www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Navigating in here. . . Byzantine Forum for Dummies

Is there a place in here where one could learn the 'ropes' in these Forums. Sometimes I send messages and I have no idea 'where' they went. . . People are not replying either so I have no idea if they can be read. . .

I would love to be able to use this site better and navigate to target areas of interest or make searches but I am not comfortable on how to go about this... Is it just a thing of 'practice' over time?

Any tips you can give me would be most welcome!

Best to all

TR,

First of all, welcome to the Byzantine Forum!

I have found it *rather* frustrating to use the "Search" function provided by the Forum's software. You have to specify a date range, and it can't be more than one year. Sometimes, this means re-applying the search criteria to a different date range ten times or more. Then, if you don't find anything with the term you're looking for in the title, you can try looking for it in the body text. This finds any reference to the term you're looking for, but often they are just passing references, not the subject of the discussion.

Still, it is possible with this tool--and a lot of patience--to find some lively and interesting discussions on a number of topics that are important to Eastern Christians.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Tryzub Rurikid:

Christ is in our midst!!

Welcome to the forum. To answer your "wonder," let me say that all new members are moderated for a period and the privilege of sending messages to other members comes after a period of time. You may have sent messages and they were not delivered. We do this because we've had problems with new members in the past--not to say we fear that from you--so we hvae this policy. I'll pm the admin and ask that you have this privilege ASAP.

Deacon Richard is correct in his assessment of the "search" function. That I cannot help you with. It is a universal frustration.

Bob
Moderator

Dear Deacon Richard,

This site is important to me even if I am not an Eastern Christian [I am Roman Catholic] but love the Roman Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite and also many forms of Orthodoxy as well... I am a direct descendant of six (6) Byzantine Emperors at Nicaea via a woman called Catherine de Baillon who came to Canada in 1669 - AND - I am a direct descendant [among MANY other noble and royal lines] of the Riurikid [Rurikid] Dynasty who actually had several marriages as well into the Byzantine lines among Princes of some of the branches. I am blessed to know that the Emperors in my family were (so far) good men and not the tyrants one can find among such Emperors.

A Website is online about Catherine de Baillon from the Royal Research Association (founded by five university professors who finally confirmed that this woman was of noble and royal descent) lists a few books written about her as well as many essays and history articles and indicates a couple of her lines (among MANY) - however, it is dismally outdated and many lines indicated as 'probable' or 'possible' I have now confirmed. The site is 'frozen in time' as it was an important historical find in Canadian history and genealogy and has not been updated since 2001-2002 approx.

I am writing a book on the many Saints, Blessed (Beatified), Martyrs, and Venerated found in either my DIRECT ancestors [this means my great-grand-parents of many generations ago] AND relatives close to their lines or branches [This means: great-grand-aunts, uncles and cousins of many generations ago]. So far, the product of 60 years of research into our family genealogy and history (25 by an uncle of mine who gave me his work before he left this mortal world - and 35 years by myself) has yielded an astounding 414 such individuals. These individuals are honoured by a wide array of religious traditions and I include them ALL without any reserve nor discrimination - I am inclusive of ALL religious traditions which make up the fabric of this history. Add to that the lines of the Kings of Judah - yes, my lines go into those of the Kings of Judah all the way to King David himself and you get more than 616 such individuals (I lost count - this is a rough tally). It would take (according to computer calculations) over 10,000 pages just to print all the lineages and branches of my family and this does NOT count the biographical notes! I have a veritable encyclopedia started... which I plan to publish in different themes - one of which are the Saints, etc. in our lines. Among the top groups are the lines of (I lost count actually on these so these are APPROX. numbers to give you a rough idea):

• The Riurikid Dynasty which counts over 75+ (it counts the most Saints, etc. of any noble and royal line in the course of humanity's history);
  The line of the Apostolic Kings of Hungary close to 35; and, that of,
  The Byzantine Empire close to 25.

There are also five popes in our lines - two of them (off the top of my head) are: Urban II and Gregory V.

I participated in the movie documentary film to mark the 800th anniversary of St Elizabeth of Hungary which was produced by Lori Pieper, PhD in Medieval History with Pilgrimage Films of New York for the movie, 'St Elizabeth of Hungary: A Woman for Our Times' as St Elizabeth is my 23rd great-grand-aunt (and possibly one of my great-grand-mothers as well via her son - this is currently under investigation at the moment...) as St Elizabeth is the sister of Princess Anna Maria of Hungary who became Empress of Bulgaria when she married Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria, Emperor (Tsar) of Bulgaria. My name is included in the movie credits at the end of this film among the the people included in the special acknowledgements credits at the very end. . .

