The Catalog of Good Deeds: Modern Day Miracles

Showing posts with label Modern Day Miracles. Show all posts

While praying to Christ, I felt a certain difficulty. The Mother of God – She was just like my own Mother to me. The same was with St. Euphemia. “My dear Saint Euphemia”, I addressed to her… But it was difficult to pray to Christ. I venerated His icons with fear. When during the Jesus Prayer my mind began to distract from prayer, I did not upset me at all. “Who am I to constantly keep Christ in my poor mind?” – I said to myself. And then something happened what I want to tell you about.

It was the evening after the feast of the Finding of the head of St. John the Forerunner, the eve of the feast day of St. Apostle Carp. I felt very inspired that evening. I did not want to sleep at all and I thought, “ Well, let me write something about Fr. Tikhon and send it to the sisters in Suroti”. By 8:30 AM I wrote about 30 pages. I still did not want to sleep but decided to lie down for a while because my legs were weak.

Sunrise began. By 9 AM I was still not sleeping. And suddenly I saw that one of the walls of my cell (the one near which my bed stood) just disappeared. I saw Christ – He was in light, just about 6 meters from me. I saw Him from His side. His hairs were bright and His eyes were blue. He did not say a word to me, but only looked – not right at me, but a bit more to the side.

I saw everything with the non-corporal eyes. In such case, it does not matter whether your corporal eyes are closed or not. I saw that with my spiritual eyes.

When I saw Him, I thought, “ How could they all spit in that Face? How could they - the people without any fear of God - hit that Face? How could they slam the nails into that Body? Oh God…”

I was struck by that. How pleased I felt at that moment! What a joy I felt! I cannot express that beauty with words. It was the very beauty about which is was said: “You are fairer than the sons of men; Grace is poured upon Your lips” (Psalm 45:2). This is what that beauty was. I have never seen something like that on any of His images. There was only one – I do not remember where I have seen it – which looked a bit alike.

A person should work in a monastery ever for a thousand years to see this beauty at least for a moment. What great and indescribable things are gifted to people – and how miserable are the things we try to deal with!

From the book “The Life of St. Paisios the Hagiorite”

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

This ceremony takes place in the Orthodox Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem in such a way that bewilders the soul of the Christians.

On Easter Saturday, at noon, the Orthodox Patriarch, or any other Orthodox Archbishop, enters the Holy Sepulchre, recites special prayers and remains waiting. Sometimes the waiting is long, sometimes short. The crowd, in the darkened church, repeats continually with a loud voice:

“Lord, have mercy.” (Kyrie eleison).

At a certain moment the Holy Light flashes from the depth of the Holy Sepulchre in a supernatural way, miraculously, and lights up the little lamp of olive oil put on the edge of it. The Patriarch (or the Archbishop), after having read some prayers, lights up the two clusters of 33 candles he is holding, and begins to distribute the Holy Light to the multitude of pilgrims, who receive it with great emotion, accompanied with the pealing of bells, acclamations, and an unbridled enthusiasm.

The Holy Light is not only distributed by the Archbishop, but operates also by itself. It emits from the Holy Sepulchre having a gleam of a hue completely different from that of natural light. It sparkles, it flashes like lightning, it flies like a dove around the tabernacle of the Holy Sepulchre, and lights up the unlit lamps of olive oil hanging in front of it. It whirls from one side of the church to the other. It enters to some of the chapels inside the church, as for instance the chapel of the Calvery (at a higher level than the Holy Sepulchre) and lights up the little lamps. It lights up also the candles of certain pilgrims. In fact there are some very pious pilgrims who, every time they attended this ceremony, noticed that their candles lit up on the own accord!

The Holy Fire is brought to certain Orthodox countries, such as in Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Greece, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Syria and Ukraine, and every year by special flights, being received with honors by state leaders at the respective airports.

The Russian hegumen Daniil (Daniel), who was present at the ceremony in 1106 AD, says that traditional beliefs

“that the Holy Ghost descends upon the Holy Sepulchre in the form of a dove” and “that it is lightning from heaven which kindles the lamps above the Sepulchre of the Lord” are untrue, “but the Divine grace comes down unseen from heaven, and lights the lamps of the Sepulchre of our Lord.”

Thousands of pilgrims gather in Jerusalem to partake and witness this annual miracle.

This divine light also presents some peculiarities: As soon as it appears it has a bluish hue and does not burn. At the first moments of its appearance, if it touches the face, or the mouth, or the hands, it does not burn. This is proof of its divine and supernatural origin.

