The descent of the Holy Fire is a miracle that occurs every year on the eve of Orthodox Easter in the Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In 2017, the entire Christian world will celebrate the Bright Resurrection of Christ on one day - April 16.
The descent of the Holy Fire is a miracle that occurs every year on the eve of Orthodox Easter in the Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In 2017, the entire Christian world will celebrate the Bright Resurrection of Christ on one day - April 16.
On Great Saturday, tens of thousands of pilgrims flock to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher from all over the world to wash with its graceful light and receive God's blessing.
The Holy Fire was delivered to Georgia from Jerusalem. Photo: SPUTNIK / ALEXANDER IMEDASHVILI
The greatest miracle is anxiously awaiting not only Orthodox Christians, but also representatives of various confessions.
For many hundreds of years, people have been trying to understand where the Holy Fire comes from. Believers are sure that this is a real miracle - God's gift to people. Scientists do not agree with this statement and try to find an explanation for this phenomenon from a scientific point of view.
Blessed fire
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According to many testimonies, both ancient and modern, the appearance of the Holy Light can be observed in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher throughout the year, but the most famous and impressive is the miraculous descent of the Holy Fire on Great Saturday, on the eve of the Bright Resurrection of Christ.
Throughout almost the entire time of the existence of Christianity, this wonderful phenomenon is observed annually by both Orthodox Christians and representatives of other Christian faiths (Catholics, Armenians, Copts and others), as well as representatives of other non-Christian religions.
Distribution of the blessed fire during the Easter service. Photo: SPUTNIK / ALEXEY KUDENKO
The miracle of the descent of the blessed fire on the Holy Sepulcher has been known since ancient times, the descended fire has a unique property - it does not burn the first minutes.
The first witness of the descent of the fire was the Apostle Peter - having learned about the Resurrection of the Savior, he hurried to the tomb and saw, where the body had previously been, an amazing light. For two thousand years this light has descended on the Holy Sepulcher with the Holy Fire every year.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was erected by Emperor Constantine and his mother, Queen Helena, in the 4th century. And the earliest written records of the descent of the Holy Fire on the eve of the Resurrection of Christ date back precisely to the 4th century.
The temple with its huge roof covers both Golgotha, and the cave in which the Lord who was taken down from the cross was laid, and the garden where Mary Magdalene was the first of the people to meet His risen.
Convergence
At about noon, a religious procession led by the Patriarch leaves the courtyard of the Jerusalem Patriarchate. The procession enters the Church of the Resurrection, heads to the chapel, erected over the Holy Sepulcher, and, going around it three times, stops in front of its gates.
All the lights in the temple are extinguished. Tens of thousands of people: Arabs, Greeks, Russians, Romanians, Jews, Germans, English - pilgrims from all over the world - watch the Patriarch in tense silence.
The Patriarch is exposed, the police thoroughly search him and the Holy Sepulcher itself, looking for at least something that can produce fire (during the Turkish rule over Jerusalem, this was done by Turkish gendarmes), and in one long, falling chiton, the Primate of the Church enters inside.
Kneeling before the Sepulcher, he prays to God to send down the Holy Fire. Sometimes his prayer lasts a long time, but there is an interesting feature - the Holy Fire descends only through the prayers of the Orthodox Patriarch.
And suddenly, on the marble slab of the coffin, a kind of fiery dew appears in the form of bluish balls. The Holy One touches them with a cotton swab, and it ignites. With this cool fire, the Patriarch lights up a lamp and candles, which he then brings to the temple and hands them over to the Armenian Patriarch, and then to the people. At the same instant, tens and hundreds of bluish lights flash in the air under the dome of the temple.
It is difficult to imagine what kind of jubilation a crowd of thousands of people can see. People are shouting, singing, the fire is transferred from one bunch of candles to another, and a minute later the whole temple is on fire.
Miracle or trick
This miraculous phenomenon at different times had many critics who tried to expose and prove the artificial origin of fire. Among those who disagreed were the Catholic Church. In particular, Pope Gregory IX in 1238 disagreed about the miraculousness of the Holy Fire.
Not understanding the true origin of the Holy Fire, some Arabs tried to prove that the Fire is allegedly obtained using any means, substances and devices, but they have no direct evidence. Moreover, they were not even witnesses of this miracle.
Modern researchers have also tried to study the nature of this phenomenon. In their opinion, it is possible to produce fire artificially. Spontaneous combustion of chemical mixtures and substances is also possible.
Christian Orthodox worshipers light candles from the Holy Fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem. Photo: AFP / AHMAD GHARABLI
But none of them is similar to the appearance of the Holy Fire, especially with its amazing property - not to burn in the first minutes of its appearance.
Scientists-theologians, representatives of various confessions, including the Orthodox Church, have repeatedly stated that the lighting of candles and lamps in the Temple from the alleged "sacred fire" is a falsification.
The most famous statements in the middle of the last century by the professor of the Leningrad Theological Academy Nikolai Uspensky, who believed that in the Kuvuklia fire is lit from a secret hidden lamp, the light of which does not penetrate into the open space of the Temple, where all candles and lamps are extinguished at that time.
At the same time, Ouspensky argued that "the fire lit on the Holy Sepulcher from a hidden lamp is still a sacred fire, received from a sacred place."
The Russian physicist Andrei Volkov, as they say, several years ago managed to take some measurements at the ceremony of the descent of the Holy Fire. According to Volkov, a few minutes before the removal of the Holy Fire from Kuvuklia, a device recording the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation detected a strange long-wave pulse in the temple, which no longer manifested itself. That is, an electrical discharge has occurred.
In the meantime, scientists are trying to find scientific confirmation of this phenomenon, and, in contrast to the complete unsubstantiation of the statements of skeptics, the miracle of the descent of the Holy Fire is an annually observed fact.
The miracle of the descent of the Holy Fire is available to everyone. It can be seen not only by tourists and pilgrims - it takes place in front of the whole world and is regularly broadcast on television and the Internet, on the website of the Jerusalem Orthodox Patriarchate.
Holy fire from Jerusalem. Photo: SPUTNIK / VALERY MELNIKOV
Every year, several thousand of those present in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher see: the Patriarch entered the Kuvuklia, which was checked and sealed, with a bunch of candles, whose clothes were specially examined. He came out of it with a burning torch of 33 candles, and this is an indisputable fact.
Therefore, the answer to the question of where the Holy Fire comes from can be only one answer - this is a miracle, and everything else is just unconfirmed speculation.
And in conclusion, the Holy Fire confirms the promise of the Risen Christ to the apostles: "I am with you all the days until the end of the age."
It is believed that when the Heavenly Fire does not descend on the Holy Sepulcher, it will be a sign of the onset of the power of the Antichrist and the imminent end of the world.
Material prepared on the basis of open sources
