to bathe in the blood of slaughtered children, which he refused to do. Then the Apostles Peter and Paul appeared to him and told him to seek out a bishop, Sylvester, who would heal him of the disease. The bishop instructed him in the Christian faith and baptised him, and the leprosy vanished from the Emperor’s body. When there was discord in the Church about the troublesome heretic Arius, the Emperor summoned the first Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, in 325, where the heresy was condemned and Orthodoxy confirmed. St Elena, the Emperor’s devout mother, was very zealous for the Christian faith. She visited Jerusalem and found the Precious Cross of the Lord, and built the Church of the Resurrection over Golgotha and many other churches in the Holy Land. This holy woman went to the Lord in 327, at the age of eighty. The Emperor Constantine outlived his mother by ten years and entered into rest at the age of about sixty in 337, in the city of Nicomedia. His body was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Tsarigrad [Constantinople]."
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