The historian Eusebius writes in his Vita Constantini, which dates from around 328, about an interesting occurrence in Jerusalem of Easter in the year 162. When the church wardens were about to fill the lamps to make them ready to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, they suddenly noticed that there was no more oil left to pour in the lamps. Upon this, Bishop Narcissus of Jerusalem ordered the candles to be filled with water. He then told the wardens to ignite them. In front of the eyes of all present every single lamp burned as if filled with pure oil. Christian Orthodox tradition holds that this miracle, which predates the construction of the Holy Sepulchre in the fourth Century, is related to the Miracle of the Holy Fire. They admit that the two differ, as the former was a one-time occurrence while the Miracle of the Holy Fire occurs every year. However, they have in common premise that God has produced fire where there logically speaking should have been none.

Around 385 Egeria, a noble woman from Spain, traveled to Palestine. In the account of her journey, she speaks of a ceremony by the Holy Sepulchre of Christ, where a light comes forth (ejicitur) from the small chapel enclosing the tomb, by which the entire church is filled with an infinite light (lumen infinitum).

The pilgrim Bernard the Monk mentions the holy fire in 870 AD.

In 1099, the failure of Crusaders to obtain the fire led to street riots in Jerusalem.

We must also take into consideration that the Holy Light appears only by the invocation of an Orthodox Archbishop. EACH TIME THAT HETERODOX BISHOPS TRIED TO OBTAIN IT, THEY FAILED.

Once the Armenians paid the Turks, who then occupied the Holy Land, in order to obtain permission for their Patriarch to enter the Holy Sepulchre, The Orthodox Patriarch was standing sorrowfully with his flock at the exit of the church, near the left column, when the Holy Light split this column vertically and flashed near the Orthodox Patriarch.

A Moslem Muezin, called Tounom, who saw the miraculous event from an adjacent mosque, abandoned immediately the Moslem religion and became an Orthodox Christian. This event took place in 1549 under Sultan Mourad IV, when the Patriarch of Jerusalem was Sophrony II. ( The mentioned split column still exists. It goes back to the XII c. The Orthodox pilgrims embrace it at the “place of the split” as the enter the church).

The appearance of the Holy Light is an event which occurs every year in front of thousands of visual witnesses. Nobody can deny it. On the contrary, this miracle can reinforce those who have lack of faith.

There are some very touching recent cases of some Jews, who believed in Christ after having seen the Holy Light, and who said to their compatriots:

“Why are you still waiting for the Messiah? The Messiah came indeed”.

Source: http://journeytoorthodoxy.com/2014/12/the-great-miracle-given-by-god-only-to-the-orthodox-church/

For some people certain things, which seem appalling to other people, turn to everyday routine. For many years Priest Andrew Bityukov comes to people who suffer from cancer. Often he has to witness the last hours or minutes of someone’s earthly life. Fr. Andrew is serving in the church in honor of St. Raisa of Alexandria at the 1^st St. Petersburg State Medical University and he refuses to get used to this. He prefers to speak not about despair, but about hope; not about the meeting with death, but with life.

I got sick and understood something important

– Fr. Andrew, often you see how people, who have faced a disease, begin to pray as hard as they can. Skeptics keep saying “there is nothing special in your prayers, this is pure psychology”. Do you know any examples when the work of prayer goes beyond the borders of simple psychology?

– When I was young, I was working at a hospice. I have met a woman there, who I believe was a saint. She came to the hospital when she was already in the last stages of cancer. During our conversation it came out that she had had more than ten abortions. What is more, most of them she did by herself. When she got sick the first thing she asked was not “why I deserve this?”, but “what should I do now?” She got the answer: “Pray. Here are the morning and evening prayers. Here is the akathist for women who murdered a child in the womb”. Every time I came to her, I saw her sitting on the bed with her glasses on and praying. Later that person began to beam with light, the atmosphere in the hospital room changed. People did not want to change the room, although it was the most crowded room in the hospital. Peace emanated from her.

That person died in peace. So, this is the experience and the result of prayer that I have faced personally.

Fr. Andrew Bityukov

– You have worked in an ambulance team, and you serve for many years in the place, where people with serious and even incurable diseases are. Can you say that you have not solved the question of the origins and reasons of people’s sufferings yet and that nothing here causes an inner rebel in you?

– The theme of physical sufferings is rather clear to me. St. John the Chrysostom said that a person who learned to withstand all his diseases with patience, is close to holiness. When you see for many years, how these people carry their paint, you understand already what this all is about. It is much more difficult to understand sufferings that are caused in this world by healthy people.

What concerns the sick, many of them finally understand the sense, one way or another.

Even some unfaithful people say, “How good it is that I have got sick – it helped me to understand something important”. We can compare a person who is sick to the one who keeps the fast. They are restricted in what they can do, they are isolated from the outer world. The ideas about how one can change his life, what mistakes he has made, what is valuable in our life and what is not, come to their mind.

– But sometimes people get bitter because of their sickness.

