Two Holy Fathers on the Calendar Issue: Elder Ephraim of Katounakia and Elder Joseph the Hesychast

by Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi

When the New Calendar entered into the life of the Church after 1924, the entire Holy Mountain, for reasons of tradition, maintained the use of the Old Calendar, without severing communion with and maintaining dependency upon the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and consequently, with the other Orthodox Churches.

Because of this calendar change, some Athonite Monks - the self-titled "Zealots"- broke their spiritual communion with the Patriarchate and the rest of the Holy Mountain. They would participate neither in Liturgies, nor in festal celebrations, nor even communicate with the rest of the fathers.

Katounakia was one of the centers of the Zealots and Papa Ephraim was one of them. Moved by spiritual zeal, both he and Elder Joseph the Hesychast initially joined the extremist party of the so-called "Matthewites". When an issue arises concerning the faith, naturally fanaticism will rise up.

The grandiose Matthew, who so occupied Athonite monasticism, proceeded from another Matthew, a Cretan monk. Matthew had obvious rebellious tendencies, and thus they readily induced him to take hold of some authority on account of the calendar disorder.

Increasing the degree of fanaticism surrounding the calendar change, and depicting the Church as lapsed, Matthew created that which pleased him. He became "super-orthodox" and worked up his followers with sermons and demonstrations. This still occurs today with some of his followers - a fresh wound to the bosom of the Church.

As always, every source of scandal creates fanaticism and unrest - mostly from ignorance - until the true state of affairs is revealed. It was natural for the fathers in the desert areas to be found among the fanatics, since anxiety and ignorance were prevalent, and because they had an acute fear that perhaps they would betray their faith.

Then, in opposition to the Matthewite harshness, the Florinite moderation appeared. The Florinites avoided the severity of the Matthewites, maintaining a milder stance, even though they were still "zealots". The fathers then turned towards this faction. They chose the "lesser of two evils" as the better even though they were still not at peace with this.

The living Church, unjustly cast aside, was protesting with their consciences, causing them unrest. The solution for them was prayer.

Elder Joseph the Hesychast turned with insistence to his sure refuge of prayer, seeking an answer from on high. "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me" (Ps. 48:15 LXX), was something that the blessed Elder knew well from his ascetic life.

Falling to his face with tears, pain of heart, and deep humility, he pleaded:

"We have sinned and trespassed against You, O Lord, and we have betrayed Your Most Holy will. Justly You have turned Your face from us, for we have confused and mocked the light of Your Truth. We have closed our eyes to the bedrock of the Truth, Your unswerving and unshakable Church, Your All-Holy Body, which You established amongst us through Your own presence, and which we have handed over to the conjectures of human thoughts and speculation. Remember, All-Good One, Your compassion and mercy towards us, for they are from the ages unto ages."

With pain and persistence, he continued knocking on the doors of God's compassion and mercy, and the All-Good One did not turn away from his humble supplication. As our blessed Elder Joseph related to us:

"During this intense petition, I was overcome by sleep. I discovered myself suddenly alone on one piece of the mountain of Athos that was separated from the rest. It stood in the oceans trembling from moment to moment, in danger of sinking into the sea. I was frightened and thought to myself, ‘Since this has broken off from the whole and is trembling, in a little while it'll sink and I'll be lost.’ Then, with one mighty leap, I found myself on the stable part of the mountain. Sure enough, the small section of rock that I had been standing on was swallowed up by the sea, and I glorified God Who had saved me from destruction! Immediately, I tied in the dream with the issue that had been occupying me and about which I had been petitioning the Lord not to allow me to be deceived in my judgment."

Similarly, while he was praying, Papa Ephraim of Katounakia heard a voice that told him, "In the person of the Florinites, you have renounced the entire Church."

The fathers found peace with this revelation that the Church had not ceased in its living presence. Afterwards, Elder Joseph also heard a divine voice inform him that, "the Church is found in the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople."

When, at the suggestion of Elder Joseph, they left the zealots and returned to communion with the rest of the Athonite Fathers, they truly came to know the power of Grace in the Mysteries they celebrated.

Papa Ephraim always used to see Divine Grace consecrating the venerable gifts into the body and blood of Christ during the Divine Liturgy. For the entire time he was with the zealots, he saw something like a veil in front of him, hindering him from seeing this Divine Grace distinctly. This veil was withdrawn when he returned to the living Church.

In speaking about this, Elder Ephraim said: "First I, then Old Joseph, received revelations spiritually regarding the calendar scandal; that is, that the living Church is in Constantinople and not in the faction of the so-called zealots. We returned then to the living Church, where the rest of the Holy Mountain also is."

After being reconciled with the Church once again under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in 1952 they went to the neighbouring brotherhood of Danielaioi to celebrate Pascha. The fathers welcomed them with much love: "Welcome, welcome. Elder Joseph, please take the stasidion [chair in church reserved for the elders]. Father Ephraim, please come and celebrate the Liturgy for us."

"The Danielaioi chanted the hymn 'Theotoke Parthene' (O Virgin Theotokos) on the solea and I, standing in the sanctuary, could almost see the Mother of God; so great and so tangible was the grace I was feeling,' the Elder confessed with nostalgia.

But Father Nikephoros (a companion of the elders), accustomed to their zealot neighbours, started grumbling and getting very upset. The Elder found himself in a difficult position. While praying, he felt that the will of God opposed him. He was frightened then. He consulted Elder Gabriel, the Abbot at the Monastery of Dionysiou, as well as Father Gerasimos, the Hymnographer. They told him: "My brother, obey your spiritual father." In prayer it was even harder. He felt that God had imposed a penance on him. The dilemma was whether to maintain obedience or follow the Church. He was forced to choose the first option, which made us realize that obedience is fundamental to the Church; for the divine founder of the Church "humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a Cross" (Phil. 2:8).

Then, he went through a crisis of conscience of another kind. He, who had been informed that he was subject to the Patriarchate, and that the word "Church" means love, which he found in the warm behaviour of Danielaioi; he whose heart leapt for joy when he said the word "Church" like a child's heart leaps when it needs its mother's hug; he who considered Elder Joseph and his brotherhood his own beloved family; how could he now abandon them? Fortunately, these doubts lasted only a few days. He then thought: "In spirit I will always be with the Church, but with my body I will be with the Zealots for a while, as long as my elder is alive."

Thus he made peace with himself. He waited patiently until 1975, i.e. for 23 years. He never gave anyone the right to criticize him. When he finally established his own brotherhood, he left the Zealots forever with great humility.

(Elder Ephraim of Katounakia: Obedience Is Life, by Holy Hesychasterion "St. Ephraim", Katounakia, Mount Athos; p.56)

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The 13 Martyrs of Kantara: Defenders of Leavened Bread In the Eucharist

The 13 Holy Martyrs of Kantara (Feast Day - May 19)

To the west of the Castle of Kantara in the province of Kyrenia on Cyprus, there is the Monastery of Panagia Kantariotissa, which was built in the 12th century and renovated by Archbishop Chrysanthos of Cyprus in 1777. In 1783 the iconostasis of the monastery's church was made gold and was decorated with icons.

In the early 13th century a group of thirteen monks who came from Mount Athos settled in the monastery and revived the ascetic way of life and Orthodox tradition on the island, which infuriated the Frankish rulers of Cyprus, and notably the Latin Church.

During the Frankish Period, the Latin Church, through its representatives in Cyprus, had made great persecutions against the Orthodox. The Orthodox Church of Cyprus has managed to survive only through constant struggle, with continued resistance and with many great sacrifices. The most striking Orthodox resistance against the Latins, is the suffering of the thirteen monks of the monastery of Panagia at Kantara. Their deaths, after horrific torture, took place on May 19, 1231 and it is on May 19th that the Orthodox Church honors their memory, because they have been declared saints.

The thirteen monks/saints were:
1. John (Abbot) 2. Conon 3. Jeremiah 4. Mark 5. Cyril 6. Theoktistos 7. Barnabas 8. Maximus 9. Theognostus 10. Joseph 11. Gennadius 12. Gerasimos 13. Germanos

As saints, they are unknown to the Cypriot chronographers. Details, however, about them and their suffering are found in a relevant text Titled "Diigisis: The thirteen Saints and Fathers who were killed through burning by the Latins in the island of Cyprus in the year 1231." The text "Diigisis" survived in two manuscripts of the 14th century - one (located at the National Library in Paris) written in 1426 and the second (No. 575 at the Marciana Library in Venice) manuscript was published originally by K. Sathas [Medieval Library, Volume B, Venice, 1873, pages.20-39].

From the manuscripts we derive the following information:

Two monks named John and Conon arrived in Cyprus in 1228 from a monastery in Pamphyla, Asia Minor. They settled at the Monastery of Panagia Kantariotissa, but all was not peaceful for the Orthodox in Cyprus.

The first conflict with the Latin clergy of Cyprus must have happened in 1228. It was during a time when the persecution of the Orthodox by the Latins in Cyprus was on the rise. The Latin Church on the island was informed about the great reputation of the monks of Kantara, and had sent a representative to the monastery named Andreas to inquire about the monks who were there.

The latter was welcomed and hosted and initially the entire conversation had a friendly tone, until they started to talk about the issue of using unleavened bread in communion, an issue which had caused much controversy between the Eastern Orthodox and Western Churches (the azymite controversy). The monks of Kantara confessed that during their Orthodox ritual they used leavened bread in accordance with tradition.

The dispute over the use or not of unleavened bread during the mystery of the Eucharist had arisen because the Latins believed that the Last Supper had happened during the day of unleavened bread, as evidenced by the Evangelist Luke. The Orthodox on the other hand supported that the Jews called "the day of the unleavened bread" the period between sunset on Good Thursday until sunset on Good Friday. And it was named so, not because during that time they ate unleavened bread, but because they prepared it. Therefore, since the Last Supper took place during the evening of Holy Thursday, Christ must have used bread made with yeast, and not bread without yeast, because the latter had not yet been prepared since its use was on Good Friday.

