A Strange Miracle of Saint Nicholas in 1956

A true incident which shocked and brought repentance to hundreds of people in the Russian Soviet city of Kuibyshev (modern day Samara), in the year 1956.

In the city of Kuibyshev there lived a family: a pious mother and her daughter Zoë. On the evening of New Years Eve (December 31) of 1956 Zoë invited seven of her girlfriends - and just as many young men - over for dinner and dancing. At that time it was the fast for Christmas* and Zoë’s mother begged her not to plan a dinner, but the daughter insisted on having things her way. That same evening her mother went to church to pray.

All those invited came over, except for Zoë’s fiancé who hadn’t arrived yet. His name was Nicholas. The young ladies and the boys got in pairs and Zoë was left alone. Not knowing what to do and without really thinking, she took down the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from the wall and said, “I’ll take this Nicholas and I’ll go dance with them,” not paying any attention to her friends, who advised her not to commit such a blasphemous act. “If God exists, let Him punish me,” she said. And so she started to dance, did two or three twirls, when all of sudden there was a fearful noise in the room, a whirlwind, and a blinding light flashed like lightening.

The former joy turned into fright. Everyone fled from the room scared. Only Zoë stood there motionless, with the icon of St. Nicholas stuck to her chest, petrified and frozen like marble. The doctors, who arrived quickly, were not able to bring her to her senses in spite of their attempts. The injection needles, which they tried to stick in her, bent and broke as they hit her marbleized body! They wanted to take her to the hospital, but were unable to move her from her spot. It was as if her feet were nailed to the floor. But her heart was beating! Zoë was alive. However, she was no longer able to eat or drink…

When her mother came back and saw what had happened, she fell unconscious and they took her to the hospital, which she didn’t leave from for a few days. Her faith in the compassion of God and her warm motherly prayers for the forgiveness of her unfortunate daughter, by the Grace of God, restored her vitality.

Zoë came to consciousness and with tears she sought forgiveness and help.

Zoë’s house was surrounded by a crowd of people for the first few days, faithful who came or, even yet, walked from afar: the curious, doctors, and spiritual personalities. But according to an order from the authorities, the house was quickly closed to visitors. There were always two policemen guarding the house, in alternating eight-hour shifts. Some of the guards’ hair turned white, even though they were still young (28-30), from the fright of hearing the terrifying cries that Zoë made every night.

Night after night her mother was next to her praying.

“Mama, pray! Pray, because I’m lost on account of my sins! Pray!” Zoë would cry out.

Because of all the things that were happening they even informed the Patriarch and asked him to pray for Zoë’s recovery. The Patriarch replied, “The one who is punishing her will also have mercy on her!”

From then on, among those who were allowed to visit Zoë were:

1. A professor of medicine of high prestige who came from Moscow. He had confirmed that her heart did not stop beating.

2. Priests, who the mother had invited in order to take St. Nicholas out of Zoë’s hands. But neither were they able to pull the icon away from Zoë’s petrified hands.

3. The Hieromonk Seraphim from the Glinsk desert, who had come to Kuibyshev for the feast of the Nativity, performed the Holy Water service and had blessed the icon. Afterwards he said, “Now we must wait for some sign at Pascha! If nothing happens, it means that the end of the world is drawing near!” showing by these words his deep faith in miracles.

4. The Metropolitan Nicholas, who also read the Paraklesis and said, “We must wait till Pascha for a new miracle,” repeating the saying of the pious hieromonk.

On the eve of the feast of the Annunciation (which that year fell on the Saturday of the third week of Great Lent) some genial elder approached the guards and asked them to allow him to see Zoë. But the police guards refused to allow it. The elder came again the following day, but neither did those guards allow him. The third time, on the day of the Annunciation, the guards allowed him in. They heard with how much compassion he spoke to Zoë as he entered, “Now then, did you get tired from standing?”

A little time passed and when the guards wanted to kick the elder out, he wasn’t to be found in the room…

Everyone was sure that it was Saint Nicholas himself. Thus, Zoë had stayed there standing for exactly 4 months (128 days) until Pascha, which that year had fallen on April 23 (May 6 on the New Calendar).

On the night of the Glorious Resurrection of Christ Zoë started to cry out especially loud: “Pray!”

The nightshift guards started to tremble and asked, “Why are you crying out so frightfully?” Pay attention to her answer. “How dreadful, the earth is burning! Pray! The whole world is lost because of its sins, pray!” From that moment Zoë was revived, her muscles started to become soft; she came back to life. They eventually put her on a mattress but she continued to cry out and call all to pray for the world which is lost because of its sins, for the earth which is burning because of its lawlessness.

“How did you stay living up till now? Who fed you?” they asked her. “Doves, doves fed me” was her answer. From this it was apparent that she had received mercy and forgiveness from the Right hand of the Lord Almighty. The Lord forgave Zoë’s sins, by the attendance of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, and because of her great tribulations and her standing for the duration of 128 days.

All of these events shocked the inhabitants of Kuibyshev and the surrounding areas. Many people again found their faith in God, having seen the miracles, hearing her screams and her entreaties for us to pray for the people who are lost on account of their sins. They returned to the Church with repentance. Those who didn’t wear a cross started to wear one, when at that time you might have paid with your life just for that. The return was so en masse that the churches didn’t have enough little crosses for everyone who sought one.

With fear and tears the people sought forgiveness for their sins, repeating Zoë’s words, “How dreadful, the earth is burning, we are lost because of our sins! Pray! The people are lost because of their lawlessness!”

On the third day of Pascha Zoë left for the Lord, since she had traveled the difficult road of standing for 128 days before the face of the Lord for the forgiveness of all of her sins. The Holy Spirit had preserved her life all of these days for the resurrection of her soul from the death of sin, just as in that eternal day to come it will resurrect her bodily for life everlasting; for that matter, just as her name itself means: Zoë.

Note (from the Russian original): In the Soviet press of that time period Zoë’s incident was brought up. Answering the letters that came to the management of a well-known newspaper, one haughty scientist claimed that the occurrence with Zoë is really not that incredible, but he declared that it is one form of muscular rigidity still unknown to science. This falsehood of such a hypothesis is apparent, seeing that: First, with rigidity such a petrified hardness of the skin does not occur, so much so that the doctors are not able to inject the sick. Second, a person infected by such a sickness can be moved from one place to another, while they were not able to move Zoë; she was standing up straight definitely much longer than average people can. Third, a sickness by itself does not return a person to God and does not bring revelations from Heaven. While in Zoë’s case, not only thousands found their faith again in God, but they showed their faith in deed, that is, they were baptized and lived morally. Not only did they believe that God exists, but they became Christians. From this it is clear that we are not talking about some simple illness, but about divine economy. He [God] truly makes fast the faith, to deliver people from their sins and from punishment because of them.

* In Russia the feasts follow the Old Calendar. The Christmas fast lasts from November 28 until January 6 of the following year.

Read also about Aleksandr Proshkin's film "The Miracle" based on the true events described in this article.

Hieromonk Seraphim from the Glinsk desert

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Aleksandr Proshkin's "The Miracle"

Director: Aleksandr Proshkin

Writer: Yuri Arabov

Starring:
Konstantin Khabensky
Polina Kutepova
Sergei Makovetsky
Maria Burova
Vitaly Kishchenko
Alexander Potapov
Viktor Shamirov

Russia, 2009, 100 min.

Director Aleksandr Proshkin has built his reputation on the filming of literary adaptations, and The Miracle, based on a true story, is one of a piece, even though “all names and characters have been altered,” as we learn at the end of the film. The facts are these: in 1956 in Samara, Zoia Karnaukhova was celebrating New Years despite having been jilted by her lover. Wanting a partner, she picked up an icon of St. Nicholas and began to dance, only to freeze mid-turn. She remained immobile until Easter, standing 128 days before she revived, only to live out the rest of her life in an insane asylum. Needless to say, this event proved problematic for the atheist Soviet state, which primarily sought to silence the miracle by carefully controlling access to the affected girl. However, news travels quickly in a small town, and news such as that could not be contained, and an official party line had to be adopted and an appropriate scientific explanation found.

The film follows the facts, more or less, as Zoia is now Tat'iana (Maria Burova), and Samara is now Grechansk, a typically and predictably grimy industrial town at the back of beyond, which the inhabitants loathe as much as the visitors from Moscow. The film opens as Tat'iana prepares for her twenty-first birthday party, which she hopes her lover, Nikolai (Konstanin Khabenskii), will attend. In preparation, she removes all the icons from the house, leaving only St. Nicholas, in memory of her lover. When Nikolai does not appear at the party, Tat'iana grabs the saint’s icon as a stand-in, and promptly freezes, still holding the icon. As no Proshkin film would be complete without the bitter tears and wailing of an old peasant woman, Tat'iana’s mother (Olga Lapshina) loudly laments her daughter’s fate before she throws herself under a train.


While the miracle itself happens within the first fourteen minutes, the remainder of the film is structured around the responses of various people associated with the miracle, or who come into contact with it for one reason or another. Shortly after Tat'iana freezes, journalist Nikolai Artem'ev is dispatched to investigate. As it turns out, he is, in fact, the same Nikolai who stood up Tatiana at her party. Nikolai cuts a rather pathetic figure: a once talented poet, he now works for a newspaper writing articles about the production of dairy products and copes with his wife by womanizing. We see the intimacies of their daily life, both before and after his trip to Grechansk, which she resents, knowing he has another woman there. Upon arrival, Nikolai is introduced to Kondrashev (Sergei Makovetskii), the KGB officer in charge of Religious Affairs. Kondrashev leads Nikolai to “Tat'iana,” who has miraculously revived and is now in perfect health and able to laugh about her strange experience. Nikolai, however, has intimate knowledge of the girl herself and immediately spots the fake the state is trying to sell. Beginning to dig a little deeper, he enlists the aid of a buddy in the KGB to get him into the house where Tat'iana stands frozen, covered in cobwebs and mold. The sight is so shocking, Nikolai runs all the way home, falling back on science to help him make sense of what he has seen, finally concluding that it is a “major gross motor dysfunction with full sensory deprivation.” Nikolai’s humor and cynicism lent a certain energy to the film, and his departure slows the pace remarkably.