– Yes, for many people their sickness is a wrong turn in their life. They begin to blame themselves, other people and God. We have to talk to such people and offer them to look at the situation from a different viewpoint. I do not expect that a person will change after our conversation. Some people did not change even after the conversation with God Himself. This is why I say: “You can disagree with me. Now I leave, and you will stay here. You will have questions and counter-arguments, and this is good. We will meet once again, I will listen to you and we will continue discussing this issue”.

Listening to people

– Do people in severe condition have a negative reaction on you and your words about God?

– In the departments that I visit, I do not meet with people who do not want to see me. Not because I just do not want to, but because they do not address me. Once a patient threw the blanket away to show me that both his legs were amputated. The he said, “So, where is your God if I have lost my legs?” I asked him, “Could you tell me for how long do you smoke?” He said that it was 50 years. His disease was caused by smoking. “So, what does this have to do with God? Didn’t you know smoking is dangerous?” Of course, that was not the end of our conversation. I did not leave him like that. I tried to comfort him and said that life was going on, that one could solve the problem of rehabilitation or use the prostheses…

– What episode from your service at the children’s hospital impressed you most of all and why?

– I served a funeral service for the youngest patient of our clinic. Before that, when the child was still sick, I had a very long talk with his mother. The boy’s parents were close relatives to each other. They both understood that their marriage was wrong, but their love was stronger than that. In that marriage, they had three children, and the youngest of them was born with congenital leukemia. When I was performing the funeral service, his mother was quite calm, she behaved somehow wisely… Then she told me: “Father, I take this not as a punishment. I know what we should do now. We will not split up, but we will not have children any more. We will bring up the ones we already have”. She said that not with despair, but with the desire to live on.

With children and their parents, I have the whole stories. Usually children spend much time in the hospital, so quite a trustful communication emerge between us. And I see when the Lord prepares the parents to their child’s death. This is not a sudden tragedy for them. Especially if parents go to church, partake of Holy Communion, they are more prepared spiritually and ready for such a result of the disease – they are ready to accept it. Children, if they are not in pain, suffer from all this less than their parents.

– If parents and their child do not go to church, then what do you think your aim is: just to comfort them or help them in their churching?

– Perhaps, just to be near. To be with them in this difficult situation and share their sorrows if it is possible, to listen to them. If we speak about the relations with patients and their parents, then for me the main teacher in this is Anthony of Sourozh, who is teaching us to be silent. Do not come to the bed of a sick person with certain phrases you have prepared in advance. Listen to what people say, be quiet, feel the atmosphere of their sufferings – let them all speak.

It is well-known that if someone learned about the death of a close person and is crying now, we must not hasten to comfort this person. We need to let this destructive power go out. When the person is calm, we can put a hand on his shoulder and talk.

Many people rethink their whole life exactly during their sickness, they begin to establish priorities in the right way. And if they want to speak to a priest at this time, then here I am. Right here.

– Can you state several main rules for a person who has found out he is sick and that probably there will be no cure for it?

- You should value your time and people, you should learn to contemplate. If it is a faithful person, then in this experience of sickness he can get close to the experience of saints. Many of them were physically ill. Remember Seraphim of Sarov, Ambrose of Optina. People came to them, disabled and weak saints, with their pain. But these saints had their own pain, too, and not only physical: often they faced suspicion, slander and snitching from brethren. Ascetics lived in that situation and managed to bear the burden of other people’s pain, which became only heavier.

A sick person can experience this if he stops asking “Why it was me to get sick?” and say to God: “Let it be by Your Will! I want to see what You are going to show me”. At the same time, the relatives get a great opportunity to demonstrate their love in reality. This is not easy, but this is for real.

It is important not to get used to

– Do usual feelings and emotional reactions help you as a priest or disturb you in your interaction with patients and their relatives?

– In the interaction with patients, emotions must be in the background. The same I say to the parishioners who feel really bad about their relative’s sickness. Especially it concerns various senile diseases. Often sick people behave bad with their close ones, they find really silly words. But if you communicate with a sick person on an emotional level, you spend too much of your spiritual and psychological forces. And with these emotions you are binding yourself. When I worked in the ambulance, we could not lament each dreadful tragedy – we had to get ourselves together and do our work. No one needs your emotions in such a situation. They called you so that you can help. When you have helped already and left, you can relax and cry, but not in the place where people need your help. A bot is just 7 years old, but his consciousness is adult already, he brought up that maturity in himself through sufferings. And now he is gone – but during all that time he became a friend for you because you spoke with him on serious issues. Of course, such loses are more difficult to withstand.

– Fr. Andrew, you refer to the theme of irrational things this way or another. In the beginning of our conversation, you called the woman a saint. Are you not afraid of speaking so explicitly: “saint”, “miracle”?