The big difference then, between the Orthodox and Latins was highlighted with an acute manner during the discussion between the Latin Andreas and the monks of Kantara, with the former leaving very angry from the monastery.

As the "Diigisis" records, the monks of Kantara had even suggested a process to establish which was the correct view about the use of unleavened bread. After both conducted the Liturgy, with them (using leavened bread) and the Latins (using unleavened), a representative of each faith had to fall in the fire to prove that the one of the two who advocated the truth would not burn! This suggestion was not accepted, and the monks were ordered to appear before the Latin archbishop of Nicosia to answer.

After an overnight vigil in their monastery, the thirteen monks began their journey to Nicosia the next day singing the 119th Psalm. In the monastery of Saint George of Mangana (or Saint George Lampontos) in Nicosia, where they arrived, Orthodox crowds flocked to see the monks of Kantara.

Then the monks came before the Latin archbishop who was called Efstorgios, and who was surrounded by a large number of Latin clergy. Efstorgios questioned them, and the monks with frankness argued also before him about the Orthodox view of the use of leavened bread. Then the Latin archbishop jailed them after earlier humiliating them through torture.

In prison, the monks remained, in accordance with the text "Diigisis", for three years, enduring much suffering. From the suffering in prison, one of them, Theognostus (Theodoretus), died. His body was burned by the Latins (April 5, 1231).
During the period of imprisonment, the monks were interrogated and tortured again and again, but the attempts to make them renounce their views about the use of leavened bread failed.

Finally, by order of the Pope, the monks were treated as heretics, which for them it meant torture and execution. Among other tortures they suffered, as it is reported in the text "Diigisis", they were also tied behind horses which dragged them along the river bed of the River Pidias which then passed through Nicosia (between Paphos Gate and the Gate of Famagusta). Finally, half dead, the monks were thrown and burned at the stake (May 19, 1231).

This terrible crime of the Latins caused great reaction both in Cyprus itself and outside it, and the Patriarch of Constantinople Germanos sent a letter addressed to Pope Gregory IX, and in his letter, among other things, he asked: "Well, Your Holiness, Beatitude and Apostle Peter's successor. Is this what a meek and humble of heart disciple of Christ orders to happen to monks?"

Also, Germanos wrote to Pope Gregory that the suffering and death of the monks of Kantara was the last event needed to complete the course of war between the two Churches. The King of Cyprus Henry I was also involved in the crime because he had been forced by the Latin priests to order the torture and killing of the monks. This is because the Latin churchmen felt that they, themselves as priests, could not provide such a mandate!

The monastery of Panagia Kantariotissa continued its existence after the tragedy of the thirteen monks, and its final dissolution happened in the late 19th, or early 20th century. Today only the church of the monastery is preserved which is in a very advanced stage of deterioration because of the looting it suffered by the Turkish invaders after 1974, and by not being maintained.

The remains of Panagia Kantariotissa church

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Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance

May 19th is the memorial day for the victims innocently killed in Pontos.

The Pontian Greek Genocide was enacted by the Turks who were acting under the leadership of the mass murderer Kemal Ataturk.

Records kept mainly by priests show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through systematic slaughter by Turkish troops. Other estimates, including those of foreign missionaries, spoke of 500,000 deaths.

Read more here and here.




News story: Mass grave of Pontian Greeks Discovered


Greek Genocide survivors recall the removal and destruction of all able-bodied Greek men from their towns.

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Exclusive Interview With Abbot Ephraim of Vatopaidi

May 16, 2010
Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia
by Yianna Papadakou

Father Ephraim unleashes both fire and meaningful messages against members of the Karamanlis government in an interview with the Kyrakatik Elefterotypia, shortly before the final verdict of the investigating committee for the Vatopaidi scandal.

He reveals that it was the then Prime Minister Karamanlis who had the initiative to meet with him at Holy Mount Athos back in July 2006! However, he insists that the only subject of the discussion was the creation of the 'Saint Gregory Palamas Foundation'. But, he avoids connecting the establishment of the Foundation at the Olympic land, even though its building plans had been in place since 2006, something the then Prime Minister knew about.

Regarding Th. Rousopoulos he declares: ”We have not had any contact these days because of the defamation he went through” and insists that their relationship was purely spiritual. He says that G. Angelou was visiting the monastery every Feast of the Saturday of Saint Lazarus, but “they had never asked him to intercede so that the exchanges of land would take place…”

He declares with meaning that they had been drawn into the exchanges “by the previous government”. He attributes this stance to the reaction of the local authorities and stresses that this was the reason why Xanthi’s land had been exempt from the exchanges.

Do you really feel that you have been the cause of the scandal? Did you make any mistakes in the Vatopaidi case? Do you go to confession? Do you have a spiritual father?

- Let me clarify first of all, that this case is not a scandal. It is about the longstanding ongoing effort to protect the monastery’s property rights on the Vistonida Lake and its surrounding land against the Greek government. It came to light and was presented as a “scandal” in order to darken the image of the monastery and its long-standing presence, which in reality it is a centre of attraction for thousands of Christians throughout the world. If I could turn the clock back, I am not sure if I would let the monastery been drawn into these exchanges. I would have certainly asked the Greek government to safeguard the interests of the monastery as a legal entity. If this was a mistake, it will be assessed once this furor settles down, after the completion of all investigations, many years from now, I am afraid. I have always had a spiritual father. Confession is one of the Mysteries of the Church.


Who started the restoration of the monastery? Did you explain all these to the ministers of the former government? What help did you ask from them?

- The Great and Holy Monastery of Vataipedi became coenobitic in 1990, after the 18 monk brotherhood moved there, under my spiritual guidance. This task was especially difficult since the monastery had almost collapsed, most of the buildings had not been restored, but had been deserted and some had almost given way. One could also find some priceless relics, manuscripts, incunabula, historic documents etc, which were in danger of being destroyed or lost. We took under our wing a monastery spanning 35 thousand square kms, which together with its surroundings occupied an area larger than 70 thousand square kms, with mostly deserted and ruined buildings. We then started thinking how to give back to the monastery its old prestige. Therefore, we began commissioning studies, restoring the monastery and applying for the European community funding programs. I had never discussed these issues with any minister. On the contrary, I can say that most ministers had shown a negative attitude towards our effort to protect our property rights and we had met with immense difficulties in looking after them.

Did you have any private discussions with the former Prime Minister? What was the reason for the meeting in question?

- The former Prime Minister visited the Holy Mount Athos at his own initiative towards the end of July 2006. According to the Protocol provisions, he previously had come into contact with the Holy Community and the monasteries he wanted to visit were Vatopaidi and Iveron. There was no particular reason for the visit and we had not had any discussion with the former Prime Minister on the issue of the land exchanges. On the contrary, we only mentioned the establishment of the ‘Saint Gregorios Palamas Foundation', which intended to carry out a multiple charitable operation, for which he had promised to help where he could.

What was your relationship with Th. Rousopoulos? Do you keep in touch?

- My relationship with Rousopoulos was purely spiritual. Unfortunately because of the developments and the defamation he went through, we do not keep in touch these days. Unfortunately, faith and spirituality had come to be regarded as a punitive act.

Do you believe that the circulation of billions of Euros through companies, some of them offshore, is consistent with the Holy Mount Athos’ spirituality?

- Firstly, I must clarify that Vatopaidi had never itself undertaken any entrepreneurship. This is not our mission. It is for this reason that the monastery has assigned the management of its funds to third parties, specialists. I must firmly declare that the monastic community uses these monies entirely for the completion of the monastery’s restoration, the restoration of the holy relics, the feeding and hospitality of monks and visitors and conducting its charitable mission.

You have an impressive number of visitors at Vatopaidi. What did you mean when you told the investigating committee that “We are a national centre, we are truly serving the nation?”

- In every Orthodox country, the monasteries are centers whereby tradition and religion are protected. Vatopaidi is one such monastery. It totally conserves the nation’s tradition and serves Orthodoxy. I believe this is a great mission, a mirror of our nation and an ark of Orthodox tradition. This constitutes a true honor for Greece because of all those who visit us, simple citizens and even national leaders.

Do you actually believe that there have been some government officials who secretly collected monies in order to supply you with the governmental pieces of land?

- I firmly declare, “No”. It would constitute a great injustice to pretend otherwise. In fact, we have asked that all our bank accounts be revealed so that it is shown where every amount went to. As far as I know, evidence from the Bank of Greece investigation shows that no monies have been given to any government officials from third parties. As far as the so called “prime pieces” of land are concerned, (this reference is clearly the invention by some in order to misguide the authorities and the public), I must tell you that the land that the government gave to Vatopaidi in exchange for its assignment of the Vistonida Lake and its surrounding areas, can in no way be described as “prime pieces”. On the contrary, most of the land they offered us was inappropriate for any use, either because some building regulations were in place, or it was forest land, or like the Olympic land, it did not fulfill the safety regulations for the construction of any institution.


What would you give as a reply to Mr. Tsitourides statement that you had been directing the assignment of specific pieces of land which you desired, using a laptop?

- Firstly, I do not know the reasons behind Mr. Tsitourides lies. He was one of those who had recognized our property rights on the Vistonida Lake and its surroundings, and wished to proceed with the exchanges. However, I must firmly declare, that under no circumstances had we any knowledge of the available lands nor had we any right to pin point and chose. In any case, I do not know what is a ‘laptop’.

You have stated to the investigating committee that you had been drawn into the exchanges. Who had dragged you in and who benefited in the end?