After the reaction of the journalist, comes the response of the local priest, Father Andrei (Viktor Shamirov). A solemn and intimidating family man, Father Andrei is under pressure from Kondrashev to denounce the recent event and state that it in no way constitutes a miracle, or his church will be closed and turned into a cinema. Realizing this is a battle he cannot win (despite the general cultural loosening of the Thaw, the Moscow patriarchate still answers directly to the state), Father Andrei capitulates. When confronted with the by now even more grotesque looking Tat'iana, his response is similar to that of Nikolai: to flee as far and as fast as possible.

In order to bring some kind of conclusion and drama to this otherwise slow and tepid tale, scriptwriter Iurii Arabov adds a completely fictional dues ex machina, in which Nikita Khrushchev (Aleksandr Potapov) himself descends from above (a forced emergency landing, but nevertheless…) to clear up this miracle business once and for all. Khrushchev brooks no nonsense with the priest and the archdeacon, who has also come to investigate the miracle, and takes a number of steps to wake the girl, one of which ultimately revives her. He seems to be the only one unaffected by the strange event.

The Miracle won the special jury prize at the Moscow International Film Festival 2009, and much of the writing about it, for better or for worse, has focused on the religious themes. Some locate the film in a series of other pro-Orthodox films, such as Pavel Lungin’s Tsar and The Island, while others see the message as more ambiguous: Father Andrei is one of the least palatable figures in a fairly unsympathetic ensemble. Although we are meant to understand that the title refers to Tat'iana’s freezing and unfreezing, the coda puts a different spin things as Tat'iana is elevated from whore to holy fool, a suffering innocent. Ultimately then, the film centers around the issue of faith: whether one believes or not, and whether one can believe when actually confronted with the inexplicable.


Aleksandr Proshkin (1940- ):

Aleksandr Proshkin was born in 1940 in Leningrad. After graduating from the acting department at the Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music, and Film in 1961, and from the directing department at Gosteleradio in 1968, Proshkin worked as a director and editor of literary and dramatic programming for television. During this time, he was responsible for more than thirty television films and specials, of which the bio-pic Mikhailo Lomonosov catapulted him to fame in 1984. His 1988 film, Cold Summer of 1953, brought his first international attention. Although some of Proshkin’s latest films have been literary adaptations (The Captain’s Daughter, Doctor Zhivago, Live and Remember), Miracle is both an intriguing continuation of and deviation from this trend.

Source

For the true story that inspired the movie, see here.

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A Theology of Horror Movies

An interesting perspective on horror movies, most of which I share, that is worth a read.

by Brian Godawa (Nicene Council)

When one thinks of horror movies, the usual images conjured up in the mind are of nubile co-eds being lured to isolated locations for the purpose of having sex and then being murdered and carved up in ever innovative and disgusting new ways by a grotesque chimera or phantasm. Likewise, for thriller movies, images that stalk the mind are of innocent men or women being hunted by maniacal serial murderers as a relentless feast of fear and gore for the audience.

But this was not always so. And though these clichés have become the norm for many Hollywood horror and thriller films, they are not the only ones out there. In fact, in today’s postmodern society so saturated with relative morality, I would propose that the horror and thriller genres have the potential for being two of the most effective means of exposing the absolute – and I do mean absolute – evil of moral relativism. And they do it in at least two ways: 1) they reinforce the doctrine of man’s sin nature, and 2) they expose the consequences of the denial of evil.

This Body of Death

Ancient superstition exploited man’s fear of his dark side through vampires, werewolves, and myriads of other half-man/half-monsters. These freaks of nature or supernature embodied the cultured, educated man by day, and the unbridled beast by night. They express the biblical truth that evildoers do not come to the light, lest their deeds be exposed, and true evil is done by otherwise “normal” people who suppress the truth about themselves in unrighteousness.

The moralistic Victorian era provided western culture with a rich and lasting heritage of metaphors for the depraved side of human nature that requires restraint and elimination. And those metaphors have been resurrected in modern films with equally moral vision. Dracula symbolized the struggle of the repressed dark side and its eternal hunger which is explored with modern fervor in Interview with the Vampire. Dr. Jekyll fought to suppress the increasing inhumanity of his depraved alter ego, Mr. Hyde, just like “Jack” has to defeat his destructive inner self, Tyler, in Fight Club. Victor Frankenstein’s scientific hubris leads to a vengeful monster in the same way that the entrepreneurial conceit of scientists without moral restraint leads to the take over of Jurassic Park by unpredictable dinosaurs, or the greedy technology R&D of Cyberdyne Systems leads to the assassinations of the Terminator. The corrupted conscience of H.G. Wells’ invisible man getting away with crime is revisited in the more recent Hollow Man.

It could be argued that the modern serial killer has become the naturalistic incarnation of the otherwise preternatural horror monster. In some ways, the serial killer genre is an improvement on fantasy-oriented horror stories because this kind of evil really happens. And they refute what many other movies assume; the belief that human nature is basically good. What is more biblical, a fun kid’s animated fantasy like Shrek, that reveals inherent goodness suppressed by socially deviant behavior, or a scary thriller, like Primal Fear, that unveils inherent evil concealed by socially acceptable behavior?

Unfortunately, many modern horror movies have drifted from this moral focus into immoral exploitation. They have degenerated into gruesome bloodbaths of murder and mayhem with a nihilistic vision of the will to power. Jason, Michael, Freddy, Chucky, Pinhead, Leatherface, and their many successors all hunt down their prey with voyeuristic effect on the audience and are never ultimately defeated. And in the supernatural versions, God is at best a dualistic force of equal power with the devil. One of the few moral elements in these otherwise prurient gorefests is the fact that fornication is contextually linked with the negative consequences of death (one of the rules of horror movies is that the kids who have sex will surely die).

A powerful horror film that should be on every Christian movie lover’s “go rent” list is The Addiction. This 1995 black and white vampire film was written by Nicholas St. John and directed by Abel Ferrara. It’s an “arthouse” independent film that captures the moral spirit of the horror genre at its best. It is the story of Kathleen, a philosophy student at NYU, who gets bit by a vampire and descends into the dark shadows of bloodlust. The spiritual angle of this macabre story is that vampirism in the film is an obvious metaphor for human depravity. But that’s not all. The vampires are distinguished by their self-awareness, unlike those they prey upon. Kathleen bites her new friend, who then asks her if she is going to get “sick.” Kathleen answers, “No. No worse than you were before.” She adds to another, “Sure, it’s easy to spot in people like me. The cancer has grown obvious. But you’re as terminal as I am. You’re as addicted [to sin] as I am.” The only difference between the living and the undead is that the vampires are aware of their corruption, while the living are self-deceived in thinking they are not. Pure Romans 1 through 3 with a vengeance.

The vampires expound on the metaphysics and ontology of evil as well as the philosophical inadequacy of man’s worldviews to account for or even condemn that evil. In the scene described above, Kathleen’s friend is shocked at being bitten. She anxiously blurts out, “How could you do this? Doesn’t it affect you? How can you do this to me?” To which Kathleen sardonically replies, “It was your decision. Your friend Feuerbach said that all men counting stars are equivalent in every way to God. My indifference is not the concern here. It’s your astonishment that needs study.” This reversal is an apologetic argument against unbelief, par excellence. If God is dead, as the modern secular mindset proposes, and man is his own deity, creating his own morality, then why is anyone surprised when people create their own morality that justifies feasting on the life blood of others? Without God, there is no such thing as “evil.” Later in the movie, a vampire even quotes R.C. Sproul when complaining about our original sin nature: “R.C. Sproul said we’re not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. In more accessible terms, we’re not evil because of the evil we do, but we do evil because we are evil. Yeah. Now what choices do such people have? It’s not like we have any options.”

The Addiction is one of the most poignant artistic expressions of the epistemological self-consciousness that Christian apologist Cornelius Van Til wrote about. As the difference between sinner and saint expands, both become more aware of this antithesis, which results in an increase in social and historical hostility between the two camps. After Kathleen passes her graduate thesis examination, she and her epistemologically self-conscious vampires throw a party for her other college acquaintances. She shepherds them all into a room and announces with a taste of irony, “I’d like to share a little bit of what I’ve learned through these long hard years of study.” The vampires then proceed to feast upon their unsuspecting victims with a frenzy. It is the very godless philosophy taught in school that comes back to bite its teachers. Ideas do have consequences.

But the tale is not without redemption. After Kathleen gorges herself on the blood of others, she arrives at a point of total despair and finds God as the only salvation from her dark nature. She then stands by the grave of her “old self” and walks away in the light of freedom as we hear her voiceover, “To face what we are in the end. We stand before the light, and our true nature is revealed. Self revelation is annihilation of self.” When God resurrects the “living dead,” he kills the old sin nature and we become a new creation; A picture perfect expression of “dying to self.”

Modern culture has always considered the doctrine of Original Sin to be offensive. Many movies are more oriented toward promoting the inherent goodness of human nature as well as our ability to fix ourselves by getting in tune with that natural goodness. The scandal of some horror and thriller movies is that they can most effectively incarnate the sin nature of man and his constant unrighteous suppression of that truth beneath apparent normalcy in a way that makes it very difficult for postmoderns to ignore (Romans 1:17).

