Tourist and Spiritual Guide; Miracles – Father Pimen Vlad
30 June 2022
The Pitfalls of Distancing From the World – Father Theologos
5 July 2022
Watch a powerful speech by Father John Meiu, one of the ambassadors of the Romanian nation to the Holy Sites, in which he tells us about the spirit and miracles of these sites, of which the Holy Sepulcher occupies a central place, of course.
Enjoy!
Father Theologos (FT): Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Father, say Heavenly King…
Father John (FJ): O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life – come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.
The Lord is with us through His grace and love for mankind, always, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
FT: Dear ones, we have with us Father John from Jerusalem. He is the representative of Romanian Orthodoxy there…
FJ: Not representative, ministering priest.
FT: Ministering priest, yes. He is a ministering priest in Jerusalem, and I would first of all like him to tell us something that has always fascinated me in Jerusalem, the fact that there Orthodox Christians are very united. They are all as one congregation, if you will, as a true Orthodox communion, all of them including the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and this I think is a special grace that is not found anywhere else, and I would like Father John to speak to us a little bit about that.
FJ: Father Theologos, I am grateful to the Mother of God that she has allowed us to be together again in the Holy Mountain, in her beautiful and blessed garden full of grace. Even for us who come from the Holy Sepulcher it is a great blessing to be here in the Holy Mountain, because here we penetrate more easily the grace and tranquility of God. Jerusalem, of course, comes first in terms of blessing and grace, but being a noisy city with many problems, it is much harder to experience the grace of the Holy Sepulcher, or [the grace] of the Tomb of the Mother of God or of the other places that are there.
Indeed, as you said, there is a unity of the Orthodox in Jerusalem, and that is very well bound and held together by Patriarch Theophilus III of Jerusalem, and due to the fact that ever since the Byzantine period when Empress Helen first came to Jerusalem and wanted to build churches over all the Christian places where Jesus passed: Golgotha, the Resurrection, Bethlehem with the birth in the cave and so on… Since then, this leadership of the Greeks as a Patriarchate in Jerusalem is still preserved, but because of the fact that apart from the pilgrims there are very few Christians in Isreal, then, for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, all Christians who come as pilgrims from all Orthodox countries are received and are seen as sons of Jerusalem.
That is, all the delegations from Orthodox countries, all the pilgrims who come to the Holy Land, get to have a meeting with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to receive a blessing. He gives them a useful word, gives them an icon with the Holy Sepulcher, and this creates a very strong communion and love [and] unity offered by the Holy Sepulcher, with which people go to their Orthodox countries and who, in turn, share it with their brothers from Romania, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia, the Orthodox countries, Greece, Cyprus and so on.
FT: In fact, if I’m not mistaken, the spirit of the early church is lived there.
FJ: It can still be felt, yes.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: And due to the fact that the pilgrims come with great piety to the holy sites, and this piety makes Christians and people truly experience what the Christians in the first centuries experienced.
FT: Yes, this is a special grace that exists there and is unrepeatable, but on the other hand, I have always been impressed by – beyond this grace – I have always been impressed by, with all my respect for the Holy Land, but the Holy Land is piece of stone, it is a desert. And I ask you: why was so much blood shed? I don’t know if there is any other place on the surface of the world where so much blood has been shed.
FJ: Yes, the walls of the city of Jerusalem are soaked with blood. Indeed, as we also know from history and archaeology, there have been a lot of wars fought in Jerusalem and in general in the Holy Land and unfortunately, most wars in history we have on account of religion, religions.
It is a pity that this is happening and the fact that this has happened and is still happening because we still have a lot of Christians who are being persecuted in Africa and other countries. There actually is a kind of persecution of Christians in Israel as well. That is, we are not very loved by some of our brothers there, but indeed, because it is the holiest place and the devil knows this, that is where he presses the pedal the most to produce division, war and bloodshed.
We know from history, starting from Abraham, 4,000 years ago, when he wanted to sacrifice is son Isaac on Mount Moriah….
FT: …which is there.
FJ: That place is there. And it is the site of the second Jewish temple, and currently it is the Dome of the Rock mosque on this Mount Moriah. It is because of these conflicts primarily between Jews and Muslims, then also Christians because Empress Helen also built a church there. After that, the crusaders took over that place. It was a whole… the Persians, the Ottomans, the Turks, everyone…
FT: So we can say that the Holy Sites are the places with the most grace on the surface of the earth, but also the place with the greatest demonic energy, let’s say.