- Since 1998, all governments had recognized with several documents and decisions, that Vatopaidi was the rightful owner of the Vistonida Lake and its surroundings. The act of exchange for this land was not our choice. It was the initiative of the then government who had to pacify the local authorities who had been demanding that we vacate the area, which led us to the exchanges. In his statement the President of the Litigation Committee of Xanthi, Mr. Ath. Xinides admitted that the exchanges were the result of their protests. Mr. Xinides was one of the most important local representatives and was related to the general secretary of the PASOK house committee. This was also stated to the investigating committee by other witnesses in 2008, like the former Minister of Agricultural Development, Mr. Basiakos and the former under Secretary Kontos. Why did the media never mention these truths to inform the public? We had been dragged into these exchanges, under pressure by the former government, and as a result we were made to look as if we had been participating in a political game, in which we had in fact been the losers.

What was your relationship with Mr. G. Angelou? Did you ever ask him to intervene in order to help you with the case?

- Mr Angelou had been visiting our monastery for three consecutive years during the Feast of the Saturday of Saint Lazarus. I had never ever asked him to mediate on anything.

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"Illuminati" Spelled Backwards Is "Itanimulli"?

Now go to this website and what do you see: http://www.itanimulli.com/

Then see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu0944l0phs&feature=player_embedded

Now read this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SUwLykr6yuYJ:snardfarker.ning.com/profiles/blogs/itanimullicom-ltlt-the-facts+ITANIMULLI.COM+the+facts&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Lesson: When you connect the dots, make sure you get your facts right.

* This is an expose of the Itanimulli hoax.

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Documentary: "Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer"

Website: http://mysteriesofthejesusprayer.com

Starring: Dr. Norris Chumley and V.Rev. Dr. John A McGuckin

Plot Outline: Christian monks and nuns appear on film describing and demonstrating their personal prayers of the heart and soul, for the first time ever on film. On a spiritual journey from the Holy lands of Egypt, to Mt. Sinai, Mt. Athos in Greece, Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Russia, Dr. Norris and Father John retrace the steps of ancient pilgrims in search of a word of wisdom from the ancient desert and forest dwellers.

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Prince Charles To Return To Mount Athos

Charles To Make Spiritual Return

March 7,2010
By Adam Helliker
Express.co.uk

AS HE approaches his fifth wedding anniversary next month, Prince Charles is feeling the need for a male-only spiritual recharge: he is contemplating a solo sojourn to a monastery in northern Greece.

The religious enclave of Mount Athos, where no woman has set foot since the 11th century (and even female animals are banned), was a favourite retreat for Charles during his testing times with his first wife Diana. But since his marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles he has not felt the need to return, until now.

On previous visits to the remote religious community, the Prince has joined in prayer and meditation with monks during the mornings, spending his afternoons painting watercolours of the imposing monasteries dotted among the lush scenery.

Normally visitors to the self-governing republic have to share a dormitory, as well as the frugal lifestyle embraced by the monks, but in the only concession to his royal status, Charles is allocated a small whitewashed “cell”. He sleeps on a steel-framed bed with a foam mattress (possibly not the best choice for a man with an ever-aching back who is in his 62nd year).

There are nearly 2,000 monks housed in the republic’s monasteries, all of whom have devoted their lives to shunning sexual desire through prayer and following the Greek Orthodox faith. Every meal is taken in silence.


Charles was first introduced to Mount Athos by his father, who was born in Corfu and had to switch to Anglicanism from Greek Orthodoxy to marry the Queen. Philip’s mother, Alice, was deeply religious and became a nun in her later life. When she died in 1969 she left no possessions, having given everything away, and was buried, as she had requested, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Speaking about Charles’s last visit, one of the monks said: “Your Prince is always welcome here. It is a place where he seems to have found a lot of serenity in his life. He is treated just like a fellow monk and lives just as we do, from the food we eat to the hours we keep.”

A senior royal source adds that, increasingly as he gets older, Charles “is seeking answers to spiritual and philosophical questions. Nourishing the spirit is very important to him these days. He is a man beset by many pressures, so he relishes the prospect of spending time alone, with the time to concentrate on spiritual matters.”

Clarence House has always adhered to the line that the Prince’s visits are considered “private” and gives no details of whether, and when, he would go but if he does travel to Mount Athos this year, it’s likely to be in May.

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10 Reasons I Believe the Holy Light Is a Miracle 3

Continued from Part Two

Reason One: The Insufficiency of All Skeptical Claims (Part 2)

3. Pseudo-Witnesses and Pseudo-Evidence

The fact that critics of the miraculous properties of the Holy Light base their critique on the presuppositions of their worldview and present contradictory explanations for the phenomenon, it naturally follows that their testimony is based on pseudo-witnesses and their proofs are based on pseudo-evidence. Let us examine how this is so.

In order to have sufficient evidence even to doubt the miraculous properties of the Holy Light, one would need at least one of the following:

A. Someone who has personally witnessed or taken part in the fraudulent act and can sufficiently explain away the entire experience naturalistically.

B. Sufficient evidence that completely undermines the witnesses of this phenomenon who testify to the miraculous properties of the Holy Light.

Based on these criteria, no one since the time this phenomenon began centuries ago has presented a sufficient witness or sufficient evidence even to justify why any doubts exist outside of personal choice. They have certainly tried and have had many reasons to do so, but it has all been unsuccessful. Such reasoning confirms for us that there are other factors at play in the assault against the evidence in favor of the Holy Light being a supernatural phenomenon. To further add to the propaganda to discredit the Holy Light as a miracle, skeptics throughout the centuries until today present pseudo-witnesses and pseudo-evidence in their efforts to undermine the miracle.

Because skeptics often make use of the concepts of "eye-witnesses" and "personal testimony", it is important to turn to the field of Law, or Jurisprudence, as a branch of learning, because centuries-old international legal custom and established legal practices have worked out clear, well-defined criteria which precisely determine who can be admitted as a witness and what evidence can be submitted in a court case. In all systems of law, and even in everyday use of the word "witness", a reliable witness is a person who was personally present at a given event, that is, they saw it with their own eyes, they were eye-witnesses.

Skeptics of the Holy Light use as "witnesses" people who were not participants nor present in any way at the described event, except maybe at a disassociated distance. We can again bring forward the Muslim writers presented by Iosif Evstafevich Krachkovsky (1854-1914). In his analysis of these accounts, Krachkovsky observes the following:

“In the above-given survey, it is easy to see the main thing distinguishing Muslim stories about the miracle from Christian [reports about it]. The Muslim stories are all understandably brief, sometimes coming down to a simple mentioning (al-Djakhiz, Ali-al-Kherevi); none of them is based on personal observation. The one exception is Ibn-al-Djawzi and its source, al-Biruni, analysis of which we will defer for the time being. The fact that these are transmissions of a third-hand account explains such immediately obvious mistakes, as the date in al-Mac’udi, or Ibn-al-Qalanisi’s report of the belief of Christians about the place of the birth and ascension of Jesus Christ [as supposedly being the same place as His Resurrection]. In these stories, the factual side comes down to very little; from them we can sift out only that, during the whole time relating to the lives of the above-mentioned authors, the miracle took place every year and was a well-known, regularly-occurring event. Description of the miracle itself and of the whole rite is found solely in Ibn-al-Djawsi [this is the eyewitness-account reported by al Biruni which will be analyzed below]. All the remaining elements of the other reports should be regarded not as legitimate, historical accounts but as legendary stories. In one of them, with complete obviousness, are the telling effects of literary editing and reworking of the plot; this is the story [not quoted in this article] about the conversation of the high-ranking person with the monk concerning the 'real' cause of the miracle. This story may have arisen as an attempt to give meaning to the destruction by al-Hakim [the mad caliph] of the Jerusalem church through [the literary technique of] his possible conversation with someone in his retinue, as presented originally by Ibn-al-Qalanisi and al-Hariri [spelling?]. All the subsequent versions clearly represent reworkings of the storyline and details, where instead of al-Hakim is a ruler (in Yakut = Al-Kasvini) or al-Melik al-Mu’assam (in al-Jawharī’s story) or, finally, Saladdin himself (in Ibn-al_Djawzi; and instead of someone in his retinue — a monk (in-al-Jawharī), a priest (in Yakut = al-Kasvini) or [even] the patriarch (in Ibn-al-Djawzi)."

The trend by the Muslim writers highlighted above by Krachkovsky is the same exact trend which has continued among non-believers over the centuries until our times, with the only difference that they are done by people with different backgrounds that fit their biases and presuppositions. Because of this, the simple facts are discarded and the most absurd stories are spun to discredit the miracle.

4. Skepticism Based on Speculation Rather Than Empirical Evidence

In recent decades skeptics have arisen who are trying to bring to public awareness that the Holy Light is a natural phenomenon which can be scientifically explained and recreated. What do we mean by science and what do we mean by speculation? Solid science deals with areas where we have definite knowledge, good evidence. Speculation deals with areas where we have too little knowledge and information to make definite statements which are confirmable. So is the scientific evidence of the skeptics solid science or speculation?

It is true that the skeptics present a certain level of evidence for recreating certain aspects of the Holy Light, but the facts are that a great deal of speculation is required to piece the theory together as a valid explanation for the Holy Light miracle which occurs. For example, there is the case of the well-known skeptic in Greece Mr. Michael Kalopoulos, who enjoys being condescending to believers in the Holy Light on Greek TV. His whole argument rests on a dazzling spectacle in which he dips the wick of a candle in liquid phosphorus, and within minutes ignites on its own. Those who are naive of basic chemistry are indeed dazzled, not knowing what to think, some even dismissing the miraculous properties of the Holy Light immediately, as if the Patriarch uses such a concoction to simulate a miracle. Though the science he presents is correct in itself, it presents such an unsatisfactory answer to account for the miracle that any reasonable person must immediately dismiss it as a non-explanation. If the miracle occurred in a strictly scientifically controlled environment, then maybe it may have some value, but the fact is that his brief experiment explains nothing and recreates little when compared to the evidence: flashes of lightning, the self-ignition of individual candles among the crowd, the non-burning properties of the fire. It also presents certain problems, such as the fact that burning phosphorous is poisonous, yet there are no health problems in the crowded church of people holding these candles, and the fact that the phosphorous takes a matter of minutes to ignite when the wicks are drenched, but people purchase their candles well in advance of the ceremony. Let alone the fact that he would have to account for a wild conspiracy theory for the Patriarchs of Jerusalem using such tactics to deceive the faithful over the centuries. We will examine all this "evidence" presented by Kalopoulos in much more detail later.