Consequences of Denial

Another way in which horror and thriller movies can communicate truth in today’s postmodern climate of relativism is in their simple but believable portrayal of real and undeniable evil. Showing the harmful results of a belief has been traditionally called via negativa, or the “way of the negative.” It is making an argument against a certain viewpoint by showing the negative conclusion to which it ultimately leads. This is likened to the biblical injunction to expose the “unfruitful deeds of darkness” by bringing to light such “shameful” things “done in secret” (Ephesians 5:11-13). In this case, the person who believes morality is relative and that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, simply has no moral or intellectual authority to argue against the soul-wrenching dramatic expressions of the most vile of human behaviors. Herein lies the moral force of displaying the worst of man’s inhumanity to man: When one watches the “gourmet” appetite of Hannibal the Cannibal in The Silence of the Lambs, or the murderous religious liturgies of John Doe in Seven, and Jack the Ripper in From Hell, no one can convincingly argue that such atrocities are not actually evil, but merely morally neutral behaviors that simply defy the social constructs of our culture. After all, if morality is truly relative, then one man’s serial killer is another man’s übermensch.

True, university professors and other fools trying to be consistent with their nihilistic philosophy will try to maintain such absurd consistency in order to accomplish their agendas of power, but their folly will be made known to all those whose hearts are not yet hardened, whose consciences are not yet seared. An example of this folly can be found in the movie, Seven. When John Doe, the killer played by Kevin Spacey in the movie, explains the moral rationale for his unspeakable crimes, he is, in one sense, philosophically correct! He tells the detectives: “I won't deny my own personal desire to turn each sin against the sinner. I only took their sins to logical conclusions.” When challenged by Detective Mills (played by Brad Pitt) that he killed innocent people, John Doe replies, “Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? Look at the people I killed.” He rattles off the victims who embodied five of the seven deadly sins and concludes:

“Only in a world this sh**** could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. That's the point. You see a deadly sin on almost every street corner, and in every home, literally. And we tolerate it. Because it's common, it seems trivial, and we tolerate, all day long, morning, noon and night.”

Even though the killer is wrong in claiming God’s authority behind his murders, he is unwittingly making what is called a presuppositional moral argument for the existence of God. That is, it illustrates the impossibility of the contrary to Christianity: Without God, there is no such thing as “evil.” When society negates the moral categories of evil defined as “sin” by God, then all sorts of evil will not only result in society, but there will be no moral authority to condemn such behaviors.[1]

Nature and Nurture

Another aspect of the consequences of denying the existence of absolute morality is the downright foolishness that can be made of the theories that attempt to reinterpret evil in terms of environmental, psychological or sociological determinism. In addition to the basic goodness of man, another fallacious category of truth we have inherited from the Enlightenment is the ultimate authority of human autonomous reason. This view claims that only that which aligns with the canons of human logic is true. The problems of this world result from human ignorance. If we can only make people more rational, then they would become less savage in their behavior. Education is salvation. Goodness is associated with intellectual development. Since man is assumed to be basically good, then actual wickedness and cruelty cannot be strictly evil, but essentially irrational. Thus the prevalent usage of “insanity” in our legal culture in reference to heinous crimes. People just cannot accept that anyone can be truly evil, so we shift the blame onto something else: biology, society, upbringing, anything but our nature. The biblical truth of the matter is that evil springs forth from both nature and nurture, but the dominant hegemony of theories tend against nature because of its all too familiar connection to the Christian notion of Original Sin.

So here is the problem: Serial killers like Ted Bundy and Jack the Ripper and their fictional counterparts like Hannibal Lecter and John Doe are so utterly rational and intelligent that their very presence defies the notion of insanity as itself insane.[2] Legally, insanity means the inability to know the difference between right and wrong. But the most obvious option never enters the minds of most Enlightenment-influenced modern thinkers: That people do know the difference between right and wrong whenever they engage in evil; the problem is, they simply don’t care. What many psychologists call sociopathic behavior is really the norm for the evil that men do, rather than the exception. Sinners know right from wrong, but they choose wrong anyway (Romans 1:18-21).

Modern society is utterly confounded by the extremes of evil done by some intelligent, cultured, even well-adjusted, members of society. This confusion is expressed with poignancy in the Jack the Ripper movie, From Hell. An investigating criminologist played by Johnny Depp, explains to an inspector that Jack the Ripper was probably an educated man with medical knowledge. The inspector replies with shocked incredulity that no rational or educated man could possibly engage in such barbaric behavior. His Enlightenment assumptions blind him to the fact that education does not make men good, but it can make men more efficient in their evil.[3]

Author Thomas Harris reveals this inadequacy of humanistic science and psychology through Hannibal Lecter, when Lecter explains to Special Agent Clarice Starling, “You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants—nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil?”[4]

Conclusion

Horror and thriller movies are two powerful means of arguing against the moral relativism of our postmodern society. Not only do they tend to reinforce the doctrine of the basic evil nature in humanity, but they can personify profound arguments of the kind of destructive evil that results when society denies absolute morality. Of course, this is not to suggest that all horror movies are morally acceptable. In fact, I would argue that many of them have degenerated into immoral exaltation of sex, violence and death.[5] And it would be vain to try to justify the unhealthy obsession that some people have with the dark side, especially in their movie viewing. Too much focus on the bad news will dilute the power that the Good News has on an individual. Too much fascination with the nature and effects of sin can impede one’s growth in salvation. So, the defense of horror and thriller movies in principle should not be misconstrued to be a justification for all horror and thriller movies in practice. It is the mature Christian who, because of practice, has his senses trained to discern good and evil in a fallen world. It is the mature Christian who, like the Apostle Paul, can expose himself to his culture and draw out the good from the bad in order to interact redemptively with that culture (Acts 17).

Brian Godawa is the screenwriter for the award-winning feature film, To End All Wars. Most recently, he adapted to film the best-selling novel The Visitation by author Frank Peretti for Ralph Winter (X-Men, Fantastic Four). Mr. Godawa’s articles on movies and philosophy have been published around the world. He has traveled around the United States teaching on movies and culture to colleges, churches and community groups. His book, Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernment (InterVarsity Press) is in its seventh printing. Mr. Godawa is a member of the Studio Task Force at Biola University; a founding member of Arts & Entertainment Ministries, LA; the Senior Fellow of Film for the Center for Cultural Leadership, CA; and on the advisory board of The Apologetics Group, Nashville, TN. His website, www.godawa.com, contains more of his cinematic, theological and philosophical musings.

Notes:

1. It would have been even more biblical had the writer used the Ten Commandments rather than the medieval categories of “seven deadly sins.”

2. The fictional characters are just as exemplary as the non-fictional because they often reflect the very kinds of killers that actually do exist in our world.

3. Unfortunately, the movie adds the hint of a supernatural element to the Ripper’s character, which is also a shift of blame and therefore responsibility away from basic human nature.

4. Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988), p. 19. Unfortunately, this profound little piece of dialogue did not make it to the movie.

5. A good example of this exploitation is the heroic status that has been given to Hannibal Lecter. So much so, that the sequel, Hannibal, was written with the villain as hero, indeed as a Christ figure.

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The Reconciliation Between St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. John Chrysostom

Cyril learned to overcome his prejudice against the memory of the great John Chrysostom (November 13). Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and uncle of Cyril, was an antagonist of John, and presided in a council in judgment of him. Cyril thus found himself in a circle antagonistic to John Chrysostom, and involuntarily acquired a prejudice against him. Isidore of Pelusium (February 4) repeatedly wrote to Cyril and urged him to include the name of the great Father of the Church into the diptychs of the saints, but Cyril would not agree.

Once in a dream he saw a wondrous temple, in which the Mother of God was surrounded by a host of angels and saints, in whose number was John Chrysostom. When Cyril wanted to approach the All-Holy Lady and venerate her, John Chrysostom would not let him. The Theotokos asked John to forgive Cyril for having sinned against him through ignorance. Seeing that John hesitated, the Mother of God said, "Forgive him for my sake, since he has labored much for my honor, and has glorified me among the people calling me Theotokos." John answered, "By your intercession, Lady, I do forgive him," and then he embraced Cyril with love.

Cyril repented that he had maintained anger against the great saint of God. Having convened all the Egyptian bishops, he celebrated a solemn feast in honor of John Chrysostom.


Reflection by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

We sin if we consider it a duty to also hate those whom our relatives hate. This hatred passes on to us like a family sickness. In adopting the love of our relatives, we also adopt their hatreds. Sometimes even the great spiritual giants succumbed to that weakeness.

Patriarch Theophilus disliked St. John Chrysostom and remained his bitter enemy even until death. Saint Cyril, his kinsman and successor to the throne of Alexandria, inherited that hatred against Chrysostom the saint and, for a long time, bore this hatred within himself. In vain did Saint Isidore of Pelusium advise Cyril to change his opinion about Chrysostom and to enter his name in the Diptych of the Saints but Cyril could not change his evil will. Then the All-Holy Birth-giver of God, for whose glory and honor Cyril fought so much against Nestorius, appeared to Cyril in a vision with a multitude of angels and with John Chyrsostom in great glory. The Holy and All-Pure One begged Chrysostom to forgive Cyril. Then Chrysostom approached Cyril, they embraced and kissed one another. This vision completely changed the feelings of Cyril toward Chrysostom and Cyril repented with shame because he unreasonably hated Chrysostom. That is why to his death Cyril did everything in order to highly praise Chrysostom as a great saint of God.

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Patriarch To Celebrate Divine Liturgy At Soumela

The Orthodox Liturgy is to be celebrated at the Monastery of Soumela for the first time since the early 1920s.

