Tea at Trianon: Prince and Martyr: Msgr. Vladimir Ghika

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Prince and Martyr: Msgr. Vladimir Ghika

The Romanian Orthodox prince who became a martyr of the Catholic faith.

When Prince Ghika was five years of age, his family moved to France after living two years in Moldavia. Some years afterwards, Prince Ghika felt the appeal of the spiritual life offered by a Church other than the Rumanian Orthodox. Although he was a descendent of Rumanian royalty, Prince Ghika became a Catholic. When he did so, it unleashed a veritable tempest. Princess Alexsandrine, his mother, considered it a calamity. The newspapers treated him as a renegade, as if he had committed a crime. He meekly accepted this criticism and continued to deepen his faith in God, which prepared him for his vocation to the priesthood and, much later, his embrace of martyrdom. As a Catholic, the prince loved Rumanian Orthodoxy; he respected it. That is why he often said, "I became a Catholic in order to become a better Orthodox." (Read entire post.)

PV said...: Thank you for posting this Elena. I do love prince Ghika. Here is a site that supports his cause: http://vladimiri-ghika-amicus.blogspot.jp/p/prayer.html; May 6, 2012 at 8:33:00 AM EDT