FJ: I wouldn’t say it’s a demonic energy.
FT: No, no, but a power of the devil, I expressed myself wrong.
FJ: A very strong spiritual energy.
FT: Yes!
FJ: I mean, we have the great prophets of the Old Testament who are still buried the valley of Gideon, the Valley of Judgement. They still have their graves there, at the base of of the city of Jerusalem, between the Mount of Olives and the city of Jerusalem. Right in the Garden of Gethsemane is also the tomb of the Mother of God, and I can actually say that there is an extraordinary energy in Jerusalem. But just because the devil knows of this positive energy, he is also trying to do his job.
FT: Yes. This extraordinary energy, this extraordinary grace does it somehow manifest itself beyond… – of course it certainly manifests itself in the hearts of people – and please, folks, go to Jerusalem at least once in your life. Go! You won’t regret it!
FJ: Well, if Muslims have a duty to go once in their lives to Mecca, to worship, even more so we who have the right faith, the Way, the Truth and the Life, through Jesus Christ, would be indebted at least once in our lives [to use] the holiday money which would be otherwise spent in Thasos, Santorini…
FT: Tenerife or God knows what…
FJ: Which are also beautiful, but at least once in our lives let’s save money to go to Jerusalem. Let’s see the empty Sepulcher of Christ!
FT: That’s right.
FJ: Because we will be asked on judgment day; Those who did not know of Jesus Christ, of His gospel which was preached, of the fact that He was resurrected…
They will be asked, “Have you seen My empty tomb?” “Yes.” “Where was I? Since I wasn’t there, I was resurrected.”
Therefore, we owe seeing the empty sepulcher to confess the Resurrection.
FT: Yes, that’s right. Let us have the palpable testimony. In Protestant circles, or, let’s say, even atheists, there are discussions that Jesus’ tomb would not have been there, it would have been somewhere farther away. But I reckon that the proof of grace is the greatest evidence, beyond… Could you tell us some miracles, some unique events related to the Holy Sepulcher or its restoration, because I understand that there was a restoration.
FJ: Yes. Of course the first testimony is the work of grace that we feel and the very powerful energy of the Holy Sepulcher. But there is an archaeological and historical attestation of the fact that Empress Helen, when she came around [the year] 325 to Jerusalem, with a lot of money, her son being Emperor Constantine, she excavated all this area of Golgotha and of the Holy Sepulcher, the garden with the tombs, as it was then, because the Roman Empire, until [Empress Helen and Emperor Constantine] coming to power, buried this whole area of Golgotha and these tombs, among which was also the Sepulcher of the Lord near Golgotha, to defile somehow the work of Christ, that the world may not believe in Him.
FT: Was it a landfill or what?
FJ: It was a garbage dump. And they put over the Sepulcher of the Lord a pagan statue and over Golgotha, the same. Not realizing that by the fact that they wanted to defile, they marked the places exactly. The Empress knew this, as she was the Empress of the Roman Empire. And she excavated all this area, built a great church over the Holy Sepulcher and over Golgotha and under Golgotha, the place is marked even now, under the rock of Golgotha, the Holy Cross was also found.
FT: Yes…
FJ: Of course they were thrown away from Golgotha because there were many crucifixions at that time of the Roman Empire, it was the ugliest way to die and the most shameful. Of course they found a lot of garbage, skeletons, pieces of wood, crosses and so on. How could Empress Helen find the true Cross of Christ? And at that time there was Archbishop Makarios of Jerusalem, and there was a funeral cortege passing by with a woman who was dead. It was passing through the area. And they touched all those crosses and pieces of wood to the woman’s coffin, and when she was touched with the Cross of Christ, the woman was resurrected.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: Then they lifted up the cross, [it’s] the feast that we have on September 14, and they knew that it was the Cross of Christ.
FT: Oh, because of that, so in the wake of this miracle….
FJ: Yes.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: Jerusalem, as we know from prophesies and from the prophet David in the Old Testament, Jerusalem is also called the navel of the earth. Meaning that from the middle of the earth came salvation.