Writing in today’s Apoyevmatini (Greek newspaper published in Istanbul), Nicholas Manginas reports that Ertuğrul Günay, Minister of Culture and Tourism, told Patriarch Bartholomew on Monday evening (7th June) that the government had approved the Patriarch’s request to celebrate the Liturgy at the Monastery of Soumela – now a museum - once a year on 15th August (the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God). Günay and the Patriarch were both attending a concert in the Hagia Eirene (Saint Irene's). An official document was received at the Patriarchate the following day confirming the decision.

According to Manginas, the Patriarchate was told that those attending the Liturgy will be required to pay particular attention to ensuring there is no damage to the monument, and particularly to the frescoes. Manginas also writes that the Mayor of Maçka (the nearest town to the monastery and the centre of the ilçe - sub-province – in which Soumela is situated) had visited Patriarch Bartholomew a few weeks ago and invited him to visit the town. The service on the 15th August will be the first time the Liturgy has been celebrated at the monastery since the exchange of populations.

In recent years, the Ecumenical Patriarch and other senior clergy have been celebrating the Liturgy in churches around Anatolia, usually on their patronal feasts. This has not yet happened at the Monastery at Soumela. Last August, a copy of the icon of the Panagia Soumela was brought to the region from the new Monastery of Panagia Soumela in western (Greek) Macedonia where the original icon from Soumela is now kept. A group of worshippers from Greece and from parts of the former Soviet Union attempted to hold a service at the monastery, but were prevented from doing so by the Director of the Museum. They were eventually asked to vacate the area. As a museum, the Soumela monastery is under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

(The concert which the Patriarch and the Minister were attending, part of this year’s Istanbul Music Festival, was a performance by the Borusan İstanbul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir of religious music by the Orthodox Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.)

Nicholas Manginas travels with Patriarch Bartholomew and regularly writes on and photographs his activities.


See also here and here.

Metropolitan Paul of Drama, who is the only hierarch in Greece with Pontic origins, was in tears when he heard the news for the upcoming Divine Liturgy. He called the event "an offering to the Christians of the Black Sea". Read more here.

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Trends Among American Protestants That Give Christianity A Bad Name

Note: I do not agree with all the contents or agendas of these articles, but the essential mentality of the Protestants described is what I believe give Christians a bad name to the general public. And of course, these articles do not describe all American Protestants, but an influential segment.

1. Deliverance: The True Story Of a Gay Exorcism

Some Pentecostal Christians believe the deliverance rite can exorcise the demons that cause homosexuality. The truly shocking part is that God-fearing gays keep signing up for the traumatic ritual.

Read more here and here.

2. Religion and the Tea Party Movement

Tea Partiers are the Know-Nothings of today: latter-day Nativists who long for an imagined past of small government (with Medicare, to be sure), of Christian values, of heterosexual white people running the show and people of color knowing their place.

Read more here and here.

3. The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger

Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged.

Read more here and here.

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Documentary on St. Justin Popovich

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A Tornado Off the Coast of Mount Athos (video)

The following video was taken a few days ago near the Monastery of Iveron on Mount Athos. Technically a tornado over water is called a "water spout".

A TORNADO AND WATERSPOUT CLIMATOLOGY FOR GREECE

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President of Ukraine Visits Mount Athos

Greek President Karolos Papoulias on Sunday, 6 June 2010, received his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych, the Greek presidential press service reported.

The two countries' leaders discussed bilateral cooperation in the Greek capital Athens, and then Yanukovych, who is in Greece on a short visit, left for Mount Athos.

Mount Athos is a self-governed autonomous monastic state within Greece. It has 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries. Yanukovych is an Orthodox Christian.

Greece and Ukraine established diplomatic relations in 1992. Ukraine is home to a large Greek community.

Papoulias visited Ukraine in 2008.

Yanukovych's primary aim in visiting Greece was to make his pilgrimage to Mount Athos. This is not his first visit to the Holy Mountain. In 2009 when he visited, an elder gave him as a gift a komboschoini (prayer rope), and the President told him that he will wear it on his right hand for the rest of his life (see photo above).



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Abbot Prodromos of Great Lavra Visits Zoga In Argolis

The village of Zoga lies fourteen kilometers away from Argos in Greece. Abbot Prodromos of the Holy Monastery of Great Lavra on Mount Athos visited here 6 June 2010 to celebrate the first all-night vigil at the newly-consecrated Church of the Hagiorite Fathers. The church was founded on 26 September 2008 and the Door-Opening Ceremony was celebrated this past April. The Abbot came by invitation of of Hieromonk Ignatios Gregoriates, the founder of the church and a spiritual child of Abbot Prodromos.

Great Lavra Monastery is considered the mother of all the coenobitic monasteries on Mount Athos. It was founded in 963 by St. Athanasios the Athonite. It reached its golden age in the 14th century when many saints served in the monastery, among whom was St. Gregory Palamas. It has produced 27 patriarchs, 150 bishops, 168 abbots, 3400 hieromonks, and 14000 monks. Over 60 saints of the Church lived their monastic life at this monastery. It has 3 Sketes, 60 Cells, 60 Hesychastiria, 6 Kathismata and many hermitages. Today 50 monks are in the monastery and 350 in its surrounding properties.



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Suffering and the Spiritual Man

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Fear in suffering and fear of not suffering - this is one and the same fear and it signifies the fear of a spiritual man as to whether or not God has distanced Himself from him.

When St. Catherine suffered many and difficult tortures, our Lord appeared to her and she asked Him: "Where were You until now, 0 Lord, to comfort me in so many sufferings?" The Lord answered her: "I was here in your heart.'

But as great a fear can come upon a spiritual man when, sufferings do not come his way for a long time. A monk once entered a church in Alexandria and saw a woman kneeling before the icon of the Savior and with tears cried out to the Lord: "You have abandoned me O Lord, O Merciful One, have mercy on me!" Following the prayer the monk asked her: "Who has wronged you that you so bitterly complain to God?" The woman replied: "Up to now, no one has wronged me, that is why I am weeping because God has abandoned me and for three years did not visit me with any sufferings. During this time, I was neither sick, nor my son, nor has any of my household livestock perished."

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Righteous Melania the Elder

Righteous Melania the Elder (Feast Day - June 8)

by St. Palladius

(Lausiac History Chs. 46 & 47)

The thrice­-blessed Melania Divas, was a Spaniard by origin, but afterwards belonged to Rome. She was the daughter of Marcellinus the ax­consul, and wife of a certain man of high official rank, whom I do not quite remember. Having become a widow at twenty-two, she was favored with the divine love, and having said nothing to any one­, for she would have been prevented ­in the time when Valens had the rule in the empire, she had a guardian nominated for her son and took all her movable property and put it on a ship; then she sailed with all speed to Alexandria, accompanied by various highborn women and children.

After that, having sold her goods and turned them into money, she went to the mountain of Nitria, where she met the following fathers and their companions: ­Pambo, Arsisius, Sarapion the Great, Paphnutius of Scete, Isidore the Confessor, bishop of Hermopolis, and Dioscorus. And she sojourned with them for half a year, travailing about in the desert and visiting all the saints.

But after this, when the prefects of Alexandria banished Isidore, Pisimius, Adelphius, Paphoutius and Pambo, with them also Ammonius Paroles, and twelve bishops and priests, to Palestine in the neighborhood of Diocesarea, she followed them and ministered to them from her own money. But, servants being forbidden them, so they told me,­ for I met the holy Pisimius and Isidore and Paphnutius and Ammonius ­wearing the dress of a young slave, she brought them in the evenings what they required. But the consular of Palestine got to know of it, and wishing to fill his pocket thought he would terrify her.

And having arrested her he­ threw her into prison, ignorant that she was a lady. But she told him: "For my part, I am So ­and­ So's daughter and So ­and­ So's wife, but I am Christ's slave. And do not despise the cheapness of my clothing. For I am able to exalt myself if I like, and you cannot terrify me in this way or take any of my goods. So then I have told you this, lest through ignorance you should incur judicial accusations. For one must in dealing with insensate folk be as audacious as a hawk." Then the judge, recognizing the situation, both made an apology and honored her, and gave orders that she should succor the saints without hindrance.

After they were recalled she founded a monastery in Jerusalem, and spent twenty-­seven years there in charge of a convent of fifty virgins. With her lived also the most noble Rufinus, from Italy, of the city of Aquileia, a man similar to her in character and very steadfast, who was afterwards judged worthy of the priesthood. A more learned man or a kinder than he was not to be found among men.

So these two during twenty­-seven years receiving at their own charges those who visited Jerusalem in pursuance of a vow, bishops and monks and virgins, edified all who visited them, and they reconciled the schism of Paulinus, some 400 monks in all, and winning over every heretic that denied the Holy Spirit they brought him to the Church; and they honored the clergy of the district with gifts and food, and so continued to the end, without offending anyone.

THOUGH I have told above in a superficial way of the wonderful and saintly Melania, nevertheless I will now weave into my narrative at this point what remains to be said. What stores of goods she used up in her divine zeal, as it were burning them in a fire, is not for me to dwell on, but for those who dwell in Persia. For no one escaped her benevolence, neither East nor West nor North nor South.

For thirty­-seven years she had been giving hospitality, and at her own costs had succored both churches and monasteries and strangers and prisoners, her family and her son himself and her stewards providing the money. She persevered so long in the practice of hospitality that she possessed not even a span of land. She was not drawn (from her purpose) by desire for her son, nor did yearning after her only son separate her from love towards Christ.

But thanks to her prayers the young man attained a high standard of education and a good character and an illustrious marriage, and participated in the honors of the world; he had also two children. A long while after, hearing how her granddaughter was situated, that she was married and was proposing to renounce the world, afraid lest they should be injured by bad teaching or heresy or evil living, though an old woman of sixty years, she flung herself into a ship and sailing from Caesarea reached Rome in twenty days.

