Today, thousands of icons cry simultaneously in hundreds of Orthodox churches in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and in other countries. The general "lament of the saints" began in the mid-1990s with isolated cases of myrrh-streaming images, but by 1999 it had acquired such proportions that the clergy had to establish a special Commission to describe miraculous phenomena. The commission included both theologians and atheists - physicists and chemists. The conclusions of the commission turned out to be frightening: they say, "something unprecedented is happening in the history of Russia, and perhaps in the entire two thousand year history of the church."
But is it? In fact, the phenomenon is not so unique: similar religious miracles occur all over the world.
MIRACLES ALL OVER THE LIGHT
In September 1995, temples in northern India filled hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who gathered to watch the miracle of the gods drinking milk. Everyone brought a spoon with an offering to the mouth of the god, and it disappeared. Two days later, the miracle disappeared, only to be repeated in August 2006.
Russian media reported:
Skeptical scholars have expressed the opinion that “the statues drink milk because they are made of porous stone; the surface tension of the liquid forces it to pour from the spoon into the statue's mouth, where the liquid is "absorbed" into the stone, pierced with capillaries."
In 2005, in Italy, a statue of St. Pius of Peltricino cried tears of blood. Italian scientists immediately took the saint's tears for analysis and found out that the blood belongs to a woman. From which they immediately concluded that some fanatical parishioner had become the "author" of the miracle.
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Generally speaking, the European Catholic Church, in contrast to the Buddhist and Orthodox, is now rather wary of such phenomena. It is significant that between 1905 and 2002, the Vatican recognized only 12 amazing phenomena as miracles and rejected 284.
The renowned explorer of the unknown, Mike Dash, wrote in Mysterious Phenomena: “The Italian chemist Luigi Garlaskelli has made a valuable contribution to resolving the controversy over the widespread phenomenon of crying, sweating and bleeding icons. Most of the reports come from Christian countries, which have many miraculous statues of the Virgin Mary, but they also come from other parts of the world. The Roman historian Livy cited the case of one statue of Apollo, which once wept for three days in a row. In Chengannur, in the Indian province of Kerala, an iron sculpture of the Hindu goddess Bhagavati is said to menstruate once or twice a year. Bleeding occurs properly: the statue stands in a tomb, erected on a sacred rock, miraculously, it is believed, took the form of the penis of the god Shiva.
Garlaskelli began to study this phenomenon in 1995 when statues all over Italy suddenly burst into tears. The first of them, already in February, began to cry with dark red tears, a seventeen-inch plaster figurine purchased in the Temple of the Virgin Mary in Medyugorje in Herzegovina and installed in the garden of the town of Civitavecchia, and thousands of pilgrims came to see it. She was said to have cried up to nine times a day for five minutes at a time, and as her prominence grew, reports of similar occurrences began to come in from a dozen other locations across Italy.
Samples taken from the bleeding statues were analyzed and found to be human blood. However, in the course of his research, Garlaskelli found a more mundane explanation for the twofold property: the statue produces “blood,” “sweat,” or “tears” by order, seemingly out of nowhere, and does not require suspicious holes or mechanical, electronic or chemical tricks. You just need to have a glazed hollow statue made of a porous material like gypsum. If the interior of the statue is filled with a liquid - red for blood and transparent for sweat and tears - then a thin porous shell will absorb it, and the glaze will prevent it from seeping to the surface. To obtain the desired effect, the fraudster can only imperceptibly break the glaze, say, in the corner of the eye.
The solution proposed by Garlaskelli is simple (the secret could have been discovered in ancient times and passed down from generation to generation or re-discovered, and fraud is rather difficult to detect): as soon as the liquid ran out, there were practically no traces of its presence in the statue. This is why statues so rarely cry constantly, or at least regularly over long periods, although there have been cases when icons sometimes wept for up to eight years in a row.
The periodic outflow of liquid (as in the case of Civitavecchia) can best be explained by the fact that the joker closes and reopens the scratch in the glaze several times a day.
About miracles in India, Mike Dash writes:
So, we see that 1995 is marked not only by the appearance of a mass of myrrh-streaming and blood-crying icons in Russia, but also statues crying with blood in Italy and statues drinking milk in India. Is this just a coincidence? Or did the gods really agree and try to give the believers in them a sign from above?
