A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

You Can Drink Homemade Spirits With Serbian Monks at These Orthodox Monasteries

You’d expect to toast “Živeli!” with a drink in hand on one of the famous splavs, or floating clubs, in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. What you might not expect is that some travelers are toasting in Serbian monasteries — with Serbian monks. There are over 400 monasteries of the Orthodox faith in Serbia — including a few that are UNESCO World Heritage sites —with approximately 200 still actively in use and managed by monks and nuns. Many of these monasteries are open to the public for religious and historical tours and close-up views of magnificent medieval frescoes. Unless you’re a fan of history, a monastery tour in Serbia may not sound like the most exciting time, but that's where you’d be wrong. See, there’s one interesting aspect of these monasteries that most people don’t know about: in Serbia, monks sell homemade alcohol.

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Igor Simić

Igor Simic was born in 1988 in Belgrade, Serbia. He graduated from Columbia University, New York, with a double-major in Film Studies and Philosophy. He currently works on films, video, installations, and writes articles.

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The Meaning of Reality

Essays on Existence and Communion, Eros and History

by Christos Yannaras

The collection of articles traces the thought of Christos Yanaras through his long journey in discovering the meaning of existence, communion, eros, and history. It is a cause of immense joy that no fewer than twenty articles of passionate significance and substance have at present been gathered together in this volume under the title The Meaning of Reality.

Yannaras is undoubtedly one of the most significant thinkers of our time. Kallistos Ware once described him as "the most creative and prophetic religious thinker at work in Greece today," while Rowan Williams characterizes him as "one of the most significant Christian philosophers in Europe." His very wide and no less deep education helps him to develop an inimitable blend of philosophy, theology, and social criticism, and to speak in an original way about the traditional and contemporary issues of human existence, as well as the latest challenges of modern empirical science and political engagement. A detailed knowledge of the writings of the Holy Fathers has always been his foundation amidst the labyrinth of modern thought - which is inimately bound up with psychoanalysis, environmental issues, human rights, postmodernism, and pluralism , to mention just a few. Insistence on the primacy, uniqueness, and eternal value of human personality prevails in almost all his works and inspires his own vigorous theological and ecumenical engagement, based on the Orthodox eucharistic and ascetic tradition.