This is pretty much the extent of the scientific evidence presented by skeptics, which is quite pathetic considering the extent they go to to dismiss the miracle. Presuppositions play a much greater role, as we examined earlier. As far as Kalopoulos is concerned, his agenda presented in his publications is to restore the ancient Greek religion among the Greek people and expose Christianity as false. He therefore uses a dazzling spectacle to shock the sensibilities of the audience, then offers a bunch of speculation to explain away the entire phenomenon of the Holy Light, and this comes from a man who has never witnessed the miracle in person nor accounts for all the evidence that supports the miracle.

Continued...Reason One: The Insufficiency of All Skeptical Claims (Part 3)

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We Are All The Children Of Byzantium

Professor Judith Herrin of Princeton University and King’s College delivered the 18th Runciman Lecture in London in February of 2009.

Despite the snow and the transport problems, the annual lecture in honor of the great scholar of Byzantium, Steven Runciman, was held as scheduled at King's College in London on Thursday. In the university amphitheater, after vespers in the chapel, Professor Judith Herrin of Princeton and King's College delivered the 18th Runciman Lecture on the subject «We Are All Children of Byzantium.»

The lecture coincided with the Byzantium 330-1453 exhibition which is being hosted by the Royal Academy in London. Below is an abridged version of Professor Herrin's lecture.

Tonight my aim is to celebrate Byzantium and its great civilization. My title has been chosen to follow in the well-laid paths of allegory - and initially I did not intend to suggest that «we» are in any biological way «children» of Byzantium. But in fact, many in this audience really will be descendants of Byzantine families, who can trace their genealogies back to the dynasties of Palaiologos, Komnenos or Laskaris. In addition, many contemporary Greek names reflect Byzantine origins: Xylis, Dragazis, Kedros or Lemos, others are identified as descendants by an addition to their names, the Costopouloi, Dimopouloi and Stathakopouloi, and yet others declare their proud ancestry in the Levant/Levent.

And together with these natural descendants, an even larger number might be adopted or spiritual children. Spiritual kinship, a prominent feature of many societies, ancient, medieval and modern, was widely practised in Byzantium as well as Islam and the medieval West. Children were regularly sponsored by godparents, linked to a particular teacher by a tradition of learning, to a master by service, or were simply adopted by other families.

In a lecture named after Steven Runciman it might be appropriate to suggest that he was a child of Byzantium by adoption. He adopted the identity of Byzantinist as a sort of self-definition, and many of us are proud to follow in his footsteps. On such an occasion, it hardly seems necessary to repeat our great debt to Steven, but this is an opportunity to thank our patron, Nicholas Egon, who set up an annual lecture in his name while Steven was still alive. Many will recall the times he sat in the front row and enjoyed the lectures by my distinguished predecessors and asked a penetrating question. This evening I would like to draw attention to one of Runciman's less well-known dictums - «I often wonder if it was the strength of Byzantine women that kept the empire going for so long.»

Thanks to the efforts of many scholars the epithets traditionally associated with Byzantium are being rolled back; the bad old stereotypes are being countered by substantive demonstrations of what the empire achieved in its millennial history, and what that means for us today… It's now possible to stress that from its inception the newly Christianized empire of Rome in the East Mediterranean was in contact with a vast range of other forces, initially Persian, Turkic, even Chinese, and later Islam, pagan Russia, the Slavs, Vikings and Jewish communities among others. These contacts were military, diplomatic, theological and sometimes involved intellectual debate. Not only did Byzantium define its character and role in relation to this wider world, but it also influenced even distant countries in the process. Its ancient Greek heritage as well as the formative Eastern, Roman and Christian features all played a part in the shaping of Europe, the Balkans and the medieval Mediterranean world.

Model for empires

Sometimes we may only find these influences at second hand, for instance, in the coronation ritual of European monarchs or the adaptation of Roman law to serve a medieval Christian society. But its examples still echo, for instance in a proud monarchy that was also linked to a most unusual cosmopolitanism. In this particular association, Byzantium set a model for most subsequent empires (the Hapsburg, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Russian). These were, in the main, true children and descendants of Byzantium. And today, a similar model of acceptance and toleration of difference may be cited as a guiding principle for contemporary metropoleis, like our own London.

In terms of imperial philanthropy, patronage of the arts, diplomacy and military tactics, Byzantine practice informed and helped to form its neighbors. And in the context of preserving and transmitting ancient wisdom with detailed commentary and explanation, Byzantine scholars excelled in many fields: medical, astronomical, historical and literary. Without making an excessive claim for the Byzantine contribution to world civilization, if we look at it more closely, we can see that Byzantium also continues to be our cousin

In this process of recognizing Byzantium as an integral part of our world, rather than the dead zone between us and the Greco-Roman world as Voltaire and Gibbon perceived it, many benefactors have helped - particularly in the mounting of great exhibitions - the recent ones in New York and London, supported by the J.F. Costopoulos, A.G. Leventis and the Stavros Niarchos foundations. In addition to whatever else they do, these major shows have attracted large crowds to admire the artistic products of Byzantium, and this wider appreciation is another factor in ending the received stereotypes. So building on that greater awareness, I would like to look at specific issues, individuals and objects, which help us to celebrate the many «children of Byzantium.» Recently, this term was also used by a politician - I will tell you which one at the end of my lecture. But now I propose that we all imagine ourselves «children of Byzantium» for the next 45 minutes or so, while I use the epithet to trace out some of the less obvious ways in which Byzantium continues to have an impact on us today.

Systematic endogamy

Young princes and princesses were regularly employed in political alliances. Sons, normally crowned as co-emperor by their fathers at a tender age, were often married to foreign princesses who arrived in Constantinople to be trained in Byzantine customs. Daughters had a harder role, because they might be sent abroad to reinforce peace treaties with the empire's enemies. In anthropological terms, Byzantine rulers practiced a systematic exogamy, marrying out, moderated by endogamy, when partners were chosen from among imperial subjects. But it was a gendered form of exogamy where females did all the moving, whether they were imperial princesses going out or outsiders coming in. This should remind us that women are bearers of meaning; they change their names at marriage, and carry their natal cultures from one social group to another. In the case of outgoing princesses, this responsibility was very strong; for incoming brides, however, acquiring Byzantine traditions was the more pressing need.

Yet imperial children, girls and boys, had no choice in the matter: Their marriages were arranged with a view to consolidating imperial policy, as were the marriages of most children of medieval rulers. The tradition was inherited from Rome and had become more developed as non-Roman forces pressed into the empire in the West during the 5th century AD. Political alliances, reinforced by marriage, became a more common way of trying to sustain foreign relations without constant fighting. In Byzantium, as dynastic monarchy became stronger, it was symbolized in the purple chamber, constructed to guarantee the legitimacy of imperial offspring, a notion that no other empire was able to emulate. The principle of «sacrificing» a high-born or imperial young woman to the wishes of a non-Roman ruler was clearly appreciated by the outsiders. But also perhaps by those women locked within the imperial system.

Let's start in the 5th century with the case of Galla Placidia, daughter of Emperor Theodosius I. After the sack of Rome in 410, when she was aged between 17 and 22, she was carried off as a prisoner by Athaulf, the Gothic leader. He took her to Gaul where in 414 they celebrated their marriage in great style and later she gave birth to their son, who was named Theodosius after his Roman grandfather. To their sorrow he died early in 415 and Athaulf was murdered. Galla was brought back to Rome as part of a new treaty concluded between Visigoths and Romans. In 417 she was married to a Roman general Constantius, and they had two children: Honoria and Valentinian. And then Constantius died.

Having experienced the loss of her two husbands, Galla seems to have determined to take her fate into her own hands. She must have played a part in her 5-year-old son's promotion to Caesar in 424 and assumed a major role as regent and mother of the future emperor of the West. For the next 25 years she dominated the imperial court at Ravenna, promoting the orthodox Christian cult through new churches designed to rival the Arian Christian monuments. Galla Placidia died at Rome in November 450 and was probably buried there. What is called her mausoleum at Ravenna was probably an oratory dedicated to St Lawrence. She exemplified a pattern of female authority that was to have a long life in Byzantium. It may also have inspired her own daughter, Honoria.

When Honoria was about 8 years old she was appointed empress. This was highly unusual. She therefore grew up as a woman accorded the highest authority in the Roman world and coins were struck in her honor. Instead of marrying, however, she lived in her own palace in Ravenna and began to plot against her brother Valentinian III with her steward Eugenius. When their schemes were discovered, Eugenius was killed and Honoria was exiled and forcibly betrothed to a wealthy senator. She then conceived a daring plan to avoid marrying him by calling on none other than Attila the Hun, to rescue her. She was able to do this by sending her trusted eunuch servant Hycinthus to the dreaded enemy of Rome with gold and, more important, her own ring. Attila interpreted the message as a declaration of her desire to marry him and quickly took up her cause - he demanded that Theodosius grant him «his bride» and half the western territories ruled by Valentinian (as her dowry) - and then set out to make good his claim. Curiously, in Constantinople this outrageous demand was considered more sympathetically than in Rome, where Valentinian was horrified.

