The condescension of the Holy Fire is considered the greatest divine miracle that has come down to us through the centuries. He appears in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in response to the prayers of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and does not burn anyone for the first 10-15 minutes! Moreover, in these minutes, according to legend, the Holy Fire has healing power
The earliest mentions of the Holy Fire descending on the eve of the Resurrection of Christ date back to the 4th century AD. Only the Orthodox Jerusalem Patriarch has the privilege and honor of begging for the Holy Fire. In 1687, some Armenian Christians tried to call the fire instead of the Patriarch, bribed the guards at the entrance to the Church of the Resurrection of Christ and entered it. Suddenly, the column, near which the Armenians, who remained outside, knelt their knees, cracked and a flame burst out of the crack, lighting candles at the Patriarch! The emir, looking at what was happening from a nearby minaret, cried out: "The faith of Christians is almighty!"
Preparation for the ceremony
A modern tourist arriving in Jerusalem is first shown the huge Church of the Resurrection of Christ, founded by Queen Helen in the 4th century AD. Inside the temple, the so-called Kuvuklia was erected, that is, a small church consisting of two rooms: the first is the chapel of the Angel, where, according to the Gospel, the Angel met women who came to honor the burial place of Jesus Christ, and the second is the seat of the Holy Sepulcher itself.
On the eve of the Resurrection of Christ, on Great Saturday, all lamps and candles in the church are extinguished. On this day, Israeli law enforcement officers conduct a strict examination of people inside Kuvukliya in order to prevent the appearance of flammable substances there. Then the participants in the ceremony place a large oil lamp and 33 candles in the middle of the Holy Sepulcher, according to the number of years of the Savior's earthly life. After that, people leave the Kuvuklia, and its door is sealed with a large piece of wax, on which the servants of the temple put their seals.
Having sealed the door to Kuvuklia, the ministers invite young Orthodox Arabs to the church. Their appearance is considered a mandatory element of Easter celebrations. According to tradition, young Arabs run around the temple, jump on each other's shoulders and in every possible way express their admiration for what is happening. At the same time, they implore the Mother of God and the Lord to grant the audience the Holy Fire and constantly chant: "There is no faith except Orthodox, and Christ is the true God!"
Blessed fire
At noon of Great Saturday, the Patriarch of Jerusalem with accompanying persons remove the seals from the Kuvukliya and reverently approach the Life-Giving Tomb. This moment is announced by a sad bell
chime. The Patriarch kneels down and begins to pray, calling on the Lord to send down the Holy Fire. Those gathered in the temple anxiously await the Patriarch's exit from the Kuvuklia with a lighted candle. The excitement of those waiting is understandable: according to legend, if the Holy Fire does not descend, it will mean the beginning of the end of the world! Waiting for the Holy Fire lasts from five minutes to several hours. In 2003, for example, it lasted 17 minutes …
Just before the descent of the sacred fire, a characteristic sound inexpressible in words is heard in the temple. For those gathered, it serves as a notification of the approach of a solemn moment. And suddenly blue and white lightning flashes everywhere! They come from different places - from the icon above the Kuvuklia, from the dome of the temple itself, from the icons on its walls - and flood everything around with bright light! Candles and icon lamps light up at the same time! The blessed fire pulsates and breathes, and a powerful column of light falls down from the hole in the dome of the temple! The doors to Kuvuklia are opened and the Patriarch comes out with a candle in his hands! He blesses the audience and distributes the Holy Fire.
The heavenly light is flaring up more and more brighter, now it begins to fly throughout the temple! Here it crumbles over the Kuvuklia around the icon of the Resurrection of the Lord, and immediately one of the lamps flashed here. And the fire burst into Calvary and sparkled over the Anointing Stone. Someone had the wicks of the candles charred, and then they ignited by themselves. Surprisingly, despite the abundance of open flames in the temple, there has never been a fire or just a dangerous fire!
The impotence of science
Many scientists have tried to unravel the nature of the miracle of the Holy Fire. One of them - the Moscow physicist Mikhail Shugaev - put forward a hypothesis according to which a unique atmospheric phenomenon appears in the temple when the sacred fire descends - flashes of light in the absence of thunder (!). Since people bring many lamps to the temple, oil "drops" constantly evaporate and condense there. Perhaps they create a unique situation in the atmosphere of the temple.
And the Russian physicist Andrei Aleksandrovich Volkov visited Jerusalem for the convergence of the fire last year and made some instrumental measurements in the temple! As the scientist said, a few minutes before the removal of the Holy Fire from Cuvuklia, his device registered a strange long-wave impulse in the temple! In other words, an electrical discharge of unknown origin occurred.
It turns out that for almost a thousand years, eyewitnesses have been talking about some kind of flashes running along the walls of the temple before the fire came down - now they are not visible due to the flash of thousands of cameras in the audience. This phenomenon is electrical in nature. True, pundits are perplexed why it happens every year in Jerusalem, and even at a certain moment?
In addition, it is known that the Holy Fire, as mentioned above, does not burn at first. And low-temperature plasma has the same property. This is again an electrical phenomenon. Thus, it is likely that the birth of the Holy Fire is somehow connected with electrical processes. A legitimate question arises: how did Andrei Volkov manage to bring the equipment to the Church of the Resurrection of Christ and conduct an experiment there?
It turns out that he was listed as an assistant to one of the film crews who received permission to film inside the temple. Officially, the scientist monitored the quality of the recorded sound, but in fact recorded the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Andrei Volkov emphasizes that the researchers have no and had no intention of encroaching on the feelings of believers, therefore, the work being done now does not affect the reasons for the appearance of the Holy Fire and does not dispute the source of its origin.
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