REMAINS OF SAINT NICHOLAS? CHURCH OF SAINT NICHOLAS ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE

DAILY MAIL SCIENCE - TOMB OF SAINT NICHOLAS FOUND?  Go to the article to see some terrific photos

Excerpt: The second church was found after researchers conducted electronic surveys under St. Nichoas church, finding gaps between the floor and the ground.

Then, in 2022, the team announced they may have found the tomb, but were still working to remove the Byzantine church's flooring to not damage it.

Osman Eravsar, the head of the provincial cultural heritage preservation board in Antalya, told Demiroren News Agency that year: 'The first church was submerged with the rise of the Mediterranean Sea, and some centuries later, a new church was built above.

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On January 2nd 2025 I removed the video but you may still find it at the link....

LET US GIVE THANKS

 

THANKSGIVING

TURKEYS - HUNGARIAN TURKEY RECIPES? STUFF WITH CHESTNUTS

 

About now if you're a Hungarian-American who is going to cook for THANKSGIVING next week, you may be purchasing a turkey and other ingredients to make your fall harvest feast.  Since Turkey - the bird - is native of the America's I don't think of the meat as very interesting to Europeans but these days you just have to be near a market that imports the whole bird.

 

I could give you a link, or many, to recipes for Chestnut Stuffing and "Hungarian Turkey" recipes but I'll let you do that yourself.  There is even a Martha Stewart recipe for free on the net which emphasizes to start with fresh.  Let's just say that combining chestnuts with bread crumbs, bacon, thyme, and parsley and butter is a good start.  Chop Chop Chop!

 

Chestnuts are the seeds of the chestnut tree.  In the fall the covering of the seeds bursts open and reveal the tender nut but they must be used within a week of harvesting them or else can be frozen for up to a month.  Like a garlic bulb or clove, they must be peeled and then cooked to soften them and you do that before you combine them with other ingredients.

 

Growing up we had Turkey one time a year, on Thanksgiving.  I liked the stuffing better than the meat, though I loved the gravy over the stuffing.  Visiting friends, I was able to sample some of the more complicated and imaginative recipes for stuffing, including the wonderful texture and crunch of chestnuts. than my parents made.

 

As I understand it, chestnut trees grow well in Hungary and have been cultivated in the Mediterranean for 3000 years.  They were common in North America and then a blight wiped them out in the early 20th century but efforts are being made to replant them.

ISIS - TURKEY - THE THREAT TO HUNGARY : OTTOMON EMPIRE? HUNGARIAN MERCENARIES?

For Hundreds of years the Moslem Turks controlled the country that would become Hungary. Their empire was called the Ottoman Empire. Before the country could be founded on Christianity, and align itself with Rome and Western Europe, these Turks had to be driven out. The fighting went on and on, and today there remains the ruins of many a castle fort that managed to do just that in the late 14th and early 15th centuries

This is why, when you look at the Coat of Arms and Shields of early aristocratic families of Hungary you will see images such as bloody swords and even the beheaded Turk.

Hungary became a Christian nation, a Roman Catholic dominated one, which made the country affiliated with The Church and the rest of Europe rather than a Slavic and Eastern Orthodox nation, like Russia. No doubt there have been and are people of these other faiths in Hungary, sometimes living in colonies or villages. Travelers to Budapest in the 19th century remarked on the ethnic and religious diversity of the city, as seen in the clothing that identified people of different ethnic groups and faiths.

I was thinking about all this in the morning as I listed to talk radio and dressed for the day. I thought about it because I heard that ISIS wants to make inroads next into Turkey. Clearly ISIS has the plan to have influence not only in Turkey but all of Europe, and the usual route in the Middle East is around the Mediterranean Sea.

Here is one article from CNN that asks if Turkey will battle ISIS on the ground.

CNN OPED: TURKEY ISIS OR PKK?

The article begins thus : Turkey is in a tough spot. It has ISIS militants threatening the Syrian border town of Kobani, inching ever closer to confronting Turkish security forces. In addition thousands of Syrian Kurds, fleeing ISIS attacks, have massed along its border, adding further to Ankara's troubles.


Amid mounting pressure to become more active in the U.S.-led international coalition against ISIS, the Turkish parliament last week overwhelmingly authorized its military to make incursions into Syria and Iraq; also to allow foreign troops to operate out of Turkish bases. The move has been greeted in Western capitals as a welcome sign that Turkey is finally fully on board with the anti-ISIS coalition.

