Medjugorje: Great article to share with Roman Catholics

[Maria]

I am strictly against these false "apparations" as Fatima and Medjugorje. They are in no way interesting for the Orthodox faithful.

That, Arch. Nilos, is exactly why I have posted the above article. It is short and to the point and points out the errors in these so-called apparitions.

There are other books one can read that detail the Serbian Orthodox genocide committed at the hands of the Franciscans during World War II and the site of the massacre at Medjugorje, including that of Michael Davies. Interesting that the mysterious sounds of rapping at the windows, knocking at the doors with no one in sight, and ghostly apparitions occurred concurrently as the so-called Marian apparition at Medjugorje at the 40th ANNIVERSARY of that Serbian Orthodox genocide.

[liefern]

This is a really fine article covering some of the same material.

The Marian Apparitions: Divine Intervention or Delusion?
By Miriam Lambouras
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/maria ... tions.aspx

Samples:

...
In the majority of the apparitions considered, children or adolescents were the sole or main visionaries, making it likely that an element of child psychology might well be involved.
...
Politics and ecclesiastical manipulation (as well as the coming of the railway) played their part.
...
Heterodox Christians have very little idea of one of the key concepts of Orthodox ascetical teaching prelest—spiritual deception—whereby a mirage is mistakenly accepted for truth.
...

(In Catholic circles some of us humorously called it "med-joo-goo-goo").

[Archimandrit Nilos]

We must in no way be a great theologian to detect that these "apparitions" as Fatima are delusion and deception. They are especially so called Ultramonan doctrines of the 19th century of the Roman Church as "Immaculata Conceptio", proclaimed 1854 by Pius IX (Mastai-Ferretti) as dogma alone, "Sacred Heart" ( a kind of New-Nestorianism !) and other. These false doctrines are promulgated especially by the Jesuites as Jorge Bergoglio alias Francis is one himself a Jesuite and false prophet and apostat.

[Barbara]

You mean : Ultramontane, Archimandrite.

But the Sacred Heart was a much older devotion, going back to Gertrude, and then Margaret Mary Alacoque [+1674].
So it was not a 19th century phenomenon. Just was revived, especially at the fin de siecle by such religious, to use the Catholic term, as Sister Mary of the Divine Heart [+1899], the Superior of the Good Shepherd Convent in all places, the second city of Portugal, Oporto.
It's not too far from there to Fatima. This nun was able to persuade the Pope at that era of the need to consecrate the entire human race to the Sacred Heart. Pope Leo XIII ignored her request at first, but the next year, 1899, after he was cured from an unspecified illness, he was impressed enough to actually carry through with this dedication. I believe the consecration was done together with all the Bishops of the Catholic Church, a very rare occurrence.
This Pope attributed his quick cure to Jesus and felt that the nun's exhortation for him to consecrate the entire race of humans to the Sacred Heart was really from the Savior. He protested "Why not just "all Catholics"?" Sister Mary, a German Countess by birth who had given up all to join a very difficult order of nuns and struggled to keep her house in Porto afloat, gave a reply that it might make the non-believers feel drawn to convert to Christianity.

However Sister Mary Droste zu Vischering [ her family name, among the best and oldest of Westphalian nobility ] did not live to see the success of her campaign : she died a day before this consecration took place.

This entire episode and the nun herself are almost unknown today. Completely forgotten and certainly not mentioned in any major - or minor - history of Catholic mystics. In fact, seeing the paucity of written material on this visionary, it seems the entire incident was suppressed by Catholic Church authorities. Her name was "of the Divine Heart" because another sister already was "of the Sacred Heart", by the way.

I am mentioning this to add a rare account to give a more accurate picture of the Sacred Heart devotions in the 1800s.

++++++++++++++++

[Archimandrit Nilos]

Yes, I mean "Ultramontan" ( from Latin: "ultra montes = on the other side of the mountains = in Italy, in Rome). I repeat: The "Heart-Jesu"-devotion ist typically ultramontan with roots in the 17th century. For an Orthodox Christian not possible but Neo-Nestorianisme and heretic (especially detected by Wladimir Guéttée, this formerly Roman Catholic priest and after Orthodox Archimandrite of the Russian Church in the 19th century).

[Barbara]

Thank you for that explanation, Archimandrite, of Ultramontane. I never thought of that being the meaning of the term, which was used much in the same 19th century but is never discusseed or considered by modern Catholics, because they are so far away from that type of belief.
[My Catholic workman arrived yesterday with news that his local parish had abruptly stopped their Adoration of the Eucharist due to the awful fact that some person came into the church and ATE a bunch of hosts! Sacrilege is more the rule of the day than reverence. Hence no interest in Sacred Heart much any longer except for statues around from older days when Catholics did believe.]

[Barbara]

Do you have any more information on Wladimir Guettee ? I have never heard of him. A Polish priest, or Byelorussian due to that spelling of the name ? Sounds like a French last name. What years was he active in the Russian Church ?