A Christian Saint

 

"Research and write a mini-bio on a saint from either the Orthodox or Catholic faith."
I chose to write this mini-bio on Mother Teresa. 

Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia. Her given name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu but is most commonly known as Mother Teresa. She was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian origin ad Indian citizenship.
By the age of 12, Agnes was convinced she would commit herself to becoming a nun. At the age of 18 she took her final decision, and joined the Sisters of Loreto. After that, she never saw her mother and her sister again.
In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. 
After her death on September 5, 1997 at the age of 87, she was beautified by Pope John Paul II and given the name of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. 

My Mosaic

"Upon completion of your mosaic, explain the meaning of your symbol, reflect on the process of making a mosaic, and imagine what it would have been like to create a large scale mosaic in a church over 1500 years ago."


We had to make mosaics in class, I chose to do a mosaic of a fish. This was an early symbol of Christian faith. Early Christians would have chosen this symbol for many reasons including: it was not an obvious christian symbol to persecutors and many of Jesus's disciples were fishermen.
Apparently, the fish is also a symbol for baptism because fish feel at home in water. 

Apparently, while Christians were being persecuted, when Christians would meet, the first one would draw one arc and the second person coming to the meeting would draw the second arc, this would mean that they were both Christians as they both knew the symbol. If the second person did not draw the second arc, it was not obvious that the other was Christian. 
I decided to write 'IXOYE' in the middle, it is in Greek but translated to English it would mean 'fish'. This is just to emphasize the symbol. 


I decided to do a black background and a pink and blue fish so we could see it well. The outline of the fish is blue, and so is the writing but the inside is pink since I really like the color. I also did a silver border to enlighten the image since the background was so dark. 
The most difficult part in making this mosaic was cutting the little pieces to fit the round spaces, I had to cut rectangles, squares and a lot of triangles to fit the places where the image was curved. Now that I have finished my mosaic, I am proud of the end result but next time, I think I should use bigger pieces because it took me a really long time to get this mosaic done. 


I had trouble with this really small mosaic so I can't even imagine how making actual mosaics for churches was. It must have been extremely hard and the person doing the mosaics had to be very motivated since there were so many to do. I find it very impressive and I admire the people who had the patience to do this. 

Word Study: The Byzantine Empire

1) Constantinople: The capital of the Byzantine Empire.
2) Constantine: The first emperor to become a Christian.
3) Martyrs: Christians that died for their faith.
4) Icons: Pictures, images or statues of Jesus, Mary, or the saints.
5) Mosaics: Pictures made from many bits of colored glass or stone. Mosaics mainly showed figures of saints.
6) The Justinian Code: A code of reformed laws.
7) Schism: A separation.
8) Iconoclast: Government officials who removed icons from churches.
9) Missionary: People that teach their religion to those who do not believe.
10) Excommunicate: To declare that a person or a group of people no longer belong to the church.
11) Monastery: Religious communities where men called monks banded together.
12) Saint: Christian holy people.
13) Regent: A person who stands in for a ruler who is too young or too ill to govern.
14) Justinian: Strong leader of the Byzantine empire from A.D. 527 to A.D.565.
15) Theodora: Emperor Justinian's wife, helped him run the empire and also helped save Justinian's throne.