FT: Yes.
FJ: Why is it called the navel of the earth? Right in the Church of the Resurrection – the Orthodox church in front of the Lord’s Sepulcher – there is a stone pillar that represents the navel of the earth. In fact, it is the symbol of the Holy Sepulcher, we may say. Because in the tomb, Christ God came down among men to lift them up from the tomb and to deify them. So the tomb is an umbilical cord through which we feed on the deity.
FT: Glory to God! Yes.
FJ: Therefore, from the midst of the earth came salvation. From Jerusalem.
FT: From Jerusalem.
FJ: And indeed, as you said that the Protestants say, that the tomb of Christ would be somewhere else, actually very close to the headquarters of the Romanian Patriarchate, to our Romanian church, but it is a mistake, because it is documentarily attested that Empress Helen exactly found the tomb of the Lord. The city from the time of the Savior is somewhere between 7-10 meters below the city of Jerusalem today because they built continuously, empires succeeding, demolishing the old and building over. Being only rock, they built on the rock, on stone pillars – all the cities rose on top of each other.
There are tunnels even accessible to tourists under the city of Jerusalem, and others are closed, they are accessible only to the army because there is no oxygen at all, they are accessible only with oxygen and so on. But when we go to the Holy Sepulcher, we descend even more than 7 m to the Holy Sepulcher.
FT: Glory to God! Yes.
FJ: And a few years ago, it was even shown on National Geographic, and on media channels: for the first time the “aedicula” was restored, the niche that covers the Tomb of the Lord, made of marble.
FT: It is a small construction that surrounds the Holy Sepulcher.
FJ: Yes, and it was restored because in 200 years there hasn’t been any work done there.
FT: It posed architectonic problems.
FJ: Architectonic, from earthquakes, from different… And for the first time in 500 years, this team of specialists, coming from Athens, who also rebuilt the Acropolis, opened the stone of the Holy Sepulcher, the stone that we kiss, the marble slab, to see if underneath is the original rock on which Jesus was placed. How could they know if it was the original rock?
They tried with a probe to extract rock from the rock underneath to see if it had the same chemical composition as the whole mountain there – Golgotha and so on. The Patriarch of Jerusalem bears witness to this even in an interview in Greece, he confessed – and I was actually present at that moment at the Holy Sepulcher – that when they tried to extract rock, a very strong magnetism, a very strong energy sprang from the tomb and the machines broke down. Some very expensive machines.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: Glory to God! But they were very expensive. But the Patriarch of Jerusalem said: “That’s it. The tomb is alive!”
FT: Yes. Glory to God!
FJ: That is, it showed that it was alive.
FT: And were you there?
FJ: Yes, I was on one of the days when work was in progress. Pilgrims were not allowed in, but representatives of the churches were allowed to enter. It was a very emotional moment! Apropos of the miracles experienced in Jerusalem. To the glory of God, almost every day, having chores at the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, I go and worship at the Holy Sepulcher.
FT: Yes, yes.
FJ: Know that even if I go every day to worship at the Holy Sepulcher, always when I enter I feel that I am entering for the first time. And when I go out, I look and look, as it may be for the last time that I look on the Tomb of the Lord.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: But at that time, I was let in after they put the marble slab aside – which hasn’t been set aside for 500 years. And I put my hand right on the rock where Jesus was placed, which is 30 cm below the marble stone that we are kissing. But there was an extraordinary emotion and energy.
FT: Yes!
FJ: I had for a moment the feeling that I was living what the apostles lived when they entered and saw the empty tomb.
FT: Glory to God! Yes.
FJ: So I was left feeling marked [by this]…
FT: You experienced the Resurrection?
FJ: Yes, I think that was one of the most crucial moments of my life, yes.
FT: Crucial moments, yes.
FJ: Of course the greatest miracle is the Holy Fire.
FT: Tell us a little about it!
FJ: On Holy Saturday, at the time of Vespers, that is, at about 1 o’clock in the afternoon, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, together with the group of hierarchs and priests and representatives of the Orthodox Churches who come to take the Holy Fire to spread it in their countries, perform the great vespers service that is united with the Divine Liturgy. The vespers service begins, the Tomb of the Lord is surrounded 3 times, O Gladsome Light is sung…
FT: Oh, how beautiful! How beautiful!
