Holy Cross Volunteer: Fill & Download for Free

My ship was in Marseilles in the south of France, in a dry dock doing a refit. Under maritime law it was necessary for a ships officer to be aboard at all times to represent the owner since otherwise if, say, a fire broke out, the local fire services could claim salvage rights for the value of the ship. This particular night I had been “volunteered” for the night on board.So there I was, in my cabin. There was shore power to give me a light but no heat, and nowhere to go for a pee since there were no sanitary connections and, in the early hours of the morning, the multi-acre shipyard was deserted. I did, however, have the bottle of Four Bells navy rum that I had jealously kept in my personal supplies.It is surprising how a large ship that is out of the water can act like a drum. Every sound, every creak, every tick of cooling steel echoes throughout the night in the dark hours when one is alone.So there I was with my bottle of rum, alone in the world at two o’clock in the morning and unable to even go for a pee. But then a sound. Not the normal sounds of settlement on the dry dock chocks — Footsteps? Can’t be! There is no-one within a few miles. Then Bong…..Bong……Bong, echoing metallically throughout the ship, a pause between each but somehow seeming to becoming closer.We seamen were a cynical lot, with little belief in the ways of the faiths and the possibility of the afterlife but, at two o’clock in the morning the mind begins to wonder…. There was the rumour that when the ship was building some poor guy had been somehow locked into one of the double-bottom tanks and had died there alone and unable to summon help, clawing with desperate fingers at unyielding steel. No! Let not the imagination run riot! Do your duty and locate the sound!So, take a torch and venture forth into the darkened steel corridors with sphincter muscles clenching, trying to creep like a ghost in the night but….Bong….Bong…seemingly closer. Around a corner, torch flashing its faint illumination against the bulkheads…..and suddenly this dark figure looming out of the night! It let out an unholy wail that sounded like all of the demons of Hell were coming for me! Sphincter muscles only barely under control.That damned bloody French shipyard had never told us that they had night watchmen in black uniforms, and they never told them that there was anyone on board the ship. That watchman and I spent several minutes shouting at each other and making various signs of the Holy Cross at each other before we at last realised that we were both mortal. Then at last there was only one thing to do to deal with our mutual PTSD — In my cabin there was still most of that good bottle of Four Bells rum and………!

I would assume you would be A-list material with that resume. I remember someone whn went to Notre Dame. So it isnt like its impossible to do.

