January 17 |
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St. Anthony's Feastday
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St. Anthony (Antony) is one of the most important and celebrated saints of the Orthodox Church. Anthony was a third century Egyptian mystic who is credited with the founding of monastic life. He is one of the few early saints whose life is well documented by his contemporaries including a biography, The Life of Saint Anthony, by St. Athanasius who knew him personally.
This book is the
basis for the
famous visions or
temptations
of St.
Anthony which
have been portrayed in various media
by artists
for more
than fifteen
hundred years. There have been plays,
ballets, and
paintings by
hundreds of artists, and films, and novels,
including The Temptation
of
Saint Anthony,
by
Gustave Flaubert which he spent
nearly forty years
writing
and
rewriting,
These visions or temptations were probably hallucinatory due to Antony's excessive fasting, sometimes eating a meager ration of bread and water every four days. Many of the visions are similar to those of St. John the Apostle, which are recounted in the Apocalypse (Book of Revelations).
On a more contemporary note, St. Anthony has been
popularized as
the patron saint
of LSD victims,
an evocation due
to the saint's
celebrity in
curing ergot poisoning
known as St. Anthony's
fire, a fungus
disease that affected rye
crops and caused thousands
of deaths during
the Middle Ages.
St. Anthony, or St. Antoine as he is
known
in France, was
also the name
saint*of Antoine Alciotore,
founder of
New
Orleans'
famous Antoine's
restaurant. The famous chef created
one of
the
restaurant's
specialties, Toast
St. Antoine, to
honor this saint.
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Ingredients |
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2
TB butter |
2 TB grated
Romano cheese 2 TB grated Mozzarella cheese 1-1/2 cups breadcrumbs salt and ground white pepper to taste 6 toast slices, trimmed of crusts 12 anchovy fillets |
Instructions |
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© 2012 Gordon Nary