– In fact, the perception of a miracle is rather subjective. Many people remain skeptical about the miracles described in the Holy Gospel. Some people doubt in the holiness of generally accepted saints, others proclaim the holiness of the people, who are dubious from both the church and moral point of view. I talk about my personal experience – when there is no mistaking this holiness, when you are ready to kiss the hands of this elderly woman, because she just emits wise peace.

This is what true humility is – she is going to die in several days, but she is calm and joyful.

How can we call such a person? She has no spite in her heart. She is doing great.

This concerns not only elderly people. I remember one woman who was not especially old. When I came to her so that she can partake of Holy Communion, she was smiling all the time. I asked her, “Why are you smiling?” She replied: “Because the Lord showed me so much in my sickness! I must have died 10 years ago. Instead, I have managed to raise my daughter. I got sick when she was 8, her father left us alone. Since I was a doctor, I understood how long I could live. I prayed that the Lord gave an opportunity to raise my child”. Such episodes persuade me that the Lord is especially close to all these people.

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Source: https://foma.ru/rak-istorii-o-chude.html

In Great Lent, a period of intensified prayer, the Church does not forget to pray for its departed children, because the driving force of prayer—love—overcomes all obstacles of time and space, not stopping even before the boundary of eternity, passing between the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant. The following instance that took place at the end of the twentieth century in one Greek diocese is a clear confirmation of this.

The bishop who told this story is still alive. It is genuine and has profound significance, because it speaks of the prayers of the living for the departed. God always hears these prayers, especially during the Divine Liturgy.

In the diocese of this bishop whom we have mentioned, there was a Papa Ioannis serving—a devout priest loved by all. He would somewhat linger during the proskomedia because he commemorated many names. But the priest had a terrible shortcoming: He loved to drink. As diligent as he was in the fulfillment of his priestly duties, so powerless was he before wine. Many implored him to overcome this passion, so unbecoming of a servant of God. The priest himself was aware of it, was furious with himself, and tried to quit drinking several times, although everything would start again within a few days.

Once, when this papouli had again surrendered to his passion, he went to church. Half-drunk, he exclaimed, “Blessed is the Kingdom…” and he began the Divine Liturgy. By God’s allowance, the priest slipped in the altar and dropped the Precious Gifts from his hands. He froze with horror! Dropping to the floor, he began to gather the Body and Blood of Christ with his tongue. He was choked with guilt, because it happened because of his intoxication.

The priest went to the bishop and confessed his terrible sin to him. The next day, the bishop, after much thought, sat down at the table and took a pen: He had to begin the process of defrocking Fr. Ioannis. The bishop’s hand was lingering in indecision when he beheld as if in a vision how thousands of people were coming out of the walls of the room. There was a burning pain in their eyes. Passing by the bishop, they cried out, “No, Vladyka, do not punish this priest! Do not defrock him! Forgive him!”

An endless stream of people passed in front of the bishop: men, women, children, well-dressed and poor—an entire demonstration of souls! And they all stretched out their hands to the bishop and cried out, imploring, “No, Your Grace, don’t do this; don’t expel our papouli! He remembers us and helps us at every Liturgy; he truly takes pity on us; he is our friend! Don’t remove him from his dignity! No, no, no!!!”

The vision continued for a long time. The stunned bishop watched the sea of faces pleading for the drunken priest. He realized that they were the souls of the reposed whom Fr. Ioannis commemorated at the Liturgy. And this commemoration greatly alleviates their lot, like water given to the thirsty in the summer heat. “This is a clear testimony that our prayers assuage the souls of the reposed,” the bishop thought.

He called for the priest.

“Fr. Ioannis, tell me, when you serve the Liturgy, do you commemorate a lot of names at proskomedia?”

“Hundreds of names, Your Grace. I haven’t counted them.”

“Why do you remember so many names and delay the Liturgy?” the bishop asked, as if angry.

“I pity the departed: They have no other help but the prayers of the Church. Therefore, I ask the Most-High to grant them rest. I have a book where I record all the names that are given to me for commemoration. I inherited this practice from my father, who was also a priest.”

“You do well,” the bishop agreed. “Their souls need it. Continue doing this. Just be careful, and don’t drink anymore—not a drop of wine, starting tomorrow! Such is your penance! You are forgiven.”

From that day, Fr. Ioannis was truly freed completely from the passion of drunkenness. And now he stands even longer at the proskomedia, commemorating the names of the departed.

From the book Miracles and Revelations of the Divine Liturgy,

published by Paraclete Monastery (Oropos-Attica), 2012.

Source: http://orthochristian.com/111598.html

It happened 10 years ago. That incident became for me an evidence that Great Lent is not just the time of usual sorrow, but the sorrow, through which the beams of hope come.