And having met there that most blessed and worthy man Apronianus, a pagan, she instructed him and made him a Christian, persuading him to be continent as regards his wife, Melania's niece named Avita. And having also strengthened the will of her own granddaughter Melania [the Younger (Dec. 31)], with her husband Pinianus, and instructed her daughter-in-­law Albina, wife of her son, and having induced all these to sell their goods, she led them out from Rome and brought them into the holy and calm harbor of the (religious) life. And in so doing she fought with beasts in the shape of all the senators and their wives who tried to prevent her, in view of (similar) renunciation of the world on the part of the other (senatorial) houses. But she said to them: "Little children, it was written 400 years ago, "It is the last hour". Why do you love to linger in life's vanities? Perchance the days of antichrist will surprise you, and you will cease to enjoy your wealth and your ancestral property."

And having liberated all these she led them to the monastic life. And after instructing the younger son of Publicola she brought him to Sicily, and having sold all her remaining goods and receded their value, she came to Jerusalem. Then, having got rid of her possessions, within forty days she fell asleep in a good old age and profound meekness, leaving behind both a monastery in Jerusalem and an endowment for it.

But when all these persons had left Rome there fell on Rome a hurricane of barbarians, which was ordained long ago in prophecies, and it did not spare even the bronze statues in the Forum, but sacking them all with barbaric frenzy delivered them to destruction, so that Rome, which had been beautified by loving hands for 1200 years, became a ruin. Then those who had been instructed (by Melania) and those who had opposed her instruction glorified God, Who had persuaded the unbelievers by a reversal of fortune, in that, when all the other families had been made prisoners, these ones only were preserved, having been made by Melania's zeal burnt­ offerings to the Lord.

Apolytikion in the Plagal of the First Tone
Scorning riches that perish and worldly dignity, thou soughtest heavenly glory through self-denial and toils, making noble rank more noble by humility; and thou didst build a holy house in Jerusalem, where thou didst guide souls unto salvation. And now, O Mother Melania, grant us the alms of thy rich prayers to God.

Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
Thou didst use thine earthly wealth, O wise Melania, to console and help the poor; and with the riches of thy mind, thou leddest many of noble rank with joy to be poor in spirit for Jesus' sake.

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The Relics and Blood-Gushing Icon of St. Theodore Stratelates

Transfer of the Relics of St. Theodore the Commander (Feast Day - June 8)

The Holy Great Martyr Theodore Stratelates suffered for Christ in Heraklea on February 8, 319. At the time of his sufferings the holy Great Martyr Theodore ordered his servant Varus to bury his body on the estate of his parents in Euchaita. The transfer of the relics of the Great Martyr Theodore took place on June 8, 319.

On this day we also recall a miracle of the icon of the Great Martyr Theodore in a church dedicated to him at a place called Karsat, near Damascus. A group of Saracens had turned this church into their residence. There was a fresco on the wall depicting Theodore. One of the Saracens shot an arrow into the icon of the Great Martyr. From the saint's face, where the arrow had stuck into the wall, blood flowed before the eyes of everyone. A short while later, the Saracens who had settled in the church killed each other. Accounts of this miracle are given by the Anastasius of Mt. Sinai (April 20) and John of Damascus (December 4). St. Anastasius said that he was personally in that church, saw the image of the saint on the wall and traces of congealed blood.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
In truth enlisted with the King of the Heavens, thou didst become for Him a noble commander, O trophy-bearer and Great Martyr Theodore. With the weaponry of faith didst thou arm thyself wisely and didst utterly destroy all the hordes of the demons, as a triumphant athlete of the Lord; wherefore we ever do faithfully call thee blest.

Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
As Christ the Saviour's mighty athlete and victor, and a provider of the gifts come from Heaven, thou always swiftly helpest with thy prayers to God all those who seek refuge in thy divinely-graced temple and who flee with fervent faith to thy holy protection. Wherefore we cry to thee: Deliver us from every danger, O thrice-blessed Theodore.

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Papa Paok: the Greek Priest Soccer Hooligan

Greek Priest Punished for Rowdiness at Soccer Games

June 07, 2010
Fox News

A Greek priest and die-hard soccer fan was punished by the Orthodox Church for rowdiness at soccer games, church officials said Monday.

Priest Christos was a fervent supporter of PAOK soccer team and would attend games dressed in his robes and a club scarf.

"Papa Paok," as he was known to the fans, earned notoriety after videos of him were posted on YouTube. One showed him in the middle of a throng of supporters who were insulting an opposition team, and another showed a crowd chanting "the priest is a God."


The clerical commission in his parish, in a Thessaloniki suburb in northern Greece, decided enough was enough. The priest, who is in his sixties, was demoted and ordered not to take part in any more "uncouth gatherings of supporters."

The decision angered PAOK fans, who denounced the decision by saying the priest carried out the "social and spiritual work of the church on behalf of the people" and accused the Orthodox Church of a "fascist and reactionary approach."

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Select Miracles of Saint Panagis Basias

Saint Panagis Basias (Feast Day - June 7) 1801-1888

1. One cold winter's night, the saint heard that a local priest's wife was ready to give birth but that her husband had no money to make the house ready or even to buy coal to warm the room for her labor. St. Panagis went out to gather alms for the family and took them to the young priest. When the priest went to buy the coal, the shop-keeper was astonished the coins that the priest put as his own. When the priest told him how he had come by the money, the coal-man shook his head and said: "Our Father Panagis! He has second sight. I had the money so well-hidden, I don't know how he could have known where to find it."

2. Andreas Megaloyennis, a Kefallonian whose daughter later became the abbess of the Lixouri women's monastery, was very nervous and irritable in his youth. One day he quarreled with his mother, and in his rage, struck her. Angered and in pain, his mother shouted at him: "I curse you!" Andrew gathered his clothes and jumping on his horse, rode to Lixouri. On the way he saw St. Panagis and dismounted to ask his blessing. The saint began to bless him, but then pulled back, saying: "This is a cursed hand - go back to your mother, beg her forgiveness and then you can come back." The young man shamefacedly went back to ask his mother's forgiveness, but she replied angrily: "It's fine for Fr. Panagis to tell you to return, but I won't forgive you." After three days, however, she relented, and when Andreas went back to Lixouri, St. Panagis, without being told what had transpired, said: "Praise God and don't ever touch your mother in anger again."

3. During Fr. Panagis' life there was a woman in Lixouri who had four daughters. Her husband was a hard man who treated her badly, always berating her for not having given him a son. One day, she decided that as a consolation she would take her daughters to get a blessing from Father Panagis. She dressed them in their best clothes and put a beautiful ribbon in the hair of the youngest. When they arrived at the house they found a crowd of villagers waiting to see the priest. Their turn finally came, and the mother said: "Father Panagis, I've brought my daughters for a blessing". As he blessed the first girl, he said, "Welcome, Dionysina", to the second, "Welcome Georgina", and to the third, "Welcome, Spyrina", thus prophesying the names of their future husbands. But he didn't want to bless the youngest one, and the mother became frightened. She asked, trembling: "Father, is my daughter going to die? Why won't you bless her?" Then the saint stood up and said to the child: "Bless me, Ama" [an old formal term for "Mother"]. The child's mother was troubled by these strange words, but Fr. Panagis took the ribbon from the girl's hair and said: "You don't need this, Igoumeni [Abbess] of Lepethon". And truly, the three older daughters were married to husbands with the very names the saint had foretold, while the youngest daughter became a nun, and later an abbess at the Monastery of Lepethon with the name Evgenia.

For more on the life and miracles of Saint Panagis, see here and here.

Ἀπολυτίκιον Ἦχος α’. Τῆς ἐρήμου πολίτης.
Ληξουρίου τὸν γόνον, Ἱερέων τὸ καύχημα, τῆς Κεφαλληνίας φωστῆρα νεοφανῶς ἀνατείλαντα, ὑψήσωμεν ἐν ὕμνοις Παναγήν, τὸν μύστην τῆς Τριάδος τῆς σεπτῆς, ἐμφανῶς κεκοσμημένον προφητικῶ τοῦ Πνεύματος χαρίσματι, διὸ τὸν δοξάσαντα αὐτὸν λαμπρῶς ἀντιδοξάσωμεν, ἶνα εὔρωμεν χάριν καὶ πταισμάτων τὴν συγχώρησιν.

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The Adventures of Robin Hood - The Byzantine Treasure

From Season 1, Episode 31 with a running time of 24:49.

The outlaws rarely have attacks of conscience, but when they discover solid gold plates belonging to Queen Eleanor have been stolen, something has to be done. The Byzantine treasure is too 'hot' for them to hold. - Hulu.com

For more on Robin Hood, see my post Fr. John Romanides on Robin Hood and Orthodoxy.

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Romanian Church to Borrow Money for Cathedral

04 June 2010
Marian Chiriac
Balkan Insight

Plans for building a very large and controversial cathedral in Bucharest are still alive, with the Orthodox Church intending to borrow around €200 million in a syndicated loan to start construction by the end of this year, local press reports.

Church project manager Nicolae Noica said the church put up its forests, churches and other property to guarantee the loan for the new building, which will be called the Cathedral for the Salvation of the People. He stressed that the money would be reimbursed from the collection plate and donations and not from the state budget.

Financial analyst Bogdan Baltazar says the church will not have problems in attracting the loan. "The Orthodox Church is a very credible and stable institution in Romania. Furthermore, it has a lot of assests which can be used for guaranteeing the loan."

More than 85 percent of Romania's population of 21 million belong to the Orthodox Church. The new facility will take its place among other archictectural giants in the capital city. Bucharest is already home to the second-largest building [the former Ceausescu palace] after the Pentagon, the largest hotel and the largest shopping mall in southeastern Europe.