FJ: The Gladsome Light that is expected to come. After surrounding the tomb 3 times and O Gladsome Light is sung, the Patriarch of Jerusalem sits in front of the Holy Sepulcher, is stripped of the archdiocesan clothes – of the sakkos, the omophorion, of the cross, the Engolpion – and [remaining] only in the sticharion, [with] the sleeves, he is controlled for any source of fire. He is controlled by the Jewish police and by a representative of the Muslims and of the Armenians. He enters the Holy Sepulcher.
All the vigil lamps throughout the Church of the Resurrection which is huge because it is a complex in which there are several churches located in the Church of the Resurrection or the Holy Sepulcher…
FT: So all the vigil lamps including Golgotha, including…
FJ: Everything, everything. Including what is electric, that is, light bulbs and lamps and candles, everything is off. Even at the Catholics who do not keep… it is rare to have the Resurrection on the same day [as them]. They are all extinguished in the Holy Sepulcher as well.
On the Holy Sepulcher is placed a large vigil lamp with oil, with eight clean wicks, not lighted, the prayer that the Patriarch of Jerusalem reads, which is also read in Romanian. It is a very beautiful prayer of invocation of the Light and a small candle. I even have a photo taken by a hierarch of the Holy Sepulcher who had access to enter before His Beatitude entered the Holy Sepulcher and quickly took a picture and I have this photo of how the Holy Sepulcher is prepared before the coming of the Holy Fire.
And the Patriarch kneels and prays, reads this prayer. And sometimes, there is the feeling that he does not even get to read it all because the Holy Fire springs from the Sepulcher of the Lord because the Sepulcher is Life-Bearing and Light-Giving, as it says in the Akathist of the Holy Sepulcher.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: Although many Christians, and there are countless testimonies of many Christians, priests and hierarchs who have seen the Holy Fire coming in the form of lightning from the Holy Sepulcher, shaped like a globe of light. Other people saw how the lamps lit up above the Holy Sepulcher.
FT: They also light up on their own and I understand that even in people’s hands they light themselves.
FJ: Yes, I saw in 2007, at that time I was not yet a monk, a priest, it was my first visit to Jerusalem and I went to the Holy Fire then and I saw a woman that had the Holy Fire light in her hand before His Beatitude came out with the two large bundles of candles. And maybe some people will say, yes, the father is crazy and hasn’t seen well. But there are a lot of people who have seen this, even outside the Holy Sepulcher. People can also stand above, where the dome of the Holy Sepulcher is. That is where the Patriarchate of Jerusalem is and there is an esplanade and people are staying there too. There are a lot of people.
FT: On the balcony upstairs, for those who do not know.
FJ: Yes, and in the courtyard of the Holy Sepulcher, people have had [their candles] light up, out of their love for God and for the Holy Fire and for Jerusalem, the fire lit up in their hands. But also to people who were very unfaithful and did not believe, their fire lit itself for them to believe.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: Okay, let’s say that maybe, these people were deceived, or maybe I did not see well in 2007. But I can testify on my own beard this time by saying that every year, since I am under this obedience in Jerusalem, when the Holy Fire comes, we as representatives, myself and Father Theophilus, the superior of the Romanian settlements in the Holy Land, participate in the procession and we are in front of the Holy Sepulcher. And we light the candles right from His Beatitude when he passes by. And up to a minute, the flame is not material.
FT: It doesn’t burn!
FJ: It doesn’t burn! And [I testify] on my beard, because I put the flame in my beard and it did not burn.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: After that, it becomes materialistic, but up to one minute…[it is not]. Historically, elders, abbots, elderly nuns say that in the olden days it lasted more than three minutes. But probably because of our sins and our weakening spirituality, now this miracle lasts less. But I’m telling you for sure that it does not burn. The delegations saw that, also the journalists saw, who were present this year at the Holy Sepulcher. There are videos, there are written testimonies.
FT: I will give you my testimony, forgive me for telling you! I didn’t know that the fire of Jerusalem didn’t burn for just one minute. I just knew it doesn’t burn. Alright. The fire comes into the Holy Mountain after a long time, by plane and so on, by boat.
FJ: At night.