And the threat was real enough; in 451 and again in 452, Attila advanced against the West, to rescue Honoria and take over Gaul, the part of the empire which he coveted. On both occasions he was held off. Only his unexpected death in 453 released the Roman world from the Hunnic threat. While this story is well known, there is another tantalizing possibility. Could it be the case that when Attila was held hostage in the Roman court he may have seen the young Honoria, who also spent a short time in the eastern capital with her mother Galla Placidia in 423? As a 12-year-old, Attila arrived in Byzantium in 418 as a guarantee for his uncle's good behavior. Huns were frequent visitors to the imperial court… In 423 he would have been about 17 years old, while Honoria was 5. Did she notice him? Did Attila see the young princess from Ravenna? We can imagine this wonderful moment, which may have occurred: two parties of hostages, Huns and imperial women from the West with Gothic connections - they could have met. They had both shared the «gilded cage» as unwilling guests of the imperial court, exposed to the same Byzantine traditions. If true, this would have given Honoria an additional reason for appealing to Attila 25 years later, as one royal hostage to another!

I have dwelt on these two well-known examples because they typify the Byzantine attitude to imperial children: The notion that princes and princesses could strengthen alliances, induce warmer relations with aggressive barbarian leaders and bring them into the civilizing fold of Byzantine influence continued till the very end of the eastern empire. It was realized in 731 when Leo III betrothed his son to the daughter of the Khazar leader, attempted several times in the late eighth and ninth centuries and successfully negotiated in 927. After making peace with the Bulgarians, Romanos I sent his granddaughter Maria to marry Tsar Symeon's son, Peter, in a union designed to secure the political alliance. Maria, who was renamed Peace in honor of the union, seems to have established a pro-Byzantine faction in Bulgaria which was not appreciated by Symeon's other sons, but it persuaded Peter to remain an ally of her grandfather and his successor Constantine VII. She kept in touch with her natal family, making visits back to Constantinople until her death in about 963.

'Invented tradition'

Although the policy appeared to have worked, Emperor Constantine VII later denounced his father-in-law for sending Maria off to Bulgaria, using the specious argument that Byzantine princesses should never be married to barbarians. Only the Franks in western lands might be permitted this privilege, because Constantine the Great had come from those parts. In 944 Romanos I had married his grandson to another western bride, Bertha, daughter of King Hugo of Provence. When he condemned the Bulgarian marriage but praised the Frankish one, Constantine was confirming an «invented tradition» that involved his own son.

The outstanding example of these unions is Theophano, niece of John I Tzimiskes. For several years the German emperor Otto I had wanted an imperial princess, born in the purple, for his son and heir, and sent Liutprand of Cremona to negotiate such a union, without success. But after a change of emperor, Theophano was finally dispatched to the West in 971. Some commentators noted that she was not a porphyrogennetos, a child born in the purple, but merely the niece of John I. They all, however, described the magnificent gifts she brought with her, and observed her numerous attendants and gifts with curiosity. She is the key instance of a pro-Byzantine plant in Western Europe through her marriage in 972 to Otto II, which was also recorded on an imitation Byzantine charter. She bore Otto three daughters and finally a son Otto III. The half-Byzantine prince received Greek education and displayed himself in imperial style. Theophano tried to arrange a Byzantine bride for him, and after her death negotiations were successfully concluded. The emperor's daughter, Zoe, was selected to perform the role. But in 1002 just as Zoe landed at Bari, Otto III died, so she had to turn around and go back to Byzantium where she then had a brilliant career. As a true born in the purple princess, she married three times and raised another man to the position of emperor, but to her sadness she never became a mother. This brought the Macedonian dynasty to an end.

Theophano, meanwhile, exercised considerable power in the medieval West, signing charters for her young son while she was regent, and on one occasion even adopting the masculine form of emperor, imperator, rather than the feminine. But two generations or so later, when most people would have retained only a slight memory of her ecclesiastical foundations and patronage, she gained notoriety from the condemnations of clerics like St Peter Damian, and this indicates why such aristocratic ladies from Byzantium were not appreciated in the West. They criticized Theophano for introducing diaphanous silk dresses, which they considered indecent, and extravagant jewelry (which made western women jealous), and for taking endless baths and washing, which they considered unnecessary.

Peter Damian also associated her with another Byzantine princess, Maria Argyropoulaina who married the son of the Doge of Venice in 1004. He complained that she used eunuchs to cut up her food, and then ate with a little two-pronged gold fork; insisted on washing in rainwater, and burnt many sweet smelling herbs in her rooms in Venice. Finally, he prophesied that Maria would end up in hell for such indecent and wicked actions. Later we shall see how this marriage formed a link in the ongoing connections between Constantinople and Venice.

These children of Byzantium, who impressed their husbands and appear to have performed an ambassadorial role to great effect, also upset celibate clergy in the Western church - an early example perhaps of people in the West projecting onto Byzantium the anxieties of their own society.

Different problems were faced by other princesses sent to newly evangelized territories of Bulgaria or to pagan Russia, e.g. Anna, sister of Basil II, who had the harder task since her husband Vladimir was hardly Christian and had developed a clear military rivalry with Byzantium. But since she represented the faith that the Russians were obliged to accept in order for the marriage to go ahead, she could at least act as a patron of Orthodoxy. Anna founded churches and monasteries to spread the new faith. And the founding saints of the Russian Church, Boris and Gleb, are sometimes traced back to Vladimir and Anna.

During the 11th century this tradition of out-marriage fell into disuse not because of a change of Byzantine policy but because Basil and Constantine failed to marry the three purple-born princesses of the Macedonian dynasty. Other generals from leading families took over power until Alexios Komnenos established his authority. At his accession, the Byzantine family hierarchy was re-established with a vengeance and continued through five generations. Despite Constantine VII's advice, an increasing number of western brides were sought for imperial princes. And in the 13th to 15th centuries, Byzantine princesses were even more frequently sent abroad to sustain alliances with the foreign powers that now encircled the capital.

'Family of kings'

One consequence of this marriage policy was the creation of a «family of kings» based in Constantinople, where emperors devised a virtual system of relatives with titles and ranks to form a hierarchy of precedence. At the time of the conversion of the Bulgar Khan Boris, emperor Michael III performed the role of godfather and gave the newly Christian ruler his own name, a clear example of spiritual adoption. This connection also implied a father to son relationship between the two rulers although it did not prevent serious challenges to Byzantine influence in Bulgaria under Boris-Michael's son Symeon.

Nonetheless, the conversion of the Bulgars, their closer relationship to the empire and the patriarch of Constantinople, and the marriage of Maria to Tsar Peter helped to prevent further outbreaks of war. Such informal family relations were not always understood, and many foreigners felt themselves slighted (and their masters insulted) when they were not seated close to the emperor's table at state banquets. In 963, when Liutprand, ambassador from the western emperor Otto I, realized that the Bulgarians were given places of honor, he felt this as a direct snub and complained. But according to the principle of «the family of kings,» the «barbarians» who represented the Bulgarian Tsar, that is the emperor's «brother» naturally took precedence over the envoy of the German ruler.

As in real families, the various «children» of the «father» often quarrelled over their honorary titles and costumes, possessions and access to the head of the family. But the emperor attempted to sweeten their differences in a fatherly fashion. He also demanded that his relatives abroad send their own young children to the Byzantine capital as hostages for good behavior. This was a typical Roman ploy to secure military negotiations: After a victory, the defeated enemy was obliged to let the emperor take his young sons and even daughters off to Constantinople. We have already seen how this may have affected Attila the Hun, back in the early fifth century, and an even more striking instance is the Ostrogoth, Theoderic, who spent almost a decade in Constantinople during the 460s, as a guarantee of his father's loyalty. In numerous cases, the result was a very curious mix of influence and resentment.

In this way, some filial respect was induced among the barbarians - Symeon, grandson of Boris/Michael acquired such a deep knowledge of Greek that he was called half a Hellene, though this didn't prevent him from challenging Byzantium and claiming the title basileus. Later in the 11th century the young Georgian princess Marta/Maria was sent to Constantinople as a hostage for the good behavior of her father. The imperial court must have had special facilities for these foreigners who had to be looked after and attended the court on every ceremonial occasion. I think we have to imagine classes for a mixture of children: Education in Greek language, Roman history, verses of Homer, military tactics and all the other aspects of medieval culture, taught by court eunuchs whose loyalty to imperial ideology was beyond question.

Finally, who also said we are all children of Byzantium?

In November 2004, in connection with Turkey's application to join the EU, Jacques Chirac addressed a student conference in Marseille, the day after a large demonstration against Turkish membership. His use of the phrase is interesting on many counts, not least the fact that some Turks are indeed also claiming to be children of Byzantium: They emphasize how firmly the Ottomans maintained imperial traditions into the modern era, preserved Byzantine chancellery habits, tax-keeping methods, and continued the multicultural and polyglot culture of Byzantium. This is claimed in the spirit of inclusivity and cousinhood, not of bickering and competition.

So in addition to the Balkan countries, and states emerging from the Russian and Soviet empires, Georgia and Armenia (distinctly different but orthodox), Syria and Lebanon with their ancient Christian communities, other groups such as the Copts in Egypt, can also claim to be children of Byzantium. In this larger family, Greece is our elder brother and sister. But it is also part of a wider group of siblings that is just beginning to be discovered. By drawing attention to the real, symbolic and imagined children of Byzantium, I think we can expand and enrich our sense of that great civilization.

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Shroud of Turin Mystery May Never Be Solved

Shroud of Turin - Never Solved

Wednesday May 12, 2010
By Stephen Wagner
About.com

A while ago, I wrote an article called "5 Mysteries That Will Never Be Solved," which included how the pyramids of Egypt were built, the crash at Roswell, the Philadelphia Experiment, crop circles, and what happens to us after we die. Another mystery I can add to that list is the Shroud of Turin. It will probably never be resolved definitively that it is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.