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Metropolitan Nikitas To Become Turkish Citizen

This appears to be a controversial move by the more naive, but it should be perfectly reasonable when one considers the fact that in order for the Ecumenical Patriarchate to ensure its future survival in Constantinople, it is necessary that options widen for the future choosing of Patriarchs who by Turkish law are required to be Turkish citizens. These bishops who are choosing to become Turkish citizens are simply doing it out of love and loyalty towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Tampa Native Metropolitan Nikitas To Become A Turkish Citizen

June 4, 2010
The National Herald
Theodore Kalmoukos

BOSTON — Metropolitan Nikitas of Dardanellia, the Director of the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkley, Calif. traveled to Istanbul to receive his Turkish citizenship. Metropolitan Nikitas (Lulias) is the first – and for the moment only – Orthodox bishop in the United States to have put in an application for Turkish citizenship. Speaking to The National Herald for Istanbul, Metropolitan Nikitas justified his decision to go ahead with process as follows. “If it’s about strengthening the Patriarchate, I’ll do anything.” He qualified his statement by adding “I left behind my home and my parents and went to serve our Patriarchate and Orthodoxy in Asia for ten years.” Metropolitan Nikitas was the inaugural Metropolitan of Hong Kong, before leaving his post in early 2007.

“I have not yet received my citizenship, but Turkish authorities requested that I come and fill out some paperwork,” he explained. He also noted that “they’re treating us wonderfully, and they visited the Patriarchate.”

When asked if any other Orthodox bishops in America will be receiving Turkish citizenship, he replied “I don’t know if any of the hierarchs from the Archdiocese have filed an application.” He also noted that “since I do not belong to the Archdiocese of America, but directly to the Patriarchate, I did not ask, because I don’t want to cause any problems or misunderstandings.” Metropolitan Nikitas continued by saying “and since the Patriarchate mailed me the paperwork, I thought it correct to respond. Since I’m with the Patriarchate, shouldn’t I help it? Shouldn’t I support it?”

When asked what he would do if the Turkish ambassador in Washington, DC requested him to come down on March 25th and demonstrate against Greece, he replied that “I’ll tell him that I have other duties to attend to, and that I teach at the university and cannot make it.”

In response to the question of whether taking on Turkish citizenship creates any problems with his conscience, Metropolitan Nikitas answered that “on the one hand, yes; but then again, doesn’t the Patriarch have the same citizenship?”

Of course, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was born in Turkey, while Metropolitan Nikitas was born in Tampa, Fl. However, as the Metropolitan points out, “I’ll do anything for the Patriarchate. I was born in the United States, but I received my Greek citizenship, and I also hold permanent residency in China.”

Metropolitan Nikitas told TNH that he is not looking to succeed Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. “I didn’t want to become a Metropolitan or a Bishop. I would have been happy just staying in my parish and serving the people of God. At this time, I hold not administrative position. I just want to be an hierarch of our Patriarchate, nothing more.”

When asked his opinion if the Metropolitans of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America would be allowed to become Turkish citizens as well, if they so desired, his response was “go ask them.”

Metropolitan Nikitas’ decision comes after a request made by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, following the current Turkish government’s assent to his request to grant Turkish citizenship to canonical bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate living outside of Turkey. This includes bishops living in patriarchal jurisdictions in Greece like Crete and the Dodecanese, as well as bishops from Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia.

TNH has learned that none of the hierarchs from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America – including Archbishop Demetrios – have applied for Turkish citizenship, for now at least. The reason for this delay is largely due to the fact that they fear that the matter will be publicized and that the Greek American Community will react harshly to this move.

TNH first reported on this issue back in November 2009, during Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s visit to the United States. Essentially, any bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate who desire Turkish citizenship may apply for it to ensure their full participation in the administrative affairs of the Patriarchate – including the right to be candidates for the position of Ecumenical Patriarch and to vote in this election. This development was announced by Patriarch Bartholomew himself, during a dinner with Archbishop Demetrios and the other bishops of the Archdiocese on Sunday Nov. 1, 2009 at the Carlyle Hotel in New York.

During his visit to the U.S., Patriarch Bartholomew brought along the paperwork for the Archdiocese’s bishops to fill out, which he gave to Archbishop Demetrios to pass along to the other Metropolitans.

In addition to Metropolitan Nikitas, TNH has learned that the following hieararchs were called by Turkish authorities to sign paperwork for the processing of their applications.

From the Church of Crete: Metropolitan Eugenios of Ieraptyna, Metropolitan Nektarios of Petra, Metropolitan Andreas of Arkalochorion, and Metropolitan Amphilochios of Kissamos.

From the Dodecanese: Metropolitan Ambrosios of Karpathos and Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Symi.

From Western Europe: Metropolitan Gennadios of Italy, and Metropolitan Michael of Austria (who is also an Austrian citizen).

From South America: Metropolitan Tarasios of Buenos Aires, a U.S. citizen.

From Asia: Metropolitan Sotirios of Pisidia, formerly of Korea.

From Oceania: Metropolitan Amphilochios of New Zealand.

TNH’s sources say that approximately forty bishops have sent in their applications. The previous fifteen were the first to be called.

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Following Murder of Catholic Bishop, Patriarch Bartholomew Is Not Afraid

It was with much sadness that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received news of the murder of Catholic Bishop Luigi Padovese on June 1, 2010. Responding to the questions of reporters on the island of Imvros, where the Patriarch was when he received the news, on whether or not he feared for his own life, the Patriarch said he was not afraid and believed in God's providence, Who protects us, together with the saints who pray for us.

Last photo of Catholic Bishop Luigi Padovese

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The Curious Case of Pope Marcellinus

Elected in 296, Marcellinus presided without incident over the Church of Rome for seven years. Then he allegedly defected and took part in sacrificing to idols under Diocletian. The story of his defection has been challenged, but the evidence for it is convincing. Reliable documents treat the story as an established fact — even as they try to present it favorably by saying he immediately repented, recanted and died a martyr.

A question which persists till this day is whether or not Pope Marcellinus, after offering incense to pagan idols during the reign of Emperor Diocletian, indeed repented and was later martyred, or died naturally.

Two sources, Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopedia, examine the issue and explain why the history of this Pope is indeed curious. The earliest sources seem to hide his sin, while later sources seek to exonerate him. St. Nikolai Velimirovich, in his Prologue for June 7, relates the following version of the life of Pope Marcellinus, which is the exonerated version of the tale:

THE PRIESTLY-MARTYR MARCELLINUS, POPE OF ROME

Marcellinus was the predecessor of Pope Marcellus on the Roman throne. When Emperor Diocletian summoned him and threatened him with torture, Marcellinus offered sacrifice to the idols for which the emperor presented him with a precious garment. But Marcellinus bitterly repented and began to lament day and night because of his denial of Christ as Peter the Apostle once did. At that time, an assembly of bishops was held in Campania. The pope dressed in sackcloth poured ashes over his head and entered the assembly and, before all, confessed his sin begging them (the bishops) to judge him. The fathers said that he should judge himself. Then Marcellinus said: "I deprive myself of my priestly rank, for which I am not worthy, and even more, do not allow my body to be buried after death but let it be thrown to the dogs!" Having said this, he pronounced a curse on the one who would dare bury him. After that, Marcellinus went to the Emperor Diocletian, threw down the precious garment before him and confessed his faith in Jesus Christ and scorned the idols. The enraged emperor ordered Marcellinus to be tortured and afterwards they killed him outside the city together with three good men: Claudius, Cyrinus and Antoninus. The bodies of these three men were buried immediately but the body of the pope lay there for thirty-six days. Then, St. Peter appeared to the new pope Marcellus and ordered that the body of Marcellinus be buried saying: "He who humbles himself shall be exalted" (Luke 18:14).

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On Murder

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

It is a horrible thing to kill a man. There are no words to describe the horror which lays hold on the murderer. While a man is preparing to kill another man, he thinks that to kill a man is the same as killing an ox. When he carries out his preconceived crime then, all at once, he realizes that he has declared war on heaven and earth and that he has become an exile and cut off from both heaven and earth. The victim does not give him peace neither day nor night.

A known criminal came to Zosimus on Sinai and begged him to tonsure him a monk. Zosimus clothed him in the monastic habit and sent him to the monastery of Venerable Dorotheus near Gaza to lead a life of asceticism in the Cenobia. After nine years the tonsured criminal returned to St. Zosimus, returned his monastic habit and sought his secular clothes. To the question why are you doing this, the criminal replied that for nine years he has fervently prayed to God, fasted, kept vigil and fulfilled all acts of obedience and that he feels that many of his sins were forgiven but that one of his sins torments him continually. At one time, he killed an innocent child and that child appears to him day and night and asks him: "Why did you kill me?" Because of that he decided to leave and to turn himself in to the authorities that they may execute him and thus to repay blood for blood. Dressing in his former clothes, he went to the town of Diospolis where he acknowledged his crime and was beheaded. Thus, by his blood, he washed away his bloody sin.

Among the saints exists a very sharp [acute] conscience. That which average people consider a minor sin, the saints consider to be a great transgression. It is said of the Abba Daniel that on three occasions robbers captured him and took him into the forest. Fortunately, on two occasions he saved himself from slavery but the third time when he wanted to escape, he struck one of them with a stone, killed him and fled. This murder preyed on his conscience as heavy as lead. Perplexed as to what he should do, he went to the Alexandrian Patriarch Timothy, confessed to him and sought advice. The patriarch consoled him and absolved him from any epitimia [penance]. But his conscience still worried him and he went to the pope in Rome. The pope told him the same thing as did Patriarch Timothy. Still dissatisfied, Daniel visited in succession the other patriarchs in Constantinople, Antioch and Jerusalem confessing to all of them and seeking advice. But, he remained unsatisfied. Then he returned to Alexandria and declared himself to the authorities as a murderer. The authorities arrested him. When the trial was held before the prince, Daniel related everything that had happened and begged to be killed in order to save his soul from eternal fire. The prince was amazed at all of this and said to him: "Go, Father, and pray to God for me even though you kill seven more!" Dissatisfied with this, Daniel then decided to take a leperous man into his cell and to serve him until his death and when this one dies to take another. Thus he did and so, in this manner, quieted his conscience.