FT: At night, yes exactly. And I was still wearing pants, so I wasn’t even a brother at the monastery, and I was working in the kitchen. And we went to take the light – “Come take the Light!” – we all took light and I knew it doesn’t burn and I put my hand in it and I saw that it really doesn’t burn. But I didn’t know that it didn’t burn for just a minute, so to speak. And then I was constantly playing and it was truly something very non-material. So it was there, but it was like it wasn’t. I went to the kitchen and was constantly playing with this. And up to a point when my brothers said to me, “Come on, what are you doing? Come on, help us make food!” I was a helper there. And then, the smart father Theologos what does he do? He says, ok, I will extinguish it because I will light it from the others afterwards. I extinguished it and then, when I lit it up again, it burned me.
FJ: For the joy you had then and for your innocence and faith, it did not burn.
FT: It didn’t burn.
FJ: What does Christ say: Your faith has healed you. Your faith!
Ft: Yes, exactly.
FJ: So miracles cannot be worked unless there is a communion between God and man. You must believe. You can be in front of the Holy Sepulcher and the Holy Fire comes and you can be like a stone.
FT: Right, the Jews or not necessarily the Jews, but the others, do they not believe? I mean do they not…?
FJ: You should know that a lot of the policemen who are at the Holy Sepulcher are Jews of course, most of them, there are also Palestinians who have Israeli IDs, but most of them are Christians.
FT: Really? Glory to God!
FJ: In the Holy Sepulcher they make the sign of the cross, they kiss the Holy Sepulcher, they put their Kippah [on their heads], because they also have to keep the local tradition of the Old Testament. But truly that is a good question:
What do those who do not believe and are indifferent at that time say? Because they see… Alright, he comes out with a flame. Anyway they think that the Patriarch lights it up.
FT: Yes, alright let’s say that he does but what about the others?
FJ: But the others, when you see that there are so many priests, men or also women…
FT: With hair, with headscarves that can light up…
FJ: Everything is aglow as there are thousands of people out there with bundles of 33 candles. That is the tradition in Jerusalem. The bundle of candles that we light with the Holy Fire, has 33 candles representing the 33 years of the Savior on Earth. But many people have five bundles because they want to give to everyone in the country, to give a candle as a blessing. You realize how everything is aglow there with so many thousands of people, it never happened that something caught on fire.
FT: Glory to God! Yes, that’s really…
FJ: Although the police have some sprays on them with which they could put out the fire if something were to happen. Nothing ever happened.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: But why don’t they believe? Well, neither did the disciples believe the miracles that Christ was working.
FT: Yes, exactly. They were made of stone.
FJ: Some were made of stone. Some have denied Him by not believing that He is the Bread that descends from heaven.
FT: Man must also be a little bit open.
FJ: Yes! If not… God wants to see our intention. If man’s intention is good, then we know that God takes a thousand steps towards him, and then faith and miracles happen.
FT: But let me ask you something. When we were there, we were received by the Metropolitan of Kapitolias, I think you know who I am talking about…
FJ: Yes. His Eminence Isychios…
FT: Yes. And I asked him to tell us some miracles regarding the Fire in Jerusalem and he said, “I’m going to tell you something which you are not going to expect. I mean something that’s not…” And he told us that at one point, I think it wasn’t with the current Patriarch, but with the one before, that there were some Copts, if I’m not mistaken, from Africa, in any case (and) they were making a very big racket.
FJ: That’s how they manifest themselves… Joyfully.
FT: Yes, and the moment the Patriarch entered the Holy Sepulcher to read the prayers, annoyed by this racket, by this uproar, he said to these Africans: “Be silent already! Be silent already!” After which, when he entered the Holy Sepulcher back and read the prayer, the Fire did not come. After that, he realized that he had hurt these people, he went outside and said, “Do as you wish, do as your conscience tells you!”
FJ: You see that the way Christians manifest themselves – and so it should be – it does not have to be in a sad way…
FT: Yes.
FJ: Christianity is joy.
FT: Yes.
FJ: Spiritual joy, of course.
FT: Yes, yes.
FJ: At the Holy Sepulcher when the Holy Fire comes, there is an indescribable racket. Because all Christians – Orthodox Christians, Coptic Christians, Armenian Christians – because these are generally the ones who celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection together – have a different way of manifesting the joy of the Resurrection.
