Holy Fire

Patristic theology, and traditional teachings of Orthodoxy from the Church fathers of apostolic times to the present. All forum Rules apply. No polemics. No heated discussions. No name-calling.


Myrrh
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Post by Myrrh »

I was in Jerusalem a few years ago for Pascha and to my knowledge there's nothing that modern science can do to replicate what I saw and from the gasps from others around me we were seeing the same thing at the same time. A blue light bathing the outside of the shrine rising up around it in no particular pattern or timing - out of the stone itself it seemed, as Patriarch Diodoros described it. ( a description I read after I'd been there)

Whatever reason we have it, I understand it to be faithfulness to Christ's teaching, I think it's a blessing that it reminds us of where this all began, and that it's Jerusalem which is the Mother Church - not Rome, not Constantinople, not Russia.

Myrrh

Myrrh
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Post by Myrrh »

Justin Kissel wrote:

So, according to this theory, teaching non-Orthodox that they celebrate pascha on the wrong day is more important to God than bringing someone out of (supposed) pan-heresy? Why doesn't God just transfer his miracle-working power to the GOC or ROAC, so as to really show the non-Orthodox (and also the "apostate" world Orthodox) the path to enlightenment? 8) The answer is plain from a review of Church history... if there is a God, he doesn't care about whether little ricky holds to a heretical belief or little susie goes to the wrong Church. ...........

But God did not interfere with the persecutions, God did not interfere when "Christian" Roman emperors persecuted the Orthodox, God did not interfere .............. And I could go on, but those few examples from Church history are pretty representative of God's involvement in the world's affairs; that is to say, no involvement at all.

The Christian faith is not about what God can do for us, anything and everything is possible, it's what we can do for God and that's by following Him in the way we've been taught, the way of Peace regardless of suffering.

But if it's difficult in our own lives to show that we love God by keeping the commandments, the results of not keeping them are magnified when nations or churches claim that God sanctions bloody slaughter of our enemies or those that disagree with our doctrines...

Do you think the few Canaanites left alive, after their genocide had exhausted and sickened the murders, were impressed to learn that these people had just been given the wonderful instruction on Mt Sinai to walk in God's way with the commandment not to murder? The history of Christianity over the last two thousand years shows we still haven't 'got' the message.

John 14:15
If ye love me, keep my commandments

Myrrh

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Nikodemus
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Post by Nikodemus »

I believe this shows the Church that the Jerusalem Patriarch is not a heretic at all and that the miracle comes to the church...

Then i believe that God tolerates evil (in respons to Justin Kissel) but still drives the world event to Himself...how, i dont know.

Exact science must presently fall upon its own keen sword...from Skepsis there is a path to "second religiousness," which is the sequel and not the preface of the Culture.

Oswald Spengler

AndyHolland
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Post by AndyHolland »

There are two other miracles science cannot mimic that are also annual. Namely, the Holy Bloom of Glastonbury that occurs at midnight on the Orthodox nativity (from Joseph of Arimathea in Britain) and the other is the annual appearance of the nativity star at the monestary at the shepherd's field.

These miracles are important in that they allow doubting Thomases of every generation to probe the Lord's side and proclaim to the next generation the truth of the Incarnation and the Resurrection as God promised in Holy Scripture.

Of course, the simplist one celled creatures are infinitely more complex and sophisticated than any machine man has created from scratch components, and infinitely more functional and necessary too.

andy holland
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Liudmilla
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Men of little faith

Post by Liudmilla »

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=1573

15 June 2006, 16:05
Russian scientists ready to study Holy Fire

Moscow, June 15, Interfax - The Russian scientists intend to measure the temperature of the Holy Fire that descends in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on the eve of Orthodox Easter every year.

‘We hope to begin our studies within the next couple years. Technical equipment allows to do it, but there is no money’, chairman of the working group for miraculous sings in the Russian Orthodox church Rev. Pavel Florensky said at the news conference in Moscow on Thursday.

According to him, there are thermometers that register the temperature an allow monitoring its changes in the fire.

There are many testimonies to the fact that Holy Fire does not burn at the first minutes after descent.

The scientists remarked that different religions are known for miracles, but ‘it takes miracle witnesses for the miracle to exist.’ ‘One can believe or not to believe in it. We take it for the truth,’ Florensky said and warned against confusing a miracle and God’s grace with medical treatment.

He said it was a miracle to have the right hand of St. John the Baptist in Moscow. Another miracle in his view is an immediate and mass turning to church.’

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