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Russia's New Rasputin: Faith Healer Anatoly Kashpirovsky

Psychic healer Anatoly Kashpirovsky once held the entire USSR under his televised spell. But after 15 years in self-imposed exile, following claims that his shows had caused a wave of suicides, he is back – and as controversial as ever.

Marc Bennetts
The Observer
6 June 2010

"Let's get one thing straight. Your level of understanding is this big," Anatoly Kashpirovsky announces, after striding on stage at north Moscow's Cosmos concert hall, indicating the space between his thumb and forefinger. "But mine is 1,000 times greater."

The 2,000-strong crowd looks suitably impressed. But then, having just shelled out the rouble equivalent of up to £60 a ticket and another £20 for one of Kashpirovsky's "remote healing" DVDs, they are clearly expecting to witness something out of the ordinary.

They will not go home disappointed. (Although, it must be said, some will go not home at all, but rather to hospital, suffering from nausea and intense headaches.)

His terse introduction over, Kashpirovsky, who at 70 boasts the appearance and energy of a man two decades younger, launches into an almost hour-long monologue, taking in subjects as diverse as self-programming, Genghis Khan and unsightly vaginal moles.

As fascinating as all of this may be, I can't help feeling that most of the audience would rather he just cut to the chase and laid on the healing touch that once made him the most talked-about man in the Soviet Union.

As the Soviet system began to collapse under its own weight in the late 1980s, a widespread underground belief in magic and the paranormal flooded into the mainstream, turning society on its head. The pinnacle of this scramble for new ideas to replace the certainties that Marxism-Leninism had once provided saw the incredible spectacle of extrasensory experiments carried out on state TV, prime-time viewing spots devoted to psychic healing sessions.

Where once there were screenings of Communist Party congresses and rhythmic gymnastics, now there were men with hypnotic eyes and soothing voices promising to cure the entire country of its ailments. The nation was entranced.

Kashpirovsky, who first came to public attention during a televised broadcast of a Kiev healing session in October 1989, was the most famous of these Kremlin-approved psychics. At the height of his celebrity, the former weightlifter and qualified psychiatrist regularly topped polls to find the most popular public figure, easily beating the still sober Boris Yeltsin into second place. His live appearances at venues from Moscow to Vladivostok saw crowds sobbing and writhing to his command, a mass casting-out of demons, Soviet-style.

"They idolise me,'' Kashpirovsky said of his countrymen at a 1989 joint news conference with a foreign ministry spokesperson. "I can reverse what was once thought irreversible. I tap the inner resources of the body."

Such high-level patronage led to immediate and widespread comparisons with the mad monk Grigory Rasputin, the mystic healer whose malign influence over the royal family played a large part in the collapse of the Russian monarchy and the rise of the Bolsheviks.

This, then, was no Uri Geller-type spoon-bending novelty. If the Israeli psychic's shows were something of a joke for most people in the west – a few moments of entertainment before the big match – Kashpirovsky's appearances were a genuine cultural and social landmark, his name a byword for all that was bizarre and unfathomable during the final years of the Soviet Union. Indeed, by pointing to another reality beyond the party line, the Ukrainian-born healer may well have even contributed to the downfall of the "Evil Empire".

Clad entirely in black, his piercing eyes staring into apartments across the vast territory of the USSR, Kashpirovsky "treated" millions, his voice both reassuring and oddly threatening.

"For those of you with high blood pressure, your blood pressure will lower… whoever has hip injuries, they will heal…" he droned, his litany of the suffering and the saved a potent lullaby that plunged the nation into a communal trance.

Who cared if the country was collapsing around them, if the shops were almost empty, and the threat of separatist violence in the Caucasus was moving ever closer? The USSR turned on, tuned in and switched off.

"The streets would empty whenever Kashpirovsky came on," journalist Katya Murzina tells me. "I was just a kid, but I remember we all talked about his shows at school. Everyone was convinced he really could heal the nation.

"We had never seen anything like this on TV before," she goes on. "You have to remember, there were basically no adverts on Soviet TV. Everything was taken at face value. So if state TV presented him as possessing these incredible powers, most people believed it."

Kashpirovsky's great rival was Alan Chumak, a white-haired figure for whom the word eccentric could have been invented. During his show, after a brief matter-of-fact introduction, Chumak would silently and slowly, like some Soviet Zen master, move his hands for half-an-hour or so, "charging" with healing energy the jars and saucepans full of water that his millions of viewers had placed around their flats.

"On Fridays Chumak will help viewers to overcome their allergies," a helpful announcement for one of his shows stated. "People with stomach problems should tune in later."

The post-Soviet period saw Kashpirovsky's star fade quickly, as claims that his mass hypnosis sessions had driven hundreds if not thousands of people out of their minds grew stronger. In 1995, after a brief flirtation with politics during which he was elected to the state Duma, Kashpirovsky left Russia for the US, where he reportedly found work treating immigrants from the former USSR.

In his absence the Russians' centuries-long passion for the occult and the paranormal mushroomed, with all manner of psychics and sorcerers popping up to offer so-called "magical services".

Behind the facade of today's Russia is a bizarre place unknown to most westerners, a world where businesspeople turn to urban witches for solutions to their problems and lawyers consult psychics to predict the results of upcoming cases. Although it's hard to get exact figures, there are an estimated 100,000 professional occultists and psychics in Russia, with the business worth at least $15m in Moscow alone.

But Kashpirovsky's hold over Soviet society remains, for many people here, something they would rather forget. His manhandling of their psyches has left some uncomfortable memories. Indeed, a recent opinion poll showed that while almost 90% of the Soviet Union watched Kashpirovsky's healing sessions, only 13% of Russians old enough to have done so will admit to having tuned in.

Nevertheless, despite warnings by health officials over Kashpirovsky's "record of causing serious harm to the nation", the man-in-black returned to Russia's TV screens in late 2009 as the host of a show dedicated to "paranormal investigations".

And then, this spring, he announced the restart of his mass healing sessions, including his first public appearance in the Russian capital for some two decades. With Russia struggling to emerge from a period of economic downturn and public discontent with the ruling Putin-Medvedev tandem at unprecedented levels, there was something undeniably symbolic about the return of the man whose rise to fame coincided with the collapse of the USSR.

Or was there more than mere coincidence to the timing of Kashpirovsky's second coming? There are those, among them Kashpirovsky's one-time professional colleagues in the field of human psychology, who believe that the psychic healer's comeback is an attempt by the authorities to placate Russian society, to divert attention from falling living standards and rising state brutality. But, if so, this plan may well turn out to be a double-edged sword.

"Kashpirovsky's reappearance at a critical moment for society is no coincidence," Boris Yegorov, head of the ethics committee of the all-Russian league of professional psychotherapists, tells me. "But his mass healing sessions are being permitted by people who know nothing about the psychology of the masses. They are counting on being able to calm people down, to remove some of the tension in society. But the authorities have lost touch with reality and are simply encouraging aggression," he adds. "When the public's hopes for Kashpirovsky are not justified, they will turn on those in power."

Kashpirovsky is reluctant to give face-to-face interviews, preferring to communicate via emails. Ahead of his return to Moscow, with the psychic in the middle of an Israeli tour catering to the vast number of immigrants from the former USSR, I fire off a letter giving him a chance to answer his critics.

"These are the ravings of crazy people," he replies, his fury losing none of its edge over the internet. "There will always be unrighteous critics. Their weapons are lies and slander. Their overwhelming motive is envy and their own inadequacy."

He never was one for pulling either his figurative or literal punches. I once saw a Russian talk show where he had attacked a fellow guest who was giving him a hard time, scrapping on the floor like an ageing street fighter. For the man who had kicked open the doors to a new, stranger reality for the Soviets, somehow it just didn't seem becoming.

While modern Russia has changed beyond recognition since Kashpirovsky's glory days, the country's passion for the esoteric is stronger than ever. But was the man who started off the whole craze impressed with his successors?

"This was all given a kick-start by my televised operations and programmes. After this, the public split into two parts – one half wanted to treat and the other half to be treated."

I liked that image: 50% of the nation seeking someone to psychically heal, the other 50% desperate to submit their cancers, growths and warts to extrasensory probing.

"This is coming to its inevitable end though," he continues. "This is down to the new saviours' inability to come up with the goods."

Was this a touch of jealousy? Or envy? Did he miss the days of glory, the years of Soviet-wide fame when his shows could empty streets?

Bizarrely, Kashpirovsky is not the only Russian psychic to have been the subject of political conspiracy theories. In 2005, prospective presidential candidate Grigori Grabovoi ("My first act will be to ban death") achieved immediate nationwide notoriety when he offered to use his otherworldly powers to resurrect, at a cost of $1,500 a corpse, the children killed in the Beslan terrorist act. An article in the Mikhail Gorbachev-funded opposition Novaya Gazeta paper claimed Grabovoi had been used by the Kremlin to discredit the Mothers of Beslan pressure group and their attempts to uncover the truth behind the attack. If so, the authorities were guilty of abandoning their man – Grabovoi was jailed for 11 years on fraud charges in 2008.

"I doubt if he was as much a danger to Russia as the people who so cruelly punished him," Kashpirovsky says. "I don't believe the allegations against him."

