This story belongs to the category of those phenomena that occur in full view of everyone and attract thousands of people, but the essence of which still remains a mystery behind seven seals. Stories in which magic, church rituals and some absolutely outrageous phenomena are intertwined in the most mysterious way.
The appearance of the prophet
In 1460, a man named Amadeus appeared in Rome. He was born in Portugal and came from a noble family. From a certain age he was visited by mystical visions, and in the Vatican many revered him as a saint. The blessed one was even trusted to found and build new monasteries.
This time Amadeus brought a new revelation to the papal throne, which heavens entrusted to him. He announced that Christendom must change and enter into closer communion with divine powers. In the last vision of the Portuguese prophet, Seven Angels, the seven highest helpers of God, visited.
These angels seem to have been known to the Catholic Church for a long time. They were even mentioned in divine services under the Hebrew names: Mikael - like God; Gabriel - strength, power of God; Raphael - divine dignity; Uriel - God's light and fire; Skaltiel - the speech of God; Yehudiel - the glory of God; and Barachiel is the bliss of God. But the names were allegorical. They did not give people the completeness of communication with them that they could have by invoking them in prayers with more correct combinations of sounds. And this time, the seven highest messengers of God appeared to Amadeus under their true names. In visions, they literally demanded that justice be restored: firstly, that the church legally recognize them under their real names, secondly, that they should be given universal public worship in all Catholic churches, and, thirdly,to have their own special temple built for them.
Angels and planets
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In fact, the cult of seven angels or, in other words, seven spirits had a long history. Back in the middle of the 8th century, Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg, known for his morbid interest in magic and the occult, was brought before the highest ecclesiastical court under the chairmanship of Pope Zechariah. Adalbert was charged with using elements of ceremonial magic and invoking seven spirits during divine services. The result of the trial was that until the 15th century, the names of only the first three of the seven highest angels were used by the Catholic Church and retained their full glory and holiness. As for their real names, this problem remains relevant to the present day.
In the Bible, angels are presented as spiritual beings intermediate between God and man, as, using an allegory from the Catholic electronic encyclopedia, a certain service staff on the throne of God. The same electronic resource draws attention to the fact that belief in angels, spirits, intermediate between God and man, is generally characteristic of Semitic peoples. And the Sumerians - one of the most ancient peoples - perceived as such the moon, stars and planets. Occultists to this day identify the celestial bodies of the solar system with a number of pagan gods: Mithra, Lucifer, Apollo and others.
The notorious Helena Petrovna Blavatsky stated in one of her works:
But the Vatican flatly refused to fulfill the conditions of the angels. Although Amadeus had an impeccable reputation, good-natured Pius II and Sixtus IV, who indulged the Inquisition, were equally adamant in their rejection of the innovations demanded by the angels.
The vision of the blessed one was not isolated. When Amadeus was talking with the angels, in the Sicilian city of Palermo, from under the ruins of an ancient chapel, an image of the Seven Angels was recovered with the same names, under which they demanded worship through the Portuguese. According to the church chronicler Eud de Merville, these names were written under the portrait of each angel. On the same day in Pisa, an ancient prophecy was revealed in a similar way, heralding the revival of the cult of the Seven Angels. Pope Sixtus IV was deeply shocked by all this, but in his rejection he remained unshakable. The Portuguese prophet died in 1482, having achieved nothing.
Mysterious epidemic
The story did not end there. For believers, these miracles became important news. They worried about the angels, sympathized with them, and in 1516 the Vatican yielded to the demands of seven invisible patrons. By that time, in almost every Italian temple, in every chapel, there was a copy of the Sicilian prophetic image in the form of a fresco or mosaic.
That year, near Palermo, the "Temple of the Seven Spirits" was built, where in all divine services the angels were mentioned under their own names, and all prayers were offered only to them. Antonio Duca was appointed priest in this temple, to whom the Seven Angels also began to appear in visions. Through the new prophet, they turned to the heads of the Vatican, urging them to finally recognize their true names and establish regular worship to them. In addition, a new condition arose: to build another personal temple for them, and not just anywhere, but in Rome. Strange, but the angels wanted the temple to be erected on the site where the luxurious bath complex, erected under the Emperor Diocletian, once stood. According to legend, 40 thousand Christians and 10 thousand other martyrs were involved in their construction. In these terms, the ancient Romans were given all kinds of sensual pleasures,drank wine, and in later times their ruins were chosen by all kinds of sorcerers and necromancers. There was no question of building a church of God in such a strange place.
In 1551, Pope Julius III nevertheless ordered to carry out a preliminary cleansing and consecration of the ruins of the baths and to build a temple there called "Holy Mary of the Angels". It did not last long, as if brought by some invisible forces to complete ruin and destruction. Just two years later, a strange epidemic of obsession and insanity broke out in the Eternal City. According to the chronicler, all of Rome was possessed by the devil. An amazing in our understanding means helped to stop the glamor: in divine services in order to save from glamor, seven spirits were called by their true names. Chronicles testify that "the epidemic stopped as if by magic."
From dawn to dusk
After that, Pope Paul IV hastily summoned Michelangelo himself to the Vatican. The great architect developed a new architectural plan, after which the construction of a grandiose temple began on the site of the former. All the time of its construction, grateful spirits turned into a continuous chain of successive miracles and even into one continuous miracle.
In the new temple, the top of the altar is crowned with a copy of a prophetic image previously found near Palermo. Paul IV, in the presence of all the cardinals, solemnly ordered that the true names of the highest angels now and forever find their legal rights in church services. A little later, Pope Pius V blessed the ritual for the glory of the Seven Angels for distribution in Spain, declaring in the corresponding letter that "one cannot overdo it in praising these seven rectors of the world."
As the modern philosopher and theologian Henri Corbin writes, in the 16th century the cult of the seven spirits spread from Italy to Flanders and Orthodox Russia.
It seemed that no one else would ever prevent the heavenly patrons from appearing to people under their own names. However, exactly one hundred years later, Cardinal Albizius ordered that all seven of his own names of angels disappear from the walls of temples and from church rituals.
Attempts to restore justice were not noted until the 19th century, when in 1825 a nobleman from Spain, supported by the Archbishop of Palermo, appealed to Pope Leo XII with an appeal to return the real names of the seven spirits to their former glory. Then the head of the Catholic world allowed the resumption of services for the glory of these spirits, but prohibited the use of their real names. In the middle of the "enlightened age", demands to renew the cult of the "seven divine spirits" were heard both among the clergy and ordinary parishioners. In Italy, Spain and Bavaria, public associations even arose with the goal of re-creating the cult of the Seven in its entirety throughout Europe. Church leaders, government officials, and even crowned persons participated in these associations. The Vatican, however, persisted in a mysterious silence.
What kind of mystery was behind these real names, why the highest hierarchs of Catholicism were so wary of their general use, what a passion for these real names prompted bishops and influential eminent persons to raise the public to defend the rituals in honor of the Seven Angels - all this remained a mystery. One of the many secrets of our mortal and imperfect world.