The woman’s name was Dolores. Yes, she had such an unusual name in the world, while she was baptized with the name Daria. I learnt about that woman, who was a lecturer of the philological faculty, from her relatives. It was Great Lent – the time, when the sacrament of Holy Unction is usually served in churches. So, they asked me to come to Daria and perform the sacrament at home. The thing is, Daria was severely ill: she had the terminal cancer of the spinal column. She underwent treatment several time, but it did not help, so the disease progressed instead.

I remember that I entered her room and saw an exhausted middle-aged woman; she was so weakened by her disease that she could not walk any more. Her relatives lifted her up and helped her to sit. During the sacrament, the sick woman was praying wholeheartedly with tears in her eyes. I will remember forever that burning light of hope for God’s help that I saw in her eyes. I anointed Daria and then I left them.

After some time I got a phone call. Daria, who could not even sit without help some time ago, told me with a completely different and joyful voice that she began to walk! Also, she told about the doctors, who were very surprised by the positive dynamics of her recovery. She added that she began to read the akathist to the mother of God before the Pantanassa icon.

It has been years since then and we still keep in contact. I always recall this incident during the period of Great Lent. It gives me hope. The hope that the Lord by His grace will send you the circumstances, which will bring us to Him. The hope that He will not let us go without repentance – even if we are in serious condition, He will cure us from any disease and give us as much time as we need to prepare ourselves.

By Archpriest Andrew Gerasimov

Source: https://foma.ru/dolores-u-kotoroy-byila-nadezhda.html

About fifteen years ago, I heard this story about an event that took place in Northern California—an unusual story, about a miracle of St. Xenia of Petersburg. Nun Nina, now Abbess Nina of St. Nilus Skete in Alaska, had heard it from Fr. Weldon Hardenbrook, who at the time was the rector of a church in Santa Cruz County. I wrote it down immediately, but unfortunately the notebook I wrote it in is located somewhere far away from me now, and I am writing it again from memory—so that people might know that Blessed Xenia the fool-for-Christ of St. Petersburg helps people everywhere, even people who previously knew nothing about her. She helps not only those who have prayed to her, but even those who will pray to her.

This priest, Fr. Weldon, served in a parish that consisted of former Evangelical Christians who had embraced Orthodox Christianity. There was a time when their flourishing community was not Orthodox, and all kinds of people came to them to hear their Christian message. One day, a young man rode up to the church on his Harley Davidson. His appearance betrayed the life of a prodigal, but he was sincerely interested in hearing about Jesus. A relationship formed with the Fr Weldon, now an Orthodox priest (who told this story), and the young man began to gradually change his ways. He had given up one vice after another when the pastor told him that his “biking” would have to go if he wanted to truly follow Christ. This was too much for the newly-born Evangelical to bear, and he left the community and his pastor’s care, never intending to return.

Our biker rode off on his Harley Davidson, and soon had a terrible accident, which cost him his legs. Eventually he landed back in the company of his old “friends”, in a run-down apartment in a low-rent neighborhood in the bad part of a crime-ridden city. One evening, as he and his companions were abusing drugs and alcohol in a particularly vigorous way, he slipped over the edge and lost consciousness. The others were also far from sober and took him for dead. Not understanding clearly what they should do, and as usual avoiding all contact with the police, they simply dragged his limp, legless body to the street and threw him into the nearest garbage dumpster. In there, the next morning, he came to his senses. It was a rude awaking indeed to find himself in a dumpster, wallowing in refuse. Climbing dazedly out of that would-be coffin, he sat down on the curb, thinking the darkest thoughts. “So, this is what I have come to. Useless, human trash. Thrown away like garbage.”

Sunk in these pessimistic thoughts, he was suddenly stirred by the presence of an old lady in tattered clothes—what people call a “bag lady”. She was coming closer to him with a fierce, accusatory expression. “You know where to go,” she said, pointing at him. “So, go there!” At that moment the man remembered his former pastor, and the church where he had almost reformed. Determined to find it again, he made his way back to the town where it is located.

When he returned to that church it was different. There were gold domes with crosses on the roof, and the interior was completely changed. No pews; and there was a sort of screen at the front, with strange images of holy people. He looked around in wonder, when his gaze caught the image of a woman—the very “bag lady” who had told him where to go in that hour of dire depression. It was Holy Blessed Xenia, the fool-for-Christ of Petersburg.

He met his old friend, now an Orthodox priest in a cassock, wearing a cross. He received holy Baptism himself, and began to live the life of a dedicated parishioner, this time truly transformed.

I do not know what has come of this man since. I have no reason to believe that he is anywhere other than at that parish, but as I have said, this story was related to me fifteen years ago. However, the fact remains that this miracle of St. Xenia happened to person who knew nothing of her, who lived in a place very far from Russia, and when he needed it the most.

By Nun Cornelia (Rees)

Source: http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com.by/2017/01/a-miracle-of-st-xenia-of-st-petersburg.html

A chapter from the book “Teraturgima, or Miracles of the New Century.