While the latest scientific carbon dating estimates it was created somewhere between 1260 and 1390 AD, other scholars contest this finding. A leading Shroud expert, Bruno Barberis, director of the International Center of Sindonology in Turin, Italy, recently stated that "the studies made up until now permit us to say there is a very high probability the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ." His evidence? "The injuries seen on the body of the crucified man in the Shroud bear an exact relationship to the wounds Christ suffered in his passion and death, as described by the four gospels of the New Testament."

This is not proof, of course, since someone creating a fake would simply have to consult the gospels for direction. He dismisses the carbon-14 dating as being inaccurate because the Shroud could have been contaminated in any number of ways over the centuries. And it certainly could have been. So far, there seems to be no certain way to prove the Shroud's authenticity.

And I don't think it ever can be, and here's why: Even if it could be proved with a high degree of probability that the Shroud dates back to the time when Jesus is thought to have died, and it could also be proved that it came from the region where Jesus lived, it still could not be proved that it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Many people were crucified as he was in that time period and so it could belong to someone else. It could even be a clever fake created in that day to commemorate Jesus' death. Could it be genuine? We can't say positively no because it is equally mysterious as to how the image was made on the cloth -- no one seems to know. I think this is another mystery that will never have a definitive answer.

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More People Turning to the Occult For Help

Psychics: The New Therapists?

Madonna and Angelina Jolie have their mediums on speed-dial – even Cheryl Cole is said to have seen a psychic about her marriage. It seems more women are turning to those in touch with the afterlife in times of trouble.

By Natasha Holt
05/16/2010
News of the World

It appears that increasing numbers of people are turning to the occult for guidance. A recent poll showed 60 per cent of Brits had visited a medium or mystic and 71 per cent believe they can predict the future. With readings now offered in department stores and high-profile celebs seeking guidance from psychics, it seems they are taking over the role of counsellors, offering support on everything from relationships to careers.

It's a trend celebrity psychic Jayne Wallace has seen growing. "We are the new therapists," she says. "People have always believed in the paranormal, but now it's become more acceptable to admit it. Consulting a psychic doesn't have the same stigma as seeing a counsellor and we can give people a peek into the future. A reading shows people new opportunities."

Read the whole story here.

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Dr. Jeffrey Long Defends Near Death Experiences

Dr. Jeffrey Long Takes On Critics of, Evidence of the Afterlife

March 25, 2010
Skeptico

Near-Death experience researcher Dr. Long offers a point-by-point response to skeptics of his New York Time best seller, "Evidence of the Afterlife".

When near-death experience researcher Dr. Jeffery Long decided to publish his 10-year study of NDEs he knew there would be controversy, and critics. His conclusion, that consciousness survives bodily death and moves to an afterlife, is unsettling to many within a medical community built on death being absolute and final. But rather than shy away from critics, Dr. Long has engaged them.

Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an in-depth interview with near-death experience researcher, Dr, Jeffrey Long. During the 45-minute interview Dr. Long offers a point-by-point response to skeptics of his New York Time best seller, Evidence of the Afterlife.

In response to the criticisms of former Skeptiko guest Dr. G.M. Woerlee, Dr. Long said, “I think one of the biggest defenses from people that don’t believe in an afterlife, and this was brought out in your interview with Dr. Woerlee, is this barrier where they won’t hear it. They won’t respond to it. It’s just not something they care to address, which is somewhat surprising. I think all scholarly discussion of really any topic requires an open-minded dialogue about the evidence. It really starts with evidence.”

Regarding speculation that NDEs result from regaining consciousness during CPR chest compressions, Dr. Long said, “When you talk to the patients who have actually survived CPR one thing that is very, very obvious is that the substantial majority of them are confused or amnesic when they’re recovered. If you read even a few near-death experiences, you immediately realize essentially none of them talk about episodes of confusion when they just don’t understand what’s going on. You really don’t see that at all. In fact, our research found that 76% of people having a near-death experience said their level of consciousness and alertness during the NDE was actually greater than their earthly, everyday life. So, you have to come away with the conclusion that even if there’s blood flow to the brain induced by CPR, it’s not correlated with the level of consciousness and alertness reported during near-death experiences.”

Dr. Long continues, “But also, in addition, the substantial majority of people that have a near-death experience associated with cardiac arrest are actually seeing their physical body well prior to the time that CPR is initiated. Once CPR is initiated, you don’t see any alteration in the flow of the near-death experience, suggesting that blood flow to the brain isn’t affecting the content in any way.”

Dr. Long also discusses the nature of NDE skepticism, “The other issue I’ve seen with skeptics is they often have their pet theory. Their theory of how the world works, how things work, and it’s very, very difficult to dislodge them from their pet theory, even with overwhelming evidence.”

In the end Dr. Jeffery Long believes in his evidence, “I have confidence in the substantial majority of people. When they hear evidence, and it’s presented in a straightforward way, they’re smart enough to understand what’s real evidence and what’s evasiveness.”

Jeffrey Long, M.D., is a near death experience researcher and physician (radiation oncology). His book, ‘Evidence of the Afterlife’ (HarperCollins), was published in 2009.

Read the interview and listen to the podcast here.

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Concerning the Testimony of the Spirit of God

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"The Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me" (John 15:26).

God's Son sent God the Holy Spirit into the world to testify about Him until the end of time. "He will testify of Me."

How will God the Spirit testify about God the Son? God the Spirit will testify in many ways:

By attracting the souls of men to Christ's Church;

By revealing to them the meaning of the Holy Scripture;

By leading their minds to the commandments of Christ;

By giving warmth, freshness, power and gentleness to the words of Christ;

By converting repentant sinners into righteous ones;

By fulfilling all the promises and prophecies of Christ upon men and upon nations and upon God's Church;

By strengthening the Church of Christ and holding it firm against all the tempest of times and all the evils of Hades and men throughout the ages of ages.

The Spirit which works in these and many other similar ways is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Good, Life-creating and All-powerful.

Not one of Christ's words goes against the Spirit of God nor does the Spirit of God go against a single word of Christ. That is why when the Spirit of God pleases to enter into the heart of man, He becomes alive and becomes a true witness to all that Christ said and did. Then, man believes joyfully and unwaveringly. For how would he not believe the greatest and the most enduring Eyewitness and Participator of all the words, all the miracles and all the works of Christ?

That is why, brethren, let us pray before all and above all that this Eyewitness and Participator, the Holy Spirit and All-Powerful, settle in our hearts so that our faith may become alive, unwavering and joy-creating.

O God the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, come and abide in us. Amen.

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The Conversion of Klaus Kenneth to Orthodoxy

Klaus Kenneth was born in Czechoslovakia in 1945. He had a troubled childhood which eventually lead to criminal behavior and imprisonment as a teenager and young adult. Afterwards he began a spiritual search and embarked on many travels. He participated in the occult, Transcendental Meditation, drug-taking, levitation, ecstasies, etc. All this lead him on a path towards Hinduism, and to learn Hinduism he moved to Calcutta, India. In India he met many gurus and even Mother Theresa. In 1978 he became disillusioned by Hinduism and went to the Holy Land. Soon after he was attracted to Buddhism. In 1983 he met Elder Sophrony in Lausanne and England, and by 1986 he was baptized Orthodox in Geneva with Elder Sophrony as his spiritual father.

To read more about his life, see here.

To view a talk he gave on 15 April 2010 in Greece, see below (it begins in Greek, but at 11 minutes in the talk turns to English).

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Papoulakos on Atheistic Writings

Christoforos Panagiotopoulos (1770-1861), commonly known as "Papoulakos", was a simple preacher who helped truly bring enlightenment to the Greek people of the Peloponnese following the victory of the Greek nation against Ottoman rule. Within a decade Papoulakos managed to shake up the sociological make up of the newborn Greek state, which was slowly becoming westernized with an Enlightenment ideology, and he helped bring the Greek people to their roots in Orthodoxy and the Christian ideal. For this he faced much persecution from both the Church and State and died in exile.

Atheistic writings have brushed aside the saints and strugglers, and put into the head of the Nation foreign and atheist educators who want to falsify our life. Atheistic writings place the Nation at a dead end and prevent it from enjoying its freedom.

It is our shame, for a generation which fortified its freedom with its blood, which climbed the difficult ascent, to accept that it is not possible to travel a straight road when it is peaceful, and that we do not know how to tidy the house which we freed by our blood, but they who did not fight know how to tidy it, they who did not believe in the struggle, these who attempt to cut us off from Christ, and they spare no effort to throw us in slavery to another master, who is more demonic than the Turks. For all that the Turk holds venerable, they throw aside atheistic writings and uproot them.

They vanquish the monasteries, ridicule the monks and nuns, they steal holy chalices and sell them for silver to decorate dirty women. They take the holy of holies and put it under the feet of their authority, prohibiting anything against their interest. Atheistic writings weave the shroud of the Nation.

Will our children therefore learn these writings? Even if all the atheistic educators were gathered and squeezed out like a lemon, they would still not be able to succeed in writing a sentence which is worth one line from the Gospels. But what am I saying, a sentence? Not even a word resembles this God-bearing book. This is because everything within is the word of the Lord, it is correct wisdom, and whatever a creation says cannot reach the heights of the Creator. Instead of teaching our children the holy synaxaria and how the saints of Christianity lived and how they were martyred for the love of Christ, we teach them the history of the cursed world. For there are two teachings about history: the sacred and the cursed history. Continuously we reveal the cursed image of the world and little by little we have managed to believe that this image is the genuine image of man, and how outside this no other life stands. All these things are disgraceful lies. Atheistic writings are weeds which have been sown in the Lord’s field.

They speak to us of the ancients. And I, the humble and illiterate preacher of the word of our Christ says to you that not one of the ancients surpassed in bravery, greatness and glory Saint Kosmas, the martyrs and the great ascetics. And if they have died for a country, Saint Kosmas died for a Greece belonging to Christ and not a Greece enslaved to the antichrist.

