Every moment something unusual happens in the world. Someone wins the lottery, someone is reciprocated by a loved one, or a hopelessly ill unexpectedly recovers. But all these are fleeting miracles, and in search of the eternal people often turn to God. The debate about the existence of God has been going on for as long as there is religion. And what about myrrh streaming? Is this really another miracle of the Lord, given to people in order to return and strengthen them in faith, or is it just someone's masterful joke?
"Classical", so to speak, myrrh is wood oil with red wine and incense, which is used in Christian rituals. They say that the rite of world-making was established by 12 more apostles who followed Christ. Its main components - oil and wine - are cooked personally by the patriarch, over low heat in cauldrons every few years at a special service, and when the mixture thickens, incense is added there. The resulting substance is poured into consecrated vessels, sealed and sent to the dioceses. Miro is kept in altars on thrones and is used by the church during the performance of the ordinances of anointing after baptism, during coronation, and also during the consecration of the thrones of temples.
If we follow the logic, then myrrh-streaming is the outflow from the icons of the very substance that is described above. But … it was named only by analogy with the church world - for its oiliness (and even then not always) and a very strong aroma of roses or lilacs. There is absolutely nothing more in common between the two worlds.
- The first case described in Russia of myrrh streaming occurred at the end of the 13th century in Veliky Ustyug. In those days, the holy fool Procopius lived in the city, possessing the gift of "perspicacity" - clairvoyance. 1290 - he began to appeal to the townspeople: "Repent and reform, or perish from the hail of fire" - but people only laughed. But, as the holy fool had predicted, a few days later, on Sunday afternoon, a black "stone-fire" cloud appeared over the city.
Ustyug plunged into darkness, broken only by peals of thunder. The townspeople rushed to the temples with prayer and repentance. Most of the people gathered in the cathedral, where Procopius prayed earnestly in front of the icon of the Annunciation. And then so much peace began to flow from the icon that they were able to fill church vessels. Then, almost immediately, the clouds moved away from the city, a thunderstorm broke out 20 miles away and destroyed the whole forest. And the inhabitants of the city were smeared with the peace that flowed from the icon, and many "received healing from all diseases."
- More famous in our time is, perhaps, the Iveron Montreal Icon of the Mother of God, which has been streaming myrrh for 15 years since 1982. The Orthodox consider the myrrh streaming of this icon one of the greatest miracles of the last century. Her story is considered wonderful. The keeper of the icon, Joseph Muñoz Cortez, who taught art history at the University of Montreal, went that year to Greece, to Athos, the earthly abode of the Most Holy Theotokos.
There, in the Danilov Skete on Mount Athos, he saw the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God - a copy from the famous Iverian Goalkeeper. Joseph asked the monks to sell him this list, feeling that the icon should be with him in the West, but he was refused. However, the next day, when Cortes was about to leave, the abbot caught up with him and blessed him with the icon of the Mother of God, saying that the Queen of Heaven herself blessed him with this icon.
1982, November 24 - Joseph woke up from the fact that an unusual fragrance was heard in his room - fragrant streams of peace flowed over the icon of the Virgin. Cortes took the icon to the temple, and since that time it has been streaming myrrh for exactly 15 years, remaining dry for only one week - on Passion Week of Great Lent, before Easter. And all these years Joseph flew with the miraculous myrrh-streaming icon all over the world: from Australia and Argentina to Bulgaria.
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Healings by the world, the weight of which over the years several times exceeded the weight of the icon itself, were recorded in huge numbers, including those from incurable diseases. But in 1997 the keeper was killed in Greece, and the traces of the icon, which are still legendary today, were lost, and they cannot find it in any way … True, there are rumors that it stopped streaming myrrh after the death of its keeper.
- There are also more mysterious cases of myrrh streaming. So, every year for 24 hours, dried blood at the bottom of a bowl, stored in a Naples cathedral, suddenly turns into a red liquid, which Catholics consider the blood of St. Januarius, Bishop of Benevito, who was beheaded by the Romans in 305. The transformation from solid to liquid was contemplated and confirmed by many doctors and scientists, as well as adherents of Catholicism. And there is no explanation for this phenomenon.