It is quite clear that the Orthodox clergy do not recognize as a miracle either drinking milk by Buddhist statues or sweating the blood of Catholic statues. But in this case, it should be recognized that in 1995 the world was seized by a kind of religious psychosis. I believe that Orthodox theologians, in principle, are not against the scientific exposure of these miracles in Italy and India. But if we look at Orthodox miracles with icons, we will see that the mechanism of the miracle is similar: it is the new icons that “cry”.
This suspicious circumstance makes one assume that the weeping icons, like the weeping statues, at their very creation were specially impregnated with a certain substance, which then can flow out through the cavities left for this for some time.
"Cry" NEW ICONS
As emphasized by the academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, professor at the Russian State University of Oil and Gas. Gubkina, Pavel Florensky, chairman of the scientific commission for describing the miraculous signs of the Moscow Patriarchate, "this happens exclusively with" young ", new icons. An important statement - and we will remember it. Here are just a few examples of widely advertised media in recent years. The scale of the phenomenon is truly amazing.
In St. Nicholas Church of Rostov-on-Don, on the eve of Great Lent, 8 icons were pacified in the lower row of the main iconostasis. Prior to that, the icon of St. Nicholas had been streaming myrrh there. In the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Holy Royal Martyrs, in the Bashkir village of Yazykovo, the myrrh icon of the same Nicholas the saint and the Great Crucifix are exuding. In the Vladivostok diocese, in one of the churches of the St. Seraphim Monastery, 4 icons "cry": the Monks Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov and two Archangels Gabriel. In the Holy Protection Church in the city of Novoshakhtinsk, Rostov Region, 12 icons are streaming myrrh at once.
Since 1999, icons have been streaming myrrh at the Vladychny Monastery in the Moscow Region. This miracle was first recorded on June 14, 1999, when oil began to ooze from the cross of Calvary. A little later, the nuns began to record the myrrh-streaming of icons. According to the abbess of the monastery, on August 19, 2000, 8 images were streaming at the same time, and on January 31, 2001, there were already 18: "Usually this happens in the evening, and we record each case in a special notebook." Most often the icons “Inexhaustible Chalice”, “Tsaritsa” and the Cross of Calvary are streaming myrrh.
On the day of the opening of the orphanage in the village of Raduzhny near Vladimir, its pupils received a gift from Archbishop Eulogius of Vladimir and Suzdal - an icon depicting the Blessed Matrona. Three days later, the icon released myrrh.
Near Orenburg, in the Nikolskaya church of the village of Nizhnyaya Pavlovka, there are as many as five myrrh-streaming icons. The first "to cry" was the icon of the Tabyn Mother of God. The rector of the temple, Hieromonk Anatoly, said: “The icon was literally flowing: one 'tear' flowed from the right hand of the Savior, another from the right shoulder of the Mother of God, and the third appeared below. The icon streamed myrrh all day, we substituted saucers for it, put cotton wool. When the cotton wool was soaked in an oily liquid, they divided it into small pieces and distributed it to the faithful. " Then the icons of the Mother of God "The Inexhaustible Chalice" and the Vladimir Icon were pacified. Then the Minsk Icon of the Mother of God began to cry, followed by the image of Tikhon the Zadonsk Wonderworker.
All the icons smell differently during myrrh flow. The icon of the Tabyn Mother of God smells of roses, Tikhon Zadonsky exudes a sweet smell, like caramel or cake. Minskaya smells like a coniferous forest.
What do they have inside? Roses, cakes and needles? And what, then, is inside the bleeding icons?
Several years ago, a bleeding icon of the Savior, which belonged to Antonina Efimova, a resident of the village of Derzhavino, Orenburg Region, was transported across Russia. The image began to exude blood drops with a characteristic blood smell in 2001. So much so that the face of the Savior was covered with dried scabs and became almost indistinguishable. Vladyka Sergius of Samara said on this occasion:
“When I heard about this for the first time, I doubted. The Church is always very scrupulous about such miracles, carefully checking their veracity. But when I saw this image, doubts disappeared. On the icon from the head of the Savior, right from the thorns of the crown of thorns, red streams flowed down, and I felt the natural smell of blood. When Samara experts took this emanating red liquid for chemical analysis, it turned out that it was real human blood plasma of the fourth group”.