Excerpt from the book by Kosti Bastia, Papoulakos, Athens, 1987.

Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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Religion, Atheism and Violence

Atheism, Not Religion, Is The Force Behind The Mass Murders Of History

By Dinesh D’Souza

In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as “End of Faith” author Sam Harris puts it, “the most potent source of human conflict, past and present.”

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. “The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries.”

In his bestseller “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world’s recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion’s murderous impulse.

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem Witch Trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in jail due to malnutrition or illness.

These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.

Moreover, many of the conflicts that are counted as “religious wars” were not fought over religion. They were mainly fought over rival claims to territory and power. Can the wars between England and France be called religious wars because the English were Protestants and the French were Catholics? Hardly.

The same is true today. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not, at its core, a religious one. It arises out of a dispute over self-determination and land. Hamas and the extreme orthodox parties in Israel may advance theological claims – “God gave us this land” and so forth – but the conflict would remain essentially the same even without these religious motives. Ethnic rivalry, not religion, is the source of the tension in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.

Blindly blaming religion for conflict

Yet today’s atheists insist on making religion the culprit. Consider Mr. Harris’s analysis of the conflict in Sri Lanka. “While the motivations of the Tamil Tigers are not explicitly religious,” he informs us, “they are Hindus who undoubtedly believe many improbable things about the nature of life and death.” In other words, while the Tigers see themselves as combatants in a secular political struggle, Harris detects a religious motive because these people happen to be Hindu and surely there must be some underlying religious craziness that explains their fanaticism.

Harris can go on forever in this vein. Seeking to exonerate secularism and atheism from the horrors perpetrated in their name, he argues that Stalinism and Maoism were in reality “little more than a political religion.” As for Nazism, “while the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, it was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity.” Indeed, “The holocaust marked the culmination of … two thousand years of Christian fulminating against the Jews.”

One finds the same inanities in Mr. Dawkins’s work. Don’t be fooled by this rhetorical legerdemain. Dawkins and Harris cannot explain why, if Nazism was directly descended from medieval Christianity, medieval Christianity did not produce a Hitler. How can a self-proclaimed atheist ideology, advanced by Hitler as a repudiation of Christianity, be a “culmination” of 2,000 years of Christianity? Dawkins and Harris are employing a transparent sleight of hand that holds Christianity responsible for the crimes committed in its name, while exonerating secularism and atheism for the greater crimes committed in their name.

Religious fanatics have done things that are impossible to defend, and some of them, mostly in the Muslim world, are still performing horrors in the name of their creed. But if religion sometimes disposes people to self-righteousness and absolutism, it also provides a moral code that condemns the slaughter of innocents. In particular, the moral teachings of Jesus provide no support for – indeed they stand as a stern rebuke to – the historical injustices perpetrated in the name of Christianity.

Atheist hubris

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people – the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped – have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s dictum, “If God is not, everything is permitted.”

Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.

It’s time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

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Chrysostom on Earthquakes

Following a terrible earthquake in Antioch, St. John Chrysostom spoke to the people:

"Great are the fruits of an earthquake. Behold the man-loving Lord Who quakes the city and strengthens the soul, Who sways the foundation and strengthens the thoughts, Who shows the weakness of the city and makes the will of the people powerful! Turn your attention to His love for mankind: He sways for a while, and strengthens forever; He quakes for two days, but the devotion should remain for all times; you were sorrowful for a short time, but strengthened forever. A mother, wanting to wean her child from of the habit of frequent crying, strongly rocks its little crib not in order to harm it, but to frighten it. Precisely, thus the Lord of all, Who holds the universe in His hands shakes it, not in order to destroy it, but rather to bring back those men to salvation who live lawlessly."

Behold this is how the Holy Fathers, the pillars of the Universal Church, knew how to explain God's love for man, both assaults in the same way as good works, and misfortune the same way as fortune. Let us who are slow to give thanks to God be ashamed when He gives and quick in our murmuring toward him when He takes away.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich

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Derren Brown's Experiment on Subliminal Advertizing

An interesting experiment by professional mind reader Derren Brown on Subliminal Advertizing.

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Computation and Design

If the universe is at base computational, who is the programmer?

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The Holy and Venerable Father Seraphim of Vyritsa

St. Seraphim of Vyritsa (Vasily Nikolaevich Muraviov) was born on March 31(OS)/April 13(NS), 1866. He was baptized two weeks after his birth with the name Vasily (Basil) after the Venerable Father Basil the New Confessor. He received an excellent education, got married, and was a very successful businessman. He had a son named Nikolai. When Nikolai grew up, both his parents - Vasily and Olga - by agreement decided to enter monasteries.

On 13 September 1920 Vasily Muraviov joined Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. It was here that Vasily Murianov cultivated his divine zeal for 45 years.

On 19 October 1920 with the blessing of Vladyka Benjamin, Archimandrite Nikolay Yarushevich tonsured both Vasily and Olga - Vasily with the name Barnabas after his and Olga's Spiritual Father, Venerable Elder Barnabas, and his wife Olga with the name of Christiana was tonsured at Voskresensky Novo-Devichy Monastery. The first obedience of Monk Barnabas was as a bell ringer. Very soon he was ordained hierodeacon and a manager of the cemetery chancery.

It was the time of the Civil War in Russia. They had one panikhida (memorial service at the church) after another, and Monk Barnabas' first spiritual school of guidance was to listen and to comfort people.

On 11 September 1921 Archbishop Benjamin ordained Barnabas to be a hieromonk. Persecution against faithful people continued in Russia and none of the monks going to the church in the morning knew if they would return to their cells at night. Already very many people at that time were trying to attend the services when Hieromonk Barnabas was serving. His face during Divine Liturgies was enlightened with joy. His sermons were very sincere, simple and came across to various people. His podvig (selfless devotion) as a former merchant in the world was a reason for this.

Soon after that and before becoming Elder and Spiritual Father of St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Fr.Barnabas was tonsured into the Great Schema with the name Seraphim, after St. Seraphim of Sarov. Olga Muraviov, Nun Christiana, later received the Great Schema with the name Seraphima.


There was a mystical connection between Vasily Muravieov and two Holy Fathers - his Spiritual Father the Venerable Elder Barnabas and St. Seraphim of Sarov, who Vasily was named after during his monastic life. In the writings of Elder Barnabas you can find a place where he mentions one of his spiritual children V.N.M (Initials for Vasily Nikolaevich Muraviov) who saw a beautiful dream:

"I was walking to the services at St. Nicholas' Monastery through the forest trying to find the path. Suddenly I saw an Elder with a sack behind his shoulder and small axe. I asked him if he knew how to get to St. Nicholas' Monastery and the Elder answered: 'Let's go, I will show you. I am going there myself.' I looked at this Elder more closely and recognized St. Seraphim of Sarov in him and asked: 'Batyushka, are you Father Seraphim?' The Elder answered: 'Yes, I am Seraphim', and they continued to walk. Fr. Seraphim stopped near a small stump, sat on it, and put his sack and axe on the ground. I sat near him. Suddenly, from another side very unexpectedly appeared Father Barnabas and he sat near me so I was between both Elders, who were very joyful, and gave hugs and kisses to each other and started to talk, but I couldn't understand what they talked about and awoke...."

When Vasily told about his dream to his Elder Barnabas, the Elder laughed: "You were sitting between us, hearing everything and couldn't understand what we talked about?"

Already at the end of the 1920's Elder Seraphim was well known as a healer. One demon possessed woman was healed right after Elder Seraphim said a prayer above her head and annointed her with holy oil from his lamp.

Hieroschemamonk Seraphim was the spiritual Father of St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra for almost 3 years. He had so many people coming for confessions to him that sometimes he could spend two days hearing confessions while standing on a cold stone floor, without any break. But Fr. Seraphim didn't think about himself. Of course such physical and spiritual stresses (how much grief of so many people he would take on himself!) soon turned to serious health problems. Soon doctors diagnosed intercostal neuralgia, rheumatism and venous congestion of legs. For a long time Fr. Seraphim didn't tell anyone about it and continued to serve. And there was always such a bright and joyful smile on his face that no one from the brotherhood could think that their Elder was having such physical pain. Only his voice sometimes would get very quite. One day however Father Seraphim just couldn't get up from his bed.

Father Seraphim accepted his illness with humility as a new obedience. He was glorifying God's name: "I am a sinner and don't deserve even this illness. There are so many people who suffer from more terrible illnesses!" Doctors prescribed a change of climate, but Fr. Seraphim knew about the dark times coming for the brotherhood and wanted to share the sufferings with them. God had a different plan for him however.

Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), a medical doctor by education, studied the illness history of Fr. Seraphim and immediately blessed him to move to Vyritsa. By the summer of the 1930's Elder Seraphim left the Blessed City of the Apostle Peter, as they call St. Petersburg. With the blessing of the Metropolitan, Schemanun Seraphima (in the world Olga Ivanovna Muraviova) and their twelve year old granddaughter Margarita, who was a young novice of Voskresensky Novodevichiy Monastery and would often visited Fr. Seraphim at Alexander Nevsky Lavra, went to him by obedience to help and take care of him.


Soon a bloody wave of repressions drenched the entire Petersburg Diocese. During the night of 18 February 1932 the Bolsheviks arrested more than five hundred monks. Monasteries were completely devastated. It often has happened in Church history that during the most vicious times of persecution for the Orthodox Faith, God sends special men of God who are keepers of the purity of Orthodoxy. In the 30's-40's the Venerable Father Seraphim of Vyritsa became one of them. At that time he was writing poems as prophesies about the future of Russia. These poems were memorized by very many people, and reached prisons and camps. He was very ill at that time, but at Vyritsa he already didn't go to the doctors saying: "May God's will be for everything. Illness is a school of humility, where you really learn about your weakness." Soon streams of people embarked for Vyritsa. Many people gathered at the Elders's cell for days and nights. When his relatives worried about him and his health condition, Elder Seraphim answered them: "Now I always will be ill. While I can raise my hand to bless people, I will be meeting with them."