Ahh yes, famous three fingers.Well, it depends who you ask honestly. Many Croats, Bosniaks and Albanians do not consider downright fascist but provocative.I must say, you ask very interesting questions. I have a fun time answering them.😀The three-finger salute, also known as the Serbian salute, is a greeting that originally expressed the Holy Trinity, today it is considered a Serbian national greeting with one hand with a joined (or spread) thumb, forefinger and middle finger.Orthodox SymbolismIn the Serbian and Orthodox tradition, number three is extremely important. Orthodox are baptized with three fingers, with three fingers symbolizing the Trinity. Throughout history, Serbs have used three fingers (collected) together with the cries of "Holy Trinity" or "For the honorable cross and golden freedom" during formal and religious events. The greeting was often performed with both hands, raised above the head. Serbian peasants ended the oath by raising three fingers to their faces, and the face was the "focus of honor" in Balkan cultures. A Serbian proverb says "There is no cross without three fingers" (Нема крста без три прста/Nema krsta bez tri prsta). Karađorđe Petrović was elected the leader of the Serbian insurgents after everyone raised "three fingers in the air" and swore allegiance.Three fingers were considered a symbol of Serbianness and Serbdom in the 19th century. Njegoš states "there is no cross of three fingers left" when he talks about the Islamization of Serbs, the central theme of Gorski vijenac. Paja Jovanović's painting, "Takovo uprise" (1888), shows Miloš Obrenović holding a crusader-flag and greeting with three fingers. Serb Catholics in Dubrovnik, who supported the idea of ​​Serbs with three faiths (Orthodox, Catholic and Islamic), criticized pan-Serbs who, according to them, only "really believed those Serbs who were baptized with three fingers." According to a short story published in 1901, it tells of a meeting between a Serbian despot and Silađi, who had the despot's three fingers cut off by the Franciscans after a discussion about the proper manner of baptism. Serbian Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović called for a Serbian greeting in which three fingers were to be raised with the greeting "Thus God helped us!" In 1937, Velimirović began a sermon opposing Catholic support for the separation of state and religion in Yugoslavia with "Raise three fingers, Orthodox Serbs!"During World War II, the Catholic Church in the Independent State of Croatia demanded that Serbs no longer be baptized with three fingers. One Ustasha song was called "Nesta krsta sa tri prsta" (Crost with three fingers dissapeared).UsingDuring the Yugoslav wars, the greeting was widely used as a Serbian symbol. Serbian soldiers used a three-finger salute as a sign of victory.According to political scientist Anamaria Datek Zegest, the significance of the greeting is multifaceted: although it was used by nationalists, it cannot be monopolized as such; it was used without aggressive nationalist connotations, e.g. at sporting events, Milošević’s opposition, Boris Tadić at the 2008 Summer Olympics, etc.The greeting is often used by athletes and fans during the celebration of victory. After winning the European Basketball Championship in 1995, the entire then Yugoslav national team raised three fingers. Raising three fingers, Aleksandar Đorđević stated: "We will not provoke. It's just - it's Serbia, it's us, it's me - nothing more. That is my pride. ” Serbian tennis player Novak Đoković showed three fingers after winning the match.Greetings are used by members and supporters of almost all Serbian political parties at their rallies during the election campaign. It can be seen at all kinds of street demonstrations and celebrations.ControversyCroats, Bosniaks and Albanians, who fought against Serbs, consider the three-fingered greeting a provocation. In a 1998 article, the Serbian daily Politika spoke of a "perennial demonization" of the greeting, "which has already entered the catalog of planetary gestures", along with a clenched fist, outstretched palm and a sign of victory.Yugoslav WarsWhen Russian peacekeepers entered Sarajevo in 1994, they greeted Serb forces with three fingers and were therefore labeled pro-Serb; UNPROFOR greeted Serbs with three fingers and Bosniaks with two fingers, showing impartiality in this way. There were cases when non-Serb detainees were forced to use greetings. During the War in Croatia, there were cases in which three fingers of the right hand of the massacred Serb civilians were cut off. A Krajina Serb woman interviewed by war correspondent Misha Gleni was missing three fingers. During the War in Kosovo and Metohija, Albanians attacked Serb refugees in a NATO convoy when they showed three greetings.Use in CroatianRade Leskovac, president of the Danubian Serb Party, sparked controversy in 2007 when his three-fingered election posters were placed around Vukovar. The art mural, which was painted on the wall of the school in Umag in 2015, was removed due to its resemblance to a Serbian greeting. Foreigners are warned not to use greetings in Croatia.As you can see, Serbs use it whenever we celebrate anything that is connected with Serbia.Serbian fans in Australia, you can see three finger salute all the time in this video. We simply see it as a Serbian identity salute. Some prefer open fingers, others prefer closed, as you can see.There are, however, now differing opinions among Serbs about the three fingers spread. Many believe that the real Serbian greeting is with three fingers together and only together. However the spread three fingers are already in use so now everyone is using them (spread three fingers represent the breaking of the Holy Trinity; in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it never should be separated).In recent years, the Serbian greeting of victory, saluting, is usually done with three spread fingers: thumb, forefinger and middle finger, and rarely has anyone asked what this greeting means, where and when it comes from. Those who really asked themselves this question came to very unexpected findings.We come to the Second World War. It is to be expected that we will see such a greeting on the multitude of photographs of fighters of the Ravnogorski, Chetnik, movement whose "heirs" mostly use this greeting. However, not a single picture shows anyone showing three fingers, nor is there any mention in any description of a significant event that anyone has ever shown three fingers as a sign of some enthusiasm. It is interesting that even foreigners who were in Chetnik units at that time do not even mention it. Nothing about three fingers among Serbs.Nevertheless, we have managed to find some sources from the time of the Second World War, which mention, or show such a greeting. It is surprising that these sources do not lead to Serbian Chetniks, or any other Serbian units, but to the very opposite side, to the Croatian Ustashas. Namely, the Croatian Ustashas, ​​about whom there is no need to waste words, took the oath to their "chief" in front of the Roman Catholic priest with three fingers spread, thumb, forefinger and middle finger, right hand. The Croatian Ustashas took over this greeting from the German SS units, although some sources suggest that the Croats used this greeting even in the First World War.Elite Serbian detachments in the Second World War, detachments of the Serbian Volunteer Corps, took a similar oath. The similarity is that the right hand was raised and that the little and the middle finger were placed in the same way as with the Ustashas, ​​but that is where every similarity ends. In both cases, the little and domestic fingers are joined and bent along the palm, in the Ustashas because otherwise the other three fingers cannot be spread, and in the SDK to show the unity of Divine and human nature in the Lord Jesus Christ. The warriors of the SDK took the oath to King Petar II Karađorđević with their thumb, forefinger and middle finger joined, as a symbol of the unity of the Holy Trinity, just as the Orthodox are overshadowed by the Holy Cross.The origin of this use of three fingers joined together, as well as small ones joined and bent on the palm, dates back to the fourth century, and the time of Saint Meletius, Archbishop of Antioch. At that time, Christians were fighting Arian heretics. Among other things, the dispute over the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ led Archbishop Meletius of Antioch to conjure up the triune unity of God with his hand. When Archbishop Meletije joined three previously spread fingers, light was seen from them like lightning.The first separation of the fingers, the "separation of the Holy Trinity" among Serbs, happened at the beginning of the 1990s, and the leader of the opposition at the time, and today the anti-Serbian leader Vuk Drašković, is most responsible for that. Since the time of the ascent of the unfortunate Drašković, Serbs have been forgetting the old Christian greeting with three fingers joined and taking the one with three fingers apart. This was also warned by various Chetnik newspapers in exile, but also by various youth national organizations in the homeland. We are left with the hope that future generations will have ears to hear the warnings we send them today, and that we will reject this way of saluting and renew the Orthodox greeting that we have been using for more than a thousand years.The greeting was popularized by Vuk Drašković,, the leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement during the March 9, 1991 demonstrations in Belgrade. At that rally, it represented three demands that the SPO demanded to be fulfilled. Vuk stated that the inspiration for that greeting was allegedly given by the picture of the uprising in Takovo in 1815, on which Prince Miloš holds up three fingers.Also, that greeting was popularized in the territory of Serbian Krajina by academician Dr. Jovan Raskovic, but according to his daughter Sanda, he did not give an explanation why he greets like that.Later, that greeting received other interpretations and grew into a general Serbian greeting. The greeting is an analogy with the way of baptism of the Orthodox, with three fingers of the right hand, which symbolize the Holy Father, the Holy Son and the Holy Spirit.Takovo upriseSource:Поздрав са три прстаZnačenje pozdrava tri prsta