Yes, the blood of many Saints flows in my own veins... three of them are: St Olha; St Volodymyr the Great; St Anna of Novgorod [who was Ingegerd Olafsdottir (Olofsdottir), Princess of Sweden] are my direct great-grand-parents as Anna Yaroslavna, Queen of France and wife of King Henri I of France is my 28th great-grand-mother.

I will publish a veritable encyclopedia on these individuals later on... - which shall include the lines of their genealogy as they also link to my family.

The two most recent Saints canonized in recent history among members of my family's relatives are:
1) François-Xavier de Montmorency-Laval, 1st Bishop of Québec and 1st Bishop in North America - Canonized: April 3, 2014 by Pope Francis I, in Vatican City - who made him a saint by ‘equivalent canonization’ or 'equipollent canonization') [He is the most recent and closest saintly relative in terms of generations to me];
2) Hildegard von Bingen - Canonized: May 10, 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI (equipollent canonization)

I also plan to learn how to write Icons (Part of the reason I came here to get resources and contacts and LEARN as well as view many of the beautiful Icons people find) and will sell them to benefit churches and charities.

What this path has made me truly realize is that humanity indeed is one great family of God's children and many of our people are related and our history so intimately connected. . . The message of my books is one of peace above all. . . I hope it shall reinforce the need to 'love thy neighbour' and promote tolerance among people, nations, religious traditions... this increased the strength of my own faith in God while I was on a path of discovery and I hope it leaves many others with the same. . .

In the course of time, I will no doubt have many questions for people on this site and I would hope people could give me a hand if they could. The most 'benign' questions may lead me onto the path of significant work at times as it has indeed in the past. . . My path has led me to meet people who have led me to make the most astounding discoveries when I least expected it. . . It would be so wonderful to find this here. . .

Warm regards to you... Thank you for taking a moment to respond to me... After becoming a new member here, I was getting a bit 'discouraged' while many of my posts had been left unanswered or without comment. . . - yours is indeed most appreciated!

Christine *smile*
[Yes, I am a woman... and proudly the legal head of my own branch as nobility can be transferred via the women's lines in my family in accordance with two special edicts in two countries]

THANK YOU Bob for asking to have me get this privilege to message members earlier! I am here to do research... read the posts people share, discover and'connect' with people on my path of discovery. . . I am no threat to anyone here and certainly NEVER one to abuse the site here!

I love the expression you use 'Christ is in our midst'... for the reason that in each of our fellow-human beings we must see Christ in them as well. . .

I responded to Deacon Richard in this thread of posts and you can get a pretty good idea from there WHY I joined the Byzantine Forum *smile*

Best of regards,

Christine

Tryzub,

Welcome! Thank you for your post.

As Bob and Father Richard noted, new posters automatically have their posts put in a queue for approval. That is necessary for us to keep out the nice men from Nigeria who would like to come here to post to offer us millions if only we would send them our bank account numbers. Since you've have a number of posts now I've advanced you to full membership.

Any post you now make will show up immediately, and will show up in the "Active Topics" list. You can also easily find your posts under "My Stuff" > "Posts".

And, yes, the search engine is not very good. Not much we can do about it right now. A future software upgrade might help.

You might check out the "FAQ" for additional information.

John

THANK you very much John! I am elated that now I am officially a 'member' and can send people messages and put posts on! There are a LOT of great threads here to read... I am learning a lot on many perspectives. . .

I think I am going to love it in here!

One thing I would just LOVE to see created here is a permanent database of beautiful icons ...no doubt, you would need updated software for this. . . The other solution is to create A Byzantine Forum group in Flickr where members could go and add their nice photos of Icons they have taken or find which are NOT copyright infringements of course. I would so LOVE to see a database like that!

Best,

Christine

What is the 'limit' in terms of number of messages one can have in our Private Message E-mail box here?

I tried to send people a message privately only to find their 'topic limit' was already full in terms of E-mail!

Can someone give me a 'ball park' idea so we 'newbies' here can watch for this... - I added this here in this thread as I felt this would be a good part to the 'navigating' in this forum for newcomers.

Best,

Christine

Christine:

Christ is in our midst!!

Some posters here have opted not to allow pm messages. That may be the reason that you get that message. Others come less frequently and that may be the reason their inboxes are listed this way.

Bob

300.

Your PM index page indicates how many messages are in your various boxes and the total available.

Mine is about half full. When I get over 200 I will likely purge some old messages.

Thank you Thomas the Seeker!

At least this give me an idea in terms of what to watch for as 'limit' and prepare for 'clean ups' later. . .

Best,

Christine