But it is completely frivolous to investigate the blood in such a CASE to determine its group. And what did this definition give? That the Savior has a fourth blood type? This is absurd, and even the Samara priest does not consider this a "discovery".
Above I wrote that when in 2005 in Italy the statue of St. Pius of Peltricino cried with bloody tears, Italian scientists took blood for analysis and found that it belongs to a woman. Why, in this case, when analyzing blood, the experts did not ask themselves the question of finding out the sex of the blood? Is it possible that Russian scientists are more stupid than Italian ones and do not know how to determine a person's sex by blood? But at the same time it was possible to find out his age, state of health, and finally - to conduct a DNA analysis and determine his nationality. I am sure that such an analysis would show that this blood belongs to a local resident, and not to the Jew Jesus from Israel.
WHAT IS THE FOCUS?
When such miracles are perceived, the suspicion always arises that the church is using the phenomenon to strengthen the faith, and that some kind of mystification is at the core. But which one?
In my opinion, it would seem important in the work of the Commission for the description of miraculous phenomena - to trace the path of the manufacture of these weeping icons. Alas, no one even asked this question. If it turned out that all these wonderful icons are produced in one or several centers, from where they are sent all over Russia. then this would significantly strengthen suspicions of a deliberate and planned hoax.
However, this seems to be contradicted by the fact that crying icons appeared in the United States. For example, Archdeacon Zacchaeus (Wood) from Chicago told about the miracles taking place in America: “In our diocese recently the Lord has revealed weeping and myrrh-streaming icons. The first appearance took place several years ago in the Albanian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas. We also know about another icon of the Mother of God from Cicero, a suburban area of Chicago. She began to cry on the feast of St. George the Victorious. Another icon, which belonged to a pious Arab woman, streamed myrrh in her home. Surprisingly, the icons that were applied to the Antiochian icon in Tsitsero and to this, even paper reproductions, began to flow myrrh and cry, which was an extraordinary miracle."
But even in this case, it cannot be ruled out that these icons were sent from Russia - after all, in the version of the hoax, its authors should first of all be concerned with the maximum distribution of their "products": send them out as widely as possible, including to other countries.
This concept of "mailing", on the whole, seems plausible: indeed, most of the crying icons are in Russia itself, but in other countries (USA, Belarus, Ukraine, etc.) there are very few of them. And it was here that an investigation had to be started: if it turned out that all the crying icons in these countries were sent from Russia, then this fact alone would give an unambiguous answer - we are dealing with a hoax.
Therefore, I emphasize: the hoax in this case could be exposed, even without knowing the essence of the "trick", but only on the basis of its organization. But what is the "trick" itself?
The explanation offered by Garlaskelli "about capillaries" is rejected by Orthodox researchers of the phenomenon. For example, journalist Sergei Plotnikov wrote in an article about myrrh-streaming icons: “The thought of falsification in this case can be dismissed immediately. Studies have shown that myrrh is deposited on icons, crosses and frames from the outside as condensation, so humor about the holes drilled by "cunning priests" is inappropriate here."
So maybe some other principle "works" here?
Plotnikov wrote: “Miro is a wooden oil with red wine and incense, used in Christian rituals … The main components - oil and wine - are poured into cauldrons and boiled over low heat. At the end of the process, incense is added to the thickened mixture, the resulting myrrh is poured into consecrated vessels, sealed and sent to the dioceses. Miro is kept in altars on thrones, used by the church when performing the sacraments of anointing Christians after baptism, during coronation, and also during the consecration of the thrones of temples. So, the "heavenly" world has nothing to do with the church world and is named so only by analogy: it is oily, with a strong smell - usually roses or lilacs. However, this is not a rule - the "heavenly" world may not smell like anything. It also differs in chemical composition."
That is, it turns out that the liquid emitted by the icons is not what is called "myrrh". It is only conventionally called that, but in fact it is some kind of oil with a strong smell - either confectionery, sometimes floral, or generally coniferous. If this oil does not arise from "holes drilled by" cunning priests ", but is a" condensate ", as Sergei Plotnikov believes, then such a picture of a miracle arises. In front of the icon, vapors of this oil accumulate in the air, and then selectively settle on some selected places of the icon.