- 1953, August 29 - a pregnant woman named Antonietta Januso, who lived in Syracuse (Sicily), found that a plaster statue of the Virgin and Child … crying. The local church authorities wanted to make sure of its truth for themselves, and when the samples of the liquid flowing from the eyes of the Madonna were analyzed, it turned out that they could not be distinguished from real human tears. The church immediately recognized the miracle and erected a shrine, where the pilgrims revere the figurine to this day.
- The miraculous icon "Laying a crown of thorns on the head of the Savior", located in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, is also known throughout the world. The plot of the icon tells about the last days of Christ, when the Roman soldiers, mocking Jesus, placed a crown of thorns on his head. Since the beginning of the Christian era, this icon has only bled three times.
For the first time the icon in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was pacified in 1572. In those days, there was an ancient fresco on the site of the present image on the same religious subject. And on the eve of Easter, the pilgrims were horrified: the fresco "came to life", streams of liquid began to flow through it, similar to blood. And a few days later, on August 24, 1572, during the infamous St. Bartholomew's Night in France, almost a third of the population was destroyed.
Several monks at the Jerusalem monastery, who reported the miracle to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, witnessed the second bleeding of the "Laying …" on the eve of Easter in 1939, and he conveyed the message about the sign to the Pope. It is known that World War II began in September of this year … 2001, April - not only the head of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem, Hieromonk Theophanes and Patriarch Irenaeus of Jerusalem, but also thousands of pilgrims from all over the world witnessed the myrrh flow.
On the night from Good Friday to Holy Saturday, when Irenaeus blessed the faithful, a liquid appeared on Christ's cloak, flowing down in a scarlet stream onto his feet. Myrrh streaming did not stop all day and stopped just before Easter … On September 11, as a result of the terrorist attack, the New York Twin Towers collapsed, claiming hundreds of lives …
The cases of myrrh streaming can be enumerated for an infinitely long time, and each of them is marked by its own unique history. But, continuing the theme of the icon "Laying the crown of thorns on the head of the Savior", I would like to note two more formidable signs that are known, perhaps, to every citizen of the CIS.
- So, the beginning of the bloody war in Chechnya was marked by the fact that in the village of Zelenchukskaya, the icons "Quick to listen" and "Iverskaya" began to cry in the church. On the eve of the start of the 2004 school year, the icon also burst into tears - on September 1, hostages were taken in an Ossetian school. In fact, an inexplicable connection between myrrh streams and tragic events can be traced, and the words of the old people are immediately remembered: if the icon began to cry with tears or blood, there will be a big trouble …
Icons all over the world are streaming and "crying", but Russia is nevertheless recognized as the "record holder" in this "area" of the miracle. But there is also a kind of global statistics: if until the end of the 19th century, "weeping" icons were quite rare and were considered divine signs, then at the end of the last - this century the number of myrrh-streaming icons became simply incredible!
We are talking about thousands and thousands of myrrh-streaming faces - in temples, monasteries and even apartments of ordinary believers. At the same time, a general myrrh flow began not only of old images (after all, earlier this was considered the privilege of only ancient, prayed for icons), but also of young ones, painted in the 20th century. And neither the Church, nor, even more so, science can fully explain this sharp increase, as well as the very fact of myrrh streaming.
The attitude of religious and secular authorities to the flow of myrrh in Russia is curious. Before the 1917 revolution, there was a strict procedure for testing such miracles. The myrrh-streaming icon was first examined by the commission of the local diocese, after which experts appointed by the patriarch came. If they also believed that they were seeing a miracle, the icon was placed under glass and guarded. If even then the icon continued to stream myrrh, then the miracle was officially announced. But always the very first to "investigate" were not the clergy, but … the employees of the nearest police station, because there was always enough speculation on the faith of the parishioners.