The first great omen of the Chernobyl disaster, which shook the entire planet in 1986, was revealed at a time of the rapid development of nuclear energy, long before the explosion of the 4th reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Witnesses recall it happened exactly ten years before the accident, on April 26, 1976. It is interpreted as a sign sent by the Lord and Our Lady 40 years ago. A local newspaper “Prapor Peremohy” (“The Banner of Victory) published an article at the time, titled “Fairytales of Clergymen.” An author referred to a cloud of an unusual shape appearing in the sky that day, which the clergymen interpreted as an apparition of the Virgin Mary. However, it was not merely an atmospheric oddity.

That evening many locals witnessed an unusually shaped cloud floating above the ground. The figure of the Virgin Mary could be discerned in it, with her face and brightly coloured raiment clearly visible. She was holding a tuft of dried wormwood, which the locals also call “chernobylnik.” Holy Mary dropped the wormwood over the town. Then the bright radiant cloud moved towards the forest and stopped over the church of the Holy Prophet Elijah. Blessed Virgin Mary faced the church and blessed it twice with both hands. As she appeared in the sky, it stopped raining and the weather became warm and mild. This phenomenon was interpreted by the local priest, Father Alexander Prokopenko. He explained that only Mother of God may give her blessing with two hands. Bishops also have the privilege of blessing with two hands; however the vision in the sky was not that of a male.

The Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah

The locals interpreted this phenomenon as a forecast of a dry summer and a poor harvest. Some people have found and picked up pieces of wormwood that fell from the sky. Many years later it became clear that this was a prediction: exactly ten years later the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded. But when the disaster struck, nobody made a connection between the events ten years apart. People recalled the story much later and came to recognize it as a sign from God.

In 2002 His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine blessed the creation of an icon which captured the apparition of Blessed Virgin Mary over Chernobyl. It was painted by a servant of God, an artist from Kiev named Ioan, who also created the rest of the artwork in our church. Ioan, who is an orphan, is very religious, pious and earnest. He had been fasting and took communion before starting the work. The icon portrays the church of St. Elijah with the Queen of Heaven and Archangels Michael and Gabriel on both sides, rising in the sky above it. She holds chernobylnik (wormwood) in her hands. Two capsules with wormwood picked in the Chernobyl area are affixed on both sides of the icon. His Beatitude Vladimir blessed the image as one of Chernobyl’s locally revered icons.

A vision of the Chernobyl Saviour icon is revealed to the leader of the Chernobyl Power Plant Communist party section on his deathbed

Another famous icon of St. Elijah’s church is the Chernobyl Saviour, which has a special history. This icon is said to have originated directly from the local people. They have survived one of the greatest tragedies of modern history. After the initial panic subsided, people were looking for support and sympathy. Many of them became very ill.

Yuri Andreev, who is now deceased, was the leader of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Communist party section at the time. A Communist with a strong attachment to his party’s ideas, he became very ill after receiving huge doses of radiation. He was suffering greatly; the doctors did not expect him to live much longer. Yuri kept seeing a recurring dream: an image of an icon. He described it to the artist and gave instructions on how it had to be painted. He also told of his dream to me, and I passed his message to His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr. Being seriously ill, the Communist leader kept asking for the icon to be painted. He saw the image with his inner spiritual vision and felt a strong need for it to be created. His Beatitude gave his blessing.

The icon was painted at the Trinity-Sergiev Lavra in 2003 and sanctified at Kiev-Pechersk Lavra on the feast day of the Dormition of the Mother of God. When His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir blessed the image of the Chernobyl Saviour, three signs appeared in the sky. A dove flew above the icon before hundreds of witnesses, then a rainbow appeared in the sky, and finally the sign of the cross became visible, with the sun shining at its centre. Curiously, Yuri Andreev, the terminally ill leader of the Communist party section of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, greatly recovered after this event. The Lord healed him. It is surprising that a staunch Communist, later the president of the “Chernobyl – Ukraine” Union, was chosen for this mission. Thanks to him the icon of the Chernobyl Saviour came into the world, and the Lord has continued to heal the sick and afflicted people who come to venerate this image.

The Church of the Holy Prophet Eliah

Vladislav Goretsky, a well-known iconographer, was chosen to create this icon. The image is truly sublime, expressive and spiritual. It is also exceptional in that it depicts ordinary people alongside the image of God for the first time in the history of iconography. The souls of the survivors of the Chernobyl tragedy are portrayed on the right, while the souls of the deceased victims are on the left. His Beatitude Vladimir requested the permission of Patriarch Alexiy II to paint the images of the people in the icon. Permission was granted.