But, as it seems, even in this case, the phenomenon can be recreated artificially: fill the air in front of the icon with vapors of some substance, which will then be deposited on the icon in those places that are previously lubricated with a catalyst to form condensation. That is, from a chemical point of view, this “condensate” is no more a “miracle” than “holes drilled by“cunning priests””.
If we insist on the miraculous nature of the phenomenon, then in this case we will have to admit that, for example, in front of the bleeding icon of the Savior, blood vapors of the fourth group accumulate in the air, which then precipitate on it in the form of condensation. It seems absolutely impossible, since in this case there should be many times more blood in the air than in the form of condensation on the icon. Not only would everyone immediately notice this (like the red color of the air in front of the icon), but any object brought to the icon in this area would immediately be covered with a layer of condensation in the form of blood.
This circumstance forces us to assume that two different technologies are used: the first is based on the principle of condensation and "gives" myrrh, and the second with blood is precisely the "holes". Moreover, the most interesting thing in the case of blood is that the blood itself is not a red compote, but a solution of blood elements in plasma, which in a calm state is immediately divided into fractions: the blood settles. For example, we observe this phenomenon in corpses in the form of cadaveric spots: the upper layers of the corpse's body quickly become whitish, and red blood cells accumulate in the lower layers, where they penetrate the capillaries and, staining the tissues, create cadaveric spots. Which are red at first, and after 2-3 days, as the red blood cells decompose, they turn green.
If we apply this knowledge of forensic medicine to our cases of “bleeding” from icons and statues, it turns out everywhere that at first natural red blood really flows, but then it turns white - and only transparent blood plasma begins to flow. What does this mean?
This means that somewhere inside the icon or statue, blood cells have precipitated, and now only one blood plasma flows out into the "hole". And if the "hole" is from below, then first a red blood deposit will flow out, and then plasma will start flowing. In any case, this is an odious sign of a hoax, for a real miraculous icon should exude blood UNBREAKED IN FRACTIONS. And if it pours broken into fractions, then this DIRECTLY indicates that the icon or statue has a certain container, where the blood was placed in advance. Moreover, it is not difficult to calculate the time for placing blood there: the blood breaks down into fractions within 2-3 hours.
In this regard, the judgment of Vladyka Sergius of Samara about the bleeding icon of the Savior is very embarrassing: “When Samara experts took this oozing red liquid for chemical analysis, it turned out that it was a real plasma of human blood”. That is, PLASMA, not blood - this indicates that at the moment of expiration the blood was no longer fresh and had time to disintegrate into fractions. Which is absurd for a miracle, but necessary for a hoax.
This, incidentally, explains the numerous cases in Italy, when "the statue first oozed blood, and then began to ooze sweat." The hoax is obvious: "sweat" (a salty-tasting liquid) ignoramuses considered blood plasma.
Everything seems to be clear with blood, but the question of the flow of the world remains a mystery. And although I boldly stated earlier that theoretically everything can be explained in terms of chemistry, many disagree with this. For example, Academician Florensky (a member of the commission for this miracle) draws attention to the fact that myrrh is not distinguished by icons, but settles on them like dew. That is, they are taken from somewhere outside. Where and how? “We calculated,” says Florensky, “that for oil droplets to appear on the surface of the icon, the saturation height of the air column must be 10 kilometers! It is impossible to explain this. You can only describe. And this confuses me as a scientist …"
As you can see, the riddle remains a mystery.
WHAT FOR?
The strangest thing in this whole story is that the priests themselves cannot assess the miracle: does joy mean or foreshadow adversity? What does this mean anyway?
There is, of course, another assessment in the search for meaning - it is given cynically by Mike Dash: that these miracles have the only task of returning public interest to religion. They say that people do not forget about the church. But such an interpretation - a purely mercantile one - is rejected by the priests, but they cannot find another "deep" meaning of these miracles. Moreover, the lack of a unified religious opinion on this issue also gives rise to confusion in judgments: some Orthodox priests find that “crying” icons warn of “great sorrows and upheavals,” while others express the opposite - they say, “this is a sign that God is to us returned."
The church still does not understand the essence of this miracle (it cannot even give an assessment - this is a good sign or foreshadowing adversity), and therefore this miracle cannot be considered a SIGN given by God: for God, by definition, gives only those signs that should be UNDERSTOOD CLEAR, not ambiguous.