Though beheading was practiced not only by the Ottoman Turks but the Hungarian's who fought for a nation to be, and more recently was, during the French Revolution, practiced by machine using the Guillotine, as well as in South East Asia in the 1960's, I have to say that I think this method of killing to be especially horrible.

Here in the United States, our FBI is asking citizens to help identify ISIS members who appear in videos, some with American or British English accents, and say they know the identities of a number of Americans who have left the country to fight the ISIS cause in other countries.

I ask myself, should such people be allowed back in.
My personal answer is, no. Anyone who is a terrorist should not be let in or let back in.

Here is one website that is covering the issue of Hungarian men who have joined ISIS and it is presented by the controversial JOBBIK party of Hungary.

JOBBIK ON WESTERN AND HUNGARIAN MERCENARIES

First thing I must note is that the term MERCENARIES is used, indicating that these are soldiers who are without personal allegiance but who work as soldiers for pay. There is a difference. Is the term used correctly?


Here is an excerpt from that article:

He added that, considering the gravity of the situation, the worrying news prompted Jobbik to turn to László Kövér, the Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament and Zsolt Németh, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee to summon the foreign affairs and the national security committees of the Parliament. The politician pointed out that the activities of these people had been followed by the Counter Terrorism Centre and the national security services of Hungary, and the Parliament should be informed who they are, what is the purpose of their staying in the area and/or serving in the ranks of ISIS. Jobbik also wants to find out what national security risks are posed by the activities of these persons in the ranks of ISIS.

The patriotic party expects correct information from the national security services, and responses from László Kövér and Zsolt Németh as well.\

C 2014 Magyar- American BlogSpot

THANKSGIVING - TURKEY IS A BIRD NATIVE OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENT

I would like to hear from some readers in Eastern and Central Europe about TURKEY. Has turkey meat made it's way to you?

Early American colonial settlers were more likely to serve a duck or goose for a fancy meal a couple hundred years ago.

The Thanksgiving holiday and turkey as the bird to serve came long after the establishment of the United States. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President who created Social Security and other governmental plans to help the United States of America get out of the Great Depression of the 20th century established Thanksgiving as an official American Holiday.

Americans often love Thanksgiving above all other holidays for one reason; it is spiritual without being religious, and it is in inclusive of all people. In fact, it is inclusive of those who are not citizens. Tradition is that we must invite someone to our meal of plenty who might have no family or nowhere else to go. So several years ago I was elected to cook the bird at a dinner attended by people from Canada, China, and many other countries.

It used to be that the only time I ate Turkey was on Thanksgiving. Then, I noticed, some of my friends were also serving a turkey for Christmas. These days turkey has a year round following not only for it's flavor but the lack of fat in the meat. It's almost health food.

C Magyar-American blogspot. All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

RUSSIA : GERMANY : TURKEY : THE CZECH REPUBLIC : POLAND : READ MAGYAR-AMERICAN : ETHNICITY and 9/11 CELEBRATION

Thank You to new readers for stopping by my blog from these countries!

You know, my blog is about the Hungarian American experience and connection to the motherland of Hungary. But as we all know, due to war and politics, borders in these countries have been redefined many times as have the names of cities and towns which sometimes have three or four different language variations. "Ethnic" populations of Hungarians are in all these countries as are people of various "Ethnic" populations living within the borders of Hungary.

And in the United States people of Hungarian family origins are everywhere, though there are concentrations of Magyar-Americans in places where people who came during the industrial revolution resided.

There's a challenge because just about everyone is proud of (or at least not ashamed) of their ethnicity. WE CAN BE PROUDEST OF HAVING MUTUAL RESPECT for our similarities as well as our differences. I believe in the United States intermarriage has, one relationship at a time, made a big difference in how we think about what makes an American. There is a lot of diversity here. I have one friend who counts 6 different ethnicities in her blood; Irish, Polish, Croation, Hungarian, Slovak, German; in the United States we suspect that everyone has a "wee bit" Irish.

On Sunday I attended one of the many small community 9/11 memorial services in a big city. There were beautifully singing young girls, a bag pipe player, a violinist, and representatives from five different religions from Jewish and Moslem, to Catholic and Christian to New Age speaking, as well as representatives from the fire department and the police. It wasn't a spectacle but it was well attended. Fire department helicopters flew over in formation, the boy scouts carried flags, and the names of the 83 Californians who died in the terrorist attack were read, while 83 white doves were let out to fly around the park.