A pine tree that grew in the form of a cross

The subject of the icon is deeply symbolic. It is a visual rendition of a theme from the Book of Revelation. At the centre of the image is a “star of wormwood” falling from the sky against the backdrop of the ominous glow of the explosion. Another focal point is a crucifix-shaped pine tree. This extraordinary sign of the upcoming tragedy grew on Polissya’s land decades before the accident. This large, old tree was fully grown before the Second World War. Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant was built just two kilometres away from this huge living cross, growing at the forest edge.

After the tragedy, when the so-called “red forest” poisoned by radiation was cut down, an opening revealed a stunning spiritual vision: two symbols of the universal disaster – the exploded fourth nuclear reactor and the giant tree-cross – became connected in one.

The “Red forest”

This vision is reminiscent of the Old Testament cruciform tree watered by Lot, which was to become Christ’s cross two thousand years later. The tree is believed to have grown from the three staffs given to Abraham by the Holy Trinity, Who was revealed to the forefather in the form of three angels. Four thousand years later the Chernobyl Cross arose as a symbol of the nuclear crucifixion that would come in 1986. To the left and right of the cross are the living and the deceased liquidators of the nuclear catastrophe. Above them is the Lord Jesus Christ with a scroll of the Apocalypse, open on the page that holds the prophecy, as well as the Holy Virgin and the Archangel Michael. This is the exact vision that came in a dream to the Communist leader of the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

The Chernobyl Saviour icon mystically communicates that the One holding the scroll holds the keys to the grand design and to every detail in the lives of those born into the world, as well as the events and defining moments of history, including the tragedy of Chernobyl.

The Saviour looked at the priest every night, leading him to where His image was hidden.

There is another extraordinary icon, which I have never mentioned before. It is the image of the Saviour from St Michael the Archangel’s church in the village of Krasno, located in the exclusion zone.

This wonderful icon has an unusual history. After the accident all the villagers from Krasno were evacuated due to very high levels of radiation brought on by the radioactive cloud moving towards Belarus. One of Krasno’s inhabitants ended up in St. Petersburg, where he became a priest at one of the local churches.

Eleven years ago he found my phone number and called. “Father Nikolay, I’d like to ask you for a favour,” he told me. “I have a recurring dream, in which I see the eyes of the Saviour from an icon left in the exclusion zone in Krasno. I would like you to find it – it is a large icon of Christ painted on wooden board.” “How will I find it?” I asked. “I’ll tell you where to go,” he responded.

He described the location with great precision. He named the house and the place in the house where the icon was hidden. One had to be a local to give such exact instructions for navigating the village that by now had become contaminated and abandoned.

The priest’s grandfather used to serve in St Michael the Archangel’s church for many years. The extraordinary old icon of the Saviour had been stolen from the church once, but was later miraculously restored by the Lord. The remarkable wooden church itself, built in 1800, was plundered after the Chernobyl disaster. But the grandfather, now deceased, had an opportunity to hide the antique icon, although the location remained unknown. The Lord Himself gave a sign and taught how to find the sacred icon that was dear to Him.

Thousands of kilometres away, in St. Petersburg, a priest and a native of the Chernobyl zone began to dream of this icon, the Saviour looking at him every night. I drove to the village and found the abandoned house as it had been described over the phone. Everything turned out to be true. I pulled the icon from the attic and brought it to our local church. When the icon was restored, the priest from St. Petersburg came to our church to worship and to witness his dream, which became reality.

The image of Jesus Christ in this icon is truly alive and unforgettable, his gaze forever vivid in your memory.

Angels lead a church service in the exclusion zone.

The old church in the village of Krasno has long been abandoned. However, we have had multiple witness accounts of church services being held there by the angels and the heavenly host. Staff members of the Chernobyl police force have come to me on multiple occasions between 2005 and 2009, asking to explain the meaning of what they had witnessed.

Police officers have recounted the following events. On one occasion a police unit that patrols the exclusion zone approached the village church and heard voices. They thought it was an illusion, since settlers had long left the village. There is also an abandoned checkpoint at the entrance to the village. The surrounding forest has grown thick and dangerous, making it impossible to get into the village by any other route.

The patrol vehicle moved forward towards the church. Officers could hear beautiful singing coming from the church and saw a mild glow of the lights inside the building. The men came out of the car and froze, overcome with religious fear. The Chernobyl police unit is a well-trained professional force, prepared to respond to a variety of emergency situations. Yet, these hardened men felt so overwhelmed with fear that they left the scene immediately. They went back to the same location again, but this time the church looked quiet. They did not dare enter the church and sent a report to their chief.

The police officers later came to my church and asked me to explain the nature of the event they had witnessed. I told them that the history of the church has multiple accounts of such events. Angels do not leave the holy altar until the end of time. When people have to abandon a church for any reason, angels come to worship there instead. The church in Krasno has special significance to them, since it is dedicated to the Archangel Michael, the head of the heavenly host. The place, although burned by lethal doses of radiation, still remains a sacred site, where God’s grace abides. The Lord’s will was to bring responsible witnesses to recount this miracle to the wider world. All subsequent witness accounts of the liturgy in the empty church were identical to the first description.