Kashpirovsky declines to comment further. Still, I couldn't fail but be impressed by this touching show of unity among psychics.

"It is not for nothing Anatoly Kashpirovsky calls his DVDs and photographs his heavy artillery," an authoritative female voice announces over the concert hall's sound system as the clock ticks down to the big comeback show.

"They possess a universal and remote healing effect. Even when his stay in your town or city is over, by using his material, it is as if Anatoly is really with you, gazing into your eyes," she goes on. "Some people place the DVDs under their pillows at night and others, mainly those suffering from heart problems, wear his photo under their shirts.

"At least 16 people were healed of total blindness last year by staring at Kashpirovsky's photograph," she concludes, before the pre-recorded message starts over again.

Actually, I'm not sure I got that last part right. Surely I must have misheard? Or does Kashpirovsky have such a low opinion of his followers that he has taken to outright mockery?

In any case, the punters don't need much persuading to part with their cash. Sales are frantic, with grannies jostling each other for a place in the ever-expanding queue.

"Give me the latest show, the freshest, the best," a red-faced, overweight pensioner says, thrusting forward a 1,000-rouble (£22) note along with her superlatives.

"That will be the Vladivostok show," the woman at the stall replies. "We've got a good one from Donetsk [eastern Ukraine] as well."

Next to part with their cash is a middle-aged couple from one of the former Soviet Central Asian republics. They are with their teenage son, who is in a wheelchair, and are clearly counting on him walking home after Kashpirovsky is through. They buy all the discs on offer, plus a large selection of photos.

When the last person has been served, the show finally gets under way, some 30 minutes behind schedule. Straightaway there is a surprise as a pre-recorded up-tempo acoustic rock number featuring vocals by Kashpirovsky himself kicks things off.

"I'm no sorcerer… but I can replace a million doctors," the psychic growls in an unexpectedly competent, Johnny Cash-style performance –albeit sung in Russian with a strong Ukrainian accent. As the last note fades away, Kashpirovsky makes his entry. The crowd stands up and applauds as if greeting royalty. Our host for the evening, clad in a black jacket and a crisp white shirt, grimaces and gestures impatiently for silence.

"How should I address you?" he ponders, gazing into the crowd. "Spectators, friends… citizens? None of these seem quite right."

"The sick?" someone suggests, the voice coming from just behind me.

"Computers," he says, giving no sign that he has heard. "You are computers ripe for programming."

Around me, people close their eyes and start to trance out – the lecture itself is apparently part of the healing process. It's not the words that are so important, but rather, as Kashpirovsky puts it, "the movement at a molecular level" that is going on while he litters his talk with enigmatic yet essentially meaningless phrases such as: "Man is far from the stars, yet the stars are even further from man."

"The most powerful medicine can only be obtained through non-medical means," he announces. "For example, if we hear the sound of shattering glass, we're frightened. Is that medicine? No. And when the sun warms your body – is this medicine? No, this is biochemistry… We must awaken the medicine within.

"I don't need your belief," Kashpirovsky states, spitting out the words as his monologue finally comes to an end. "Why would I? Does the violinist need the violin to trust in him? Does the sculptor the sculpture? Do I need this piece of paper to believe in me before I crumple it up and throw it away?"

Satisfied he has made his point, Kashpirovsky then invites members of the audience to join him on stage, to submit to his magic touch. The security guards are nearly trampled in the rush. I think about becoming part of the throng, to experience whatever powers Kashpirovsky claims to possess at first hand, but something holds me back. To be honest, I'm still not sure what.

Given the prevalence of pensioners in the audience, there is a remarkably sexually charged atmosphere in the hall, and the trance techno that suddenly starts blasting out of the speakers only adds to the air of abandon. The pounding drums and bass hammer through me and I can only imagine what the music is doing to the rest of the crowd, most of whom will never have experienced such rhythms before. "Hardcore, funky bass," declares a robotic voice and the keyboards kick in. This is a long way from the Soviet ballads and stirring proletariat anthems the majority of people here grew up on.

The "computers" approach Kashpirovsky one at a time. Some are hesitant, taking tiny steps, while others stride joyously across the stage. Kashpirovsky touches them, stares into their eyes for a second and they slump to the floor.

"But they do not sleep!" he declares, and indeed they do not, one of the woman on stage taking care to adjust her skirt to make sure she doesn't inadvertently flash her knickers.

I glance over to the boy in the wheelchair. His parents are arguing furiously with a security guard who will not allow them on stage. On the other side of the hall, a woman attempts to lead her blind husband up the steps to Kashpirovsky.

"No, no, no!" the psychic shouts. "He could hurt himself when he falls. Take him away. I will deal with him remotely."

The woman, distraught, her hopes for the evening dashed, whimpers something in reply, but the music drowns her out. There will be no healing tonight for the lame and the blind.

Before long, the stage is almost covered in fallen bodies. The scene reminds me of nothing so much as a processing line at a slaughterhouse. A few members of the crowd rise from their seats and begin to dance waltzes with unseen partners, ignoring the techno that continues to shake the building.

What must it do to a man's ego, this ability to stir up hysteria at the flick of a hand? With Kashpirovsky, it appears to have hardened his contempt for the great unwashed masses. It strikes me that his popularity might have something to do with the Russians' well-known longing for an iron fist, for authoritarian leaders. Just as I start to scribble the thought down in my notebook, the techno subsides, and Kashpirovsky begins to walk among those members of the crowd still in their seats. Instinctively, with the speed of a schoolboy concealing notes passed in class from the teacher, I hide my pen and paper.

Two rows over, a pensioner is sobbing, tears streaming down her face as Kashpirovsky stops in front of her to offer some life advice. Curiously, this consists mainly of: "Go home and eat vegetables for supper tonight," but we are beyond language, the woman's face crumpling immediately in a mixture of joy and sorrow, passion and regret.

The next day, the newspapers will round on Kashpirovsky, publishing reports stating that his "odious" performance had led to a number of people seeking medical assistance for psychosomatic illnesses ranging from intense headaches to ulcer pains.

The madness continues. A woman in her twenties, the one who concealed her knickers from the crowd, rises from the stage and glides towards Kashpirovsky. The look on her face reminds me of footage I have seen of the Manson family girls at Charles's trial. Devoted, blissed out, confused. She stands next to him, waiting for the object of her undivided attention to turn away from the pensioner. Kashpirovsky brushes her aside, barely glancing in her direction as he passes. "That's not how we do things," he says.

And then, as if he has had enough of the insanity all around him, as if he has tired of being worshipped, he gives the signal for the fallen to rise. Which they do, a little shaky at first, but with massive smiles on their faces.

"We've had a good evening," Kashpirovsky says. "And we've got plenty of DVDs in stock. If you do buy them, don't forget, never lend them to anyone."

And with that, he is gone.

The post-show atmosphere reminds me of the scene after the raves I attended in the early 1990s. Saucer-shaped eyes, streams of consciousness, strangers embracing one another. I half expect the loved-up pensioners to head off to a chill-out club.

I take the opportunity of all this comradeship to ask some questions. What I really want to know is as simple as this: were these people sick and, if so, do they now feel better?

"We were in a car crash six months ago," the overweight woman who wanted the "best" Kashpirovsky DVDs tells me, gesturing at her husband, a skinny fellow dressed all in black. "We suffered internal injuries," she goes on, an odd hint of pride in her voice.

And now?

"I felt my liver move in there," she says. "I'm going to get better, I'm sure."

I refrain from suggesting that the earth-shaking bass might have had something to do with that.

"It's bad that you are sceptical," her husband says, reading my expression. "Kashpirovsky is a wonderful man."

The girl whose undergarments just escaped public scrutiny is holding court a few feet away. "I just felt like I had to get up and go to him," she says. "He was like a magnet."

The grannies around her are hanging on her every word.

"Did he make me do that?" she wonders.

"Of course, love," one of the women whispers. "Everything he makes us do is for our own good."

I get in my questions.

"No, I'm not suffering from any illness," she says, not at all put out by my query. "My brother's schizophrenic though, so I thought I'd go and check out the show. To see if it could help him. I'm so glad I came."

The next people I talk to, a pair of middle-aged women who have the habit of finishing each other's sentences, are less enthusiastic.

"We have both been suffering from nasal problems for many years," the first says, sniffing as she speaks. "I can't say there has been a distinct improvement," the other adds. "But we will certainly watch the DVDs," her friend goes on, "and I'm sure that will do the trick."

I don't begrudge Kashpirovsky's followers their conviction that everything will turn out for the better, that their illnesses and pains will somehow miraculously disappear. This ability to believe passionately, for a short time at least, in the promises of charismatic figures is a very Russian trait.

From the Stalinist shockworkers who laboured in mines to hasten the dawn of communism to the Perestroika-era crowds who supported Yeltsin in his struggle against Kremlin hardliners, the Russians have always been ready to invest everything in the quest for a brighter day. But invariably their hopes have never lasted long, and the line between love and hate is so small here as to be barely discernible.

As I make my way to the exit, I pass the Central Asian couple and their disabled son. The mother is weeping openly, the father's face red with anger. The boy, a pile of Kashpirovsky products balanced in his hands, looks uncomfortable, bemused by all the commotion, as if he alone doubted all along that he would rise miraculously from his wheelchair.

A couple of pensioners comfort the mother, telling her that she must have faith, that the discs and the photos will eventually work their magic. She looks unconvinced, and her sorrow shows signs of turning to rage. Perhaps the warning that the public's inevitable disillusionment with Kashpirovsky.

I wonder where the conversation will go next and, simultaneously, where Russia's eternal passion for the paranormal and the occult will take it. But for now I have had enough and walk out into the Moscow night.

Marc Bennetts lives in Moscow and is a journalist and translator. He is the author of Football Dynamo (Random House, £8.99)

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