Father Seraphim always invited first those people who needed him the most. Every time a lay-sister would come out and call someone by their name and hometown, where this person was standing and where he/she came from. It was a mystery how the Elder could know all these things.

For very many people Fr. Seraphim was a benefactor who helped them not only spiritually, but with practical advice, helping them to find jobs and money through kind people. Very often he would thankfully accept money from his visitors, but Fr. Seraphim gave this money right away to those who had need of it. If some people gave him some clothes, Fr. Seraphim always found someone to give them to.

Elder Seraphim was always very strict with himself. He was always in fasting, all-night vigils, and prayer. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the Elder didn't eat any food at all. Sometimes he didn't eat any food for several days. People who were around him sometimes thought that he starved himself to the death. It is difficult to call food what he ate in those days: in some days he ate part of prosphora and drank some holy water. At other days he didn't eat even one potato, and would eat some grated carrot. Very seldom did he drink a cup of tea with a very little piece of bread. Priests from the church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God at Vyritsa gave him Holy Communion every day.

Imitating his heavenly teacher, Venerable Father Seraphim of Sarov, he undertook a new podvig on himself. He would pray in the garden on his knees on the rock before the icon of the Wonderworker of Sarov. This was happening in those days when his health was very bad. The first testimonies of St. Seraphim of Vyritsa praying on the rock are from 1935, when the persecutors descended upon the Church again. For ten years the Elder endured this podvig. In truth it was martyrdom in the name of love for his neighbors. With many hot tears the Holy Elder was praying to God asking revival for the Russian Orthodox Church and for the salvation of the whole world.

People really didn't know when he was sleeping. Every time when someone opened the door of his cell they found him on his knees crying and praying with his hands to the sky, not noting anything around him.

Fr. Seraphim had many visitors. Many times in the 30's Chekists [Bolshevik secret police] came to his cell searching his things. Once the Chekists came to arrest the Elder, but people who lived with Fr. Seraphim in the house asked to call for the doctor to confirm his heath condition. When the doctor came he confirmed that the health of Fr. Seraphim was in very serious condition and didn't allow them to move him to another place. Another time, when the Chekists came again, Fr. Seraphim's love won them over. Sudden spiritual change in the soul of the man in charge brought them to leave the house without touching the humble Elder.

Lions were obedient to the venerable fathers Anthony the Great and Zosima, bears to St. Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov. And the most cruel cruel animals in the form of humans were obedient to Fr. Seraphim of Vyritsa.

In 1941 Nikolai Muraviov, son of Fr. Seraphim, was arrested and executed. New grief came into the Elder's life.

Fr. Seraphim knew about the upcoming Second World War and the horrible years of it for Russia. When Nazis attacked Russia, Fr. Seraphim started to pray on the rock in his garden every day. In 1941 Fr. Seraphim was 72 years old and his health was bad, and his relatives would help him walk to that rock, and sometimes they just carried him there. Those close to him asked him to stop this praying on the rock, as they saw how hard it was for him physically. They put the icon on a young apple tree near that rock. He would pray on the rock as long as he could. Sometimes an hour, sometimes two, sometimes several hours. It was impossible to look at his sufferings without tears. They asked him to stop this podvig and pray at his cell, but he didn't have mercy on himself. God himself helped him to do this podvig! This continued during all four war years for Russia.

It is a known fact, according to the words of the Elder himself, that not one house at Vyritsa was destroyed during that war. And no one man from Vyritsa was killed. Another miracle was that when Nazis were ready to occupy Vyritsa, they sent there those soldiers who were Orthodox Romanians. And if the Church of Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was closed, but, Glory to God!, not devastated in 1938 by the Bolsheviks, it was opened again by the very many requests of the people. In the beginning people were feeling very uncomfortable at the church, having occupants in Nazis uniform standing next to them, but after seeing that they prayed and crossed themselves as it is required by the church, they stopped worrying.

When Nazis heard about the prophecies of the Elder they also went to visit him. And as before with the Chekist's, Fr. Seraphim could disarm uninvited visitors with the help from above. First of all they were amazed when he greeted them with his good German that he had learned from the years when he was a merchant and would often visit Berlin and Vienna, working with German and Austrian companies. One Nazi asked him when Germans will take Petersburg. The Elder answered that this will never happen and Germans will be leaving Russia soon, and the man who asked this question would not return home alive and be killed near Warsaw. One of those Romanian officer's visited Vyritsa in the 1980's to venerate the Elder's grave. He found people who lived in Vyritsa during the war and confirmed the destiny of the man who had asked that question.


In 1945 Schemanun Seraphima (Olga Nikolaevna Muraviova, wife of Vasily Muraviov, the future St. Seraphim of Vyritsa) reposed. Fr. Seraphim knew and talked about how the separation is not for too long and soon they will meet in eternal life.

During the last years of his life Elder Seraphim was bedridden. The hour of his repose was revealed to him. Day's before this he blessed his home-folks with icons of the revered Seraphim of Sarov and told Mother Seraphima, his keleinica (lay-sister), to be mindful of her ribs during his funeral. (This warning was prophetic - during the funeral, since because of the very big crowd of people in attendance, Mother Seraphima had two of her ribs broken.)

Early in the morning the Most Holy Theotokos was revealed to him in splendor. With her right hand she pointed up to the sky. Elder Seraphim told about this to his home-folks and said: "Today I can't recieve visitors", and blessed to call Fr. Alexey Kibardin. The Akathists to the Most Holy Theotokos, St. Nicholas and St. Seraphim of Sarov were read. After taking Holy Communion Elder Seraphim blessed to have read the Psalter and the Holy Gospel. Closer to the evening Batyushka asked to put him on the chair and he started to pray. During prayer he sometimes asked what time it was. Around 2 o'clock after midnight he blessed to have read a prayer for the departure of the soul, then crossed himself with the words, "Lord, save and have mercy on the whole world!", he departed for the heavenly dwelling place.

For three days an unending stream of people visited the coffin of the Elder. Everybody noticed that the Elder's hands were very soft and warm, as if he was alive. Some people could smell a fragrance near his coffin.

On the first day after Elder Seraphim's repose a blind girl was healed. Her mother brought her to his coffin and said: "Kiss the hand of grandfather." Soon after that the girl started to see.

There were three big choirs during the honorable burial of St. Seraphim of Vyritsa: of Kazan, of Peter and Paul at Vyritsa, and of the Theological Academy and Seminary. On that day, with the blessing of Metropolitan Gregory of St. Petersburg, classes at the Academy and Seminary were cancelled. One of the students who was standing near the coffin of the Elder was the future Patriarch of Russia Alexey II.

The Holy and Venerable Father Seraphim of Vyritsa reposed on April 3rd, 1949.

Holy Father Seraphim, Pray to God for us!

V.P. Philimonov, Magazine "Tserkovny Vestnik"

Translated by Mira Parker

See also:
http://serafim.com.ru/site/nstr_3.html
http://serafim.com.ru/site/nstr_1_01.html
http://serafim.com.ru/site/nstr_1_02.html


Translator's Note: A Miracle of St. Seraphim of Vyritsa

Here you go... I am here in America translating this very interesting article about St.Seraphim of Vyritsa during the last few weeks, going through very many photographs, details of his life, his icons, etc. Vyritsa is near St. Petersburg, and I was reading how St. Seraphim was praying during WW2 for all the soldiers, for Russia, for the whole world, and how he told Romanian Nazis who came to ask questions that Germans will never take Leningrad...

I am moved...

Doing all this work, I remember about my uncle, who I never met, who was killed during WW2 near Leningrad (St. Petersburg). My family didn't know where his grave is, and when it happened. Mom said that in 1943 they received a telegram about how he disappeared. This is my Mom's older brother. My mom told me this story many times. His wife was very beautiful and never got married again, because she was waiting for him to come back home. My grandmother was waiting for him throughout all her life. His daughter grew up not remembering him.

So... I am reading and at some moment I thought: "My uncle was there at war, when St. Seraphim of Vyritsa was praying on the rock during 1000 days. My uncle was so close to that place... It would be nice to find his grave one day..." I know that my relatives tried to do it before, but didn't have any success.

I sent my translation to John Sanidopoulos, who wants to publish it on his blog. And on the next day (yesterday) my Mom called me and said they found on the Internet where my uncle was buried in January 1943 near St. Petersburg. In a mass grave.

She told me about it and I remembered one of the photographs of St. Seraphim of Vyritsa, that I like so much. I knew that it was him who helped. You know, I was thinking about him during these few weeks a lot, about his life, his family, his wife, his podvig. And during several years I was praying for my uncle, who I never met. And now his daughter is going to visit his grave this month.

It didn't happen before. It didn't happen a month or a week after. It happened right at that time when I was reading, translating and thinking about him here, in America, and my relatives started again to look for information about my uncle at THIS time, being there, at Kazakhstan. Isn't this a MIRACLE? :-)

Glory to God for All Things!

Vasily Muraviov, his wife Olga and son Nikolai

Wife Olga and son Nikolai

Mother Theophania and Olga Muraviova

Son Nikolai

Photo of family home

Son Nikolai, 1930's

Nikolai prison photo

Schemanun Seraphima (Olga Muraviyov in the world) and granddaughter Margarita

Nevsky Lavra, 2nd floor, 3rd window from the left is the cell of Elder Seraphim. There is a chapel now in his cell.

St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra

Last years

Rock he was praying on for 1000 days.

Schemanun Seraphima (left), St. Seraphim (right)

The wooden cross is said to be shedding myrrh.

See more here.

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