The Cypriots modernizing fast!
NAZARETH, Israel (AP) -- Dressed in his embroidered robes, the Rev. Andreas Elime steps from the altar of St. Gabriel's Church and into the view of the Web cams on the church's marble pillars. His voice fills the empty 250-year-old sanctuary with a Greek Orthodox hymn, while a computer on a nearby pew transmits personal blessings to three Americans thousands of miles away.
Greek orthodox priest Andreas Elime prays near a laptop computer in the Basilica of the Annunciation in the northern Israeli town of Nazareth.
Christian pilgrims have long traveled to the boyhood town of Jesus to seek blessings. Now the Internet can save them the trip.
A service recently launched by Modefine Ltd., a Cyprus company, enables worshippers to log on and watch as a priest utters a prayer for them.
"This takes things to a new level," said James Martin, a Jesuit priest and associate editor of the Roman Catholic magazine America, who has watched religious trends develop on the Internet. Martin said in a telephone interview that the technology also gives believers a new way to carry out an old practice: asking others to pray for them in sacred place