There is a known case when monks, in their selfish momentary political goals, announced the "crying" of icons from the reforms of Peter 1. "Bloody tears" turned out to be just cherry juice skillfully brought through a system of tubes, and Peter then issued a prescription: "Holy Lords! I order the Mother of God not to cry from now on. And if the Mother of God cries with lamp oil at least once, the priests' butts will cry with blood”…
Now all over the world there are also special commissions for establishing a miracle, which include both theologians and scientists-chemists and physicists. In particular, in Russia in 1999, under the catechesis department of the Moscow Patriarchate, a Commission was created to describe information about miraculous signs taking place in the Russian Orthodox Church, which studies myrrh streaming, tearing of icons, renewal of icons and repetition of the image of icons on the glass of the icon case. The preliminary conclusions of the commission (just preliminary, since the cases of church miracles were growing rapidly) over the first 5 years of its work are as follows: something inexplicable is happening in the history of Russia, and possibly in the entire two thousand-year history of the Christian Church …
Two especially large waves of myrrh streams are also distinguished. The first occurs in the early 1920s. Petrograd and Pskov provinces, Ukraine, southern Russia, the Far East, Primorye - there were dozens of cases of icons renewal. The dark faces on the images became enlightened, became bright, radiant. This happened both in churches and in the homes of ordinary believers. And the second wave is our time …
On the whole, myrrh-streaming is one of the few earthly (or is it all heavenly?) Miracles, for which science cannot find any plausible explanation. There are only dry facts and test results. They look like this. First of all, it should be noted that the name is general, and there is, in fact, the myrrh-streaming itself and its already mentioned "subspecies", depending on what kind of moisture is released from the icon. And the type, color and consistency of the resulting liquid are different: from a thick, viscous resin to transparent dew, therefore they speak of "spitting" or "overflowing". It smells of rose, lilac or incense, and the smell is thick, persistent, capable of filling an entire area.
Myrrh-streaming and tearing are also different, cases when icons cry with blood stand out in a separate niche. The shape and size of the droplets are also very different. At times they cover the entire image, at times they seem to flow from certain points. There are cases when the world flowed from bottom to top, contrary to the law of gravitation. Miro can disappear for a while, and then appear again, it is this that leads to the renewal of images, when the colors suddenly acquire their original saturated colors …
There are also paper photocopies, lithographs, frescoes, photo icons and even metal icons. The connection of myrrh streaming with certain events is noticed, but not only with catastrophes. So, we can note the case when members of the Romanov family were recognized as martyrs, simultaneously pacified many images, while the lithographic image of the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God gave off a strong smell of the beloved perfume of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, later renamed "Red Moscow".
Many cases of healing with the help of myrrh have been recorded, in particular, a mysterious liquid collected from a one and a half meter wooden crucifix in a small temple in Mount Pritchard (Australia), for some reason, best of all helps against cancer and asthma … And its spectrographic analysis showed only that in its own way its composition is similar to olive oil …
The composition of the world is generally a topic for a separate conversation. So, Vladimir Pavlov, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, leading researcher at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics VA Steklova says: The myrrh-streaming icon, on which the sacred myrrh is formed 'from nothing,' violates the scientific understanding of the universe. After all, what happens during this? 'From nothing” matter is formed - myrrh, tears, drops of blood on icons. This is an amazing discovery for a scientist! From the point of view of modern science, this can only happen by converting energy into matter - a process opposite to that during which matter is converted into energy at a nuclear power plant. It's easier to doubt and consider yourself deceived …
There is, of course, the particle-wave theory that a single matter can manifest itself both as a wave and as matter, a particle. Perhaps myrrh-streaming is one of such manifestations. One should only remember: not all knowledge in the world is obtained scientifically. There is knowledge about which we cannot say at all where they come from. We simply know that it is. But there are aspects in the manifestations of miracles that can be studied within the framework of science. For example, the chemical composition of the world. In Klin, icons feature organic oil, which is close to sunflower oil in composition. But, of course, knowledge of its chemical composition does not bring us any closer to solving the phenomenon itself."
And the Moscow Patriarchate, which was also involved in the analysis of the world, reported that "most often this is a protein substance of unknown origin." Laboratory experiments show that some types of myrrh are similar in composition to known oils, while others are real human tears or blood plasma.
Some of the latest studies were carried out in the biological laboratories of Kiev University. Scientists made an analysis of the myrrh exuded by the relics of the saints resting in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and it turned out to be a substance with a high protein content, however…. All biologists find it difficult to classify it and say only one thing: only a living organism can emit such a substance … And in addition to all the secrets of myrrh streaming, one more is added - are the icons really alive ?!
V. Syadro
Recommended for viewing: Miracle of Faith, Why Icons Stream Myrrh