But the strangest thing is that God in general could find in the world flow of icons and statues, and even more so in the flow of blood or tears - a SIGN. What is he calling for, or what idea does he convey? After all, it can be interpreted NEGATIVE: they say, statues and icons in churches of Christians cry because they cannot tolerate the hypocrisy of priests who distorted the Teachings of Christ, put it at the service of their states, turned faith into an appendage of the state or into a personal business. Why not give such an interpretation to crying images? After all, they are actually dolls, and if the dolls (statues and icons) cry, then they are first of all offended by their owners. On priests and priests.
Agree, this negative interpretation is set by the very essence of the phenomenon: the statues and icons are CRYING, or even bleeding. Which is extremely at odds with a similar phenomenon in India, where statues drink milk. And this there does not give rise to versions of something negative, but means just something opposite - cheerful and positive. That is, it has a completely different emotional coloring.
As we can see, from the point of view of the social psychology of the religious masses, the phenomena in India and in our country turn out to be a complete analogue: they are simply colored by the different essence of the religious legend. We focus on tears and blood, there - on our own much more cheerful. But in the Indian case, the question of the "sign of God" enters the realm of the illogical. What could God tell the Hindus by forcing the statues of Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Shiva, to drink the milk of the parishioners?
Unlike "our tears and blood", this has no emotional connotation, but is only a reason to attract the masses to religion. It is quite understandable that this is perceived by Western researchers completely skeptical. For it is clear that in order to let people know about Himself, God has a lot of other more intelligent and effective ways than this strange way - to make the statues drink milk. Which in itself does not mean anything and does not carry any message of God to us. Except, perhaps, the call to drink milk - it is healthy and generally tasty. But is this what God wanted to tell us with His action?
The problem is that this skepticism can be equally transferred to the Christian miracles of icons and statues. What does God want to tell us in this case? Similarly, no one knows it.
The result is an oddity: the church calls it a "miracle", but the "miracle" has no meaning. This is in complete contradiction with church ideas, where the facts of the healing of the sick are called a miracle, and so on, which has quite a SENSE.
For example, as in the case of the canonization of John Paul II. The Vatican collected three miracles of the late pontiff: the cure of a boy with leukemia in Mexico and a Colombian woman who got out of bed after paralysis, the third was told by the personal secretary of John Paul II. The meaning is extremely clear everywhere: the pontiff carried good in violation of the laws of Nature.
And in our history, the phenomenon with icons and statues - and the church cannot call it a miracle: even if this is a violation of the laws of Nature, but no "good" is visible in this. Therefore, from the church point of view, it is still correct to say that the world-sharpening icons and bleeding statues are not a MIRACLE, for their role as “good” and “good” is unclear. And although some local priests in Europe and in Russia hastened to declare that such icons and statues allegedly healed someone, this is perceived only as a clumsy attempt to make the phenomenon "quite understandable." In fact, nothing is clear here - at least in order to consider this phenomenon a MIRACLE in its essence as "good" and "good".
The only thing we can agree with is that the phenomenon has created an incredible stir in Russia. Moscow journalist Mikhail Pozdnyaev wrote in his article "Tears flow like a river":
“In the church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in the village of Log, Volgograd Region, not so long ago, an oily liquid of the color of blood began to flow abundantly from the face of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. Hundreds of such cases have been recorded in recent years, maybe thousands. The clergy speaks of a certain sign given to Russia from above, scientists are lost in conjectures, and ordinary believers roam the country, turning to myrrh-streaming icons for solutions to their problems. Without waiting for the conclusions of special diocesan commissions, the abbots of churches and monasteries, citing cases of healing of pilgrims, declare the icons miraculous."
That is, chaos and confusion, and somewhere there is panic.
Others may not agree with me, but here I find only another hobby of the population for some ideas, a new fashion that will sink into oblivion in the future, just like all similar near-religious fashionable hobbies in Europe and Russia, which excited the minds of our ancestors. Everything comes and goes. This story will have exactly the same ending: it will be forgotten and carried away by something else. And I absolutely do not believe that this is "a sign given to Russia from above." This is not a "sign" - for no one understands it, and it is not "for Russia", because the same thing happened in 1995 in Italy and India.
At least this in this topic can be considered found. Everything else remains a mystery, the origins of which, I suspect, are not divine at all, but completely earthly.