I have been going to the church in Krasno to lead services on feast days ever since. During one of my visits I found an icon of the Archangel Michael. I went into the loft between the church’s cupolas. It is a difficult spot to reach and quite dangerous to walk through, because of the rotting old floor boards. I prayed and walked as far as I could go, when I suddenly felt as though someone was looking at me closely. I raised my head and saw the icon of the Archangel Michael with a fiery sword in his hand, placed on a decrepit old shelf. The church had been previously plundered by looters, but this icon had remained mysteriously concealed from their sight. The icon was placed there to protect the church. It is unknown who hid the image; perhaps, the angels themselves.

The Apparition of St Seraphim of Sarov and the blessing of the annual liturgy in Chernobyl on April 26th.

This event happened in 2001 and shook me deeply. I have seen many things in my lifetime; however, this story was important unlike anything else. It helped me understand the place of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the history of the Church and the life of the universe as a whole. There is a deep spiritual interconnectedness between this explosion, the history of the Church and the history of the world at large.

The 4th reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

The fishermen who were in their boats on the Pripyat River at night on April 26th saw a bright explosion of light above the church of St. Elijah the Prophet, followed by another explosion above the nuclear power plant. This was a sign described in the book of Revelation as “a great star, blazing like a torch” (Rev. 8:10-11).

When I came to serve in this church after the tragedy, the building and grounds required a lot of restoration. We worked hard to rebuild the church, and I conducted regular liturgies, even though there were very few parishioners. On April 26th, my first anniversary of the tragedy at this church, I prayed and went to bed. There were people keeping vigil in town and remembering the victims through secular rituals, concerts and feasts. I fell asleep.

My window overlooks a cliff above the Pripyat River. I remember suddenly waking up at night and looking out of the window. I saw an old man in white robes with a white beard and a staff walking towards my house. I recognized St Seraphim of Sarov, his face, gait and bearing looking exactly as depicted in the icons. St Seraphim approached my house, stopped in front of my window and looked at me closely. He hit the ground three times with his staff, then turned towards the river and walked off through the church gates towards the power plant. Then I remember finding myself in bed again. I turned on the lights and saw it was 1.30 a.m. – the precise time the nuclear disaster struck. The Lord has sent St. Seraphim to wake me up and call me to prayer and vigil that night.

I immediately had an insight: the nuclear catastrophe was one of the watershed events in human history, described in the Book of Revelation: “The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water – the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter” (Rev. 8:10-11). Wormwood is a wide-spread plant in this area, also known as “chernobylnik,” hence the name of the town.

There is also a direct link between the apparition of the Holy Virgin above Chernobyl ten years before the tragedy. This land was meant to be a place where the Holy Scriptures culminated, and the Lord’s word split human history into “before” and “after” the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. I kept trying to understand why the Lord has chosen St Seraphim to reveal the spiritual meaning of the tragedy and wrote a letter to Patriarch Alexiy II. We corresponded for two years. As a result, our church officially received part of St. Seraphim’s holy relics, which I personally brought from Diveyevo. St Seraphim was a devout monk, but also an active participant in all the important events of his time. He began his spiritual journey in Kiev, where he worshipped at the holy places and the saints of the Kiev Caves monastery. He wanted to join the brothers at the monastery and received a blessing to go to Sarov. He always remained involved in the affairs of his homeland.

Ever since St Serpahim’s apparition on the anniversary of the tragedy we have conducted all-night vigils and the Holy Liturgy on the night of April 26th in Chernobyl. Numerous archbishops, bishops and members of the clergy have joined us over the years to remember the victims. Among them is Pavel, the Metropolitan of Chernobyl and the bishop of the Kiev Caves Lavra, who ordained me to the priesthood. I believe the Lord has purposefully made him the first church leader in Chernobyl.

Numerous pilgrims are also drawn to Chernobyl on this day. We usually go to the cemetery to have a funeral service for the firefighters who were the first to face the blazing nuclear reactor. Thus, through St Seraphim, the Lord has blessed us to stay awake and pray during the hour our planet suffered a nuclear explosion. In 2016 this tradition will be 30 years old.

It is unlikely we will ever be able to grasp the fullness and the importance of signs and events surrounding the history of the nuclear tragedy in Chernobyl. Yet, there is clearly a direct spiritual link between all of them. The Lord reveals all that is necessary in His own time. We must remain patient and steadfast in our prayer, as we wait to receive His knowledge.

Archpriest Nikolay Yakushin

Source: http://orthochristian.com/92606.html

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