You asked me about the greatest miracle I saw. The greatest miracle I have seen in Jerusalem is this joy of the Resurrection.
FT: Yes, exactly.
FJ: Because maybe the Holy Fire arrives late to some people and it burns them, or maybe they do not have the faith necessary not to be burned by its flame in the first minute and so on. That’s not what we should look for – whether or not the flame burns us. But for our hearts to burn.
FT: Exactly.
FJ: There is an indescribable joy when the Holy Fire comes that you cannot explain in words, the Mysteries of God – “mistirio” in Greek it sounds more…
FT: More mysterious.
FJ: More mysterious. It’s not something I can explain.
FT: That’s right.
FJ: The mystery cannot be translated. What you experience when the Holy Fire comes is between laughter and crying with joy.
FT: Yes.
FJ: Because Christ is risen and because we are no longer subject to death. Because death is not a fatality, it is only a passage – from death to life, as Christ says, and His words are alive. We don’t die. Or how there is a saying in Holy Mount Athos at a monastery – let’s die before we die so that we don’t die when we die. Right?
FT: Yes, yes, yes. If you die before you die, you’re not going to die when you die.
FJ: Like that. That is, to die to sin.
FT: Exactly.
FJ: And let us be resurrected in Christ. And I believe that when the Holy Fire comes, we foreshadow this state of our encounter with Christ in the Garden of Heaven. I think Adam had this joy when he met God in the coolness of the evening.
FT: Overcoming death, actually.
FJ: Yes. I mean, at that moment you’re not afraid of death.
FT: Yes, yes.
FJ: What I experienced in those moments and I also saw it in Father Theophilus and in our brothers who were there, all Christians – if it happened then that we went beyond, I think we would all go happy and prepared.
FT Glory to God!
FJ: Because it’s that grace-filled state.
FT: Glory to God! Great, great joy!
FJ: That’s why, I tell you, go to Jerusalem as much as it is still possible, while there is still peace as it is now, we can still rejoice.
And another testimony: I was with a lady from a television station, I will not name her now, who did a show about the Holy Fire this very year, very decent people because they even Communed on the night of the Resurrection.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: People working in television wanted to confess and to take Holy Communion.
FT: Glory to God! May God bless them!
FJ: Yes and explaining to them beforehand… it was on Holy Friday or on Holy Thursday, I was explaining to them everything in the Holy Sepulcher and we were in the Angel’s Chapel, the antechamber of the Holy Sepulcher, where on the piece that is left of the stone at the door of the Sepulcher (it is called the stone of the Archangel Gabriel because it is the stone that was set aside by the Archangel Gabriel who told the myrrh-bearing women that Christ is not here, He is risen) there is a candle there that always burns with the Holy Fire.
And I told them: anytime, on any day of the year, if we put our hand in this flame, it does not burn so much. Not only when the Holy Fire comes on Holy Saturday at noon, but on any day of the year when we enter here and put our hand, it does not burn.
FT: I did not know that…
FJ: You’ll see, when you come…
FT: Yes, yes…
FJ: And they put their hands on it and they were left [speechless] there is this scene in the show and this joy is seen in their eyes, how they stayed with their hands in the flame and it didn’t burn them.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: If we light a match or a lighter, it immediately burns you.
FT: Yes, yes.
FJ: But there I stayed with my hand in the flame and it was not burning.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: Any day of the year. In the Holy Sepulcher.
FT: Glory to God!
FJ: There are testimonies of the great spiritual fathers, even St. Paisios of Mount Athos whom we all love, he says that very often the Fire descends in the Holy Sepulcher not only then at the Resurrection…
FT: Yes. On Holy Saturday and so on…
FJ: But few see because our eyes, due to our sins, are closed. But many times we live in our heart this descent of the Holy Fire.
FT: Yes! Glory to God! It’s something that needs to be lived, it can’t be explained actually….
FJ: Yes, like I said: the mystery is lived.
FT: It’s lived…. And in fact, Orthodoxy is a mystery.
FJ: The whole Orthodoxy.
FT: Yes. So, folks, go to Jerusalem and try to live the mystery. We thank Father John very much for sharing with us a little of the mystery of the Resurrection, of the mystery of the Holy Sepulcher.
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. Amen!
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