Holy Whapping gives some snippets from the "Random Things the Orthodox Do So Much Better Than Us" File
Shrine of the Holy Whapping: June 2008:
They have a real knack for naming holy stuff. Witness St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco (known in life with the plain old name of John Maximovitch), John of Moscow the Fool-For-Christ, the Holy and Bodiless Powers (so much nicer than the plain-vanilla 'angels'), the Astoria, Queens institution called the Sacred Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery of St. Irene Chrysovalantou, and my new favorite miracle of all time, the Miracle of the Moose, ascribed to the equally baroquely-named Venerable Macarius of the Yellow Water Lake and the Unzha*, the Miracle Worker. The long and short of it is apparently it is possible to catch a moose by prayer, and then enjoy a nice venison dinner afterwards. This is my kind of miracle. Practical and yummy.
The only thing we really have to do now is having all those marvellous names, get signwriters to be able to spell them correctly. One of our institutions is described as "The Alexandrian Catechitical School of South Africa 'Petros VII'"
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