Opponents of believers who are confident in the divine nature of the Holy Fire argue that in fact the flame that descends annually in Jerusalem appears thanks to man. We tested the veracity of this belief.

The special service held in Jerusalem on Holy Saturday on the eve of Easter is one of the most famous and discussed Orthodox rites. It is held in the Edicule - a chapel in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, built on the site of the cave where Jesus Christ is believed to have been buried. Ceremony broadcast live in Russia and other countries, and then fire by planes deliver for Easter services.

According to the orthodox point of view, defended many clergy, this fire is of supernatural origin, as well as has unique properties - for example, it doesn’t burn in the first moments, so you can “wash” with it. Often the moment of the descent of fire from heaven is used to justify the correct date of Easter celebration according to the Orthodox calendar or, more broadly, the truth of Orthodoxy in comparison with other branches of Christianity. On the other hand, in many books, articles And blogs it is stated that the Holy Fire is lit using a hidden lamp, matches or even a lighter.

To begin with, we note that the name “Holy Fire”, established in Russian, is not a completely accurate translation of the Greek ἅγιο φῶσ (“holy light”). This name in itself does not indicate the miraculous origin of fire, because in the Christian tradition various substances and materials (water, oil, salt, wine, bread) are considered holy, which have a completely ordinary origin, but are sanctified through participation in a religious ritual. IN prayer, which the patriarch reads in the Edicule, there is also no direct mention of the miracle, but, on the contrary, there is an indirect indication that the ritual is performed by the people themselves, symbolically remembering the resurrection of Christ: “We perform a light manifestation, thereby depicting Your merciful theophany to us.”

The first unambiguous mention of the miraculous appearance of fire on the eve of Easter is contained in the travel notes of the Frankish monk Bernard, who visited Jerusalem around 870 (that is, even before Great Schism 1054, at that time Western and Eastern Christians celebrated Easter according to a common calendar - the Julian). By words monk, at the morning service on Holy Saturday, “an angel descends and lights the lamps hanging over the Holy Sepulcher.” Another, somewhat earlier account comes from the Arab author Al-Jahiz (died 868), who claimedthat this is not a miracle, but a trick of Christian monks who deceived parishioners. In earlier descriptions of the Easter service in Jerusalem (including very detailed ones, such as that of the pilgrim Egeria, who visited there around 383), there is no mention of the annual miracle. But Egeria describes daily worship at the Holy Sepulcher, during which fire was supplied from the cave from the lamp that was constantly burning there. In the liturgical manuscripts of the 9th–11th centuries, which describe in detail the Jerusalem worship, there is also nothing doesn't say about the miraculous origin of the fire used in the service of Holy Saturday, only the lighting of lamps or censers by priests in a closed church, without people, is described.

The most convincing argument in favor of the natural origin of the Holy Fire is the direct confession of this by several representatives of the Jerusalem clergy. One of the first clearly attributed evidence was given in his diary by Porfiry (Uspensky), the first head of the Russian spiritual mission in Jerusalem. IN records dated August 4, 1848, he says that Dionysius, Metropolitan of Bethlehem, shared a secret with him: the fire in the Edicule is lit from “a lamp hidden behind a moving marble icon of the Resurrection of Christ.” Therefore, “the Holy Sepulcher clergy no longer believes in the miraculous appearance of fire,” but cannot stop the “pious lie” for fear that they will be “torn to pieces” by the believers awaiting a miracle.

Several such evidence dates back to the 21st century. Thus, in March 2018, the Armenian priest Samuil Agoyan said in interview, that, being a participant in the ceremony three times (in 2000–2002), he saw how the candles, which the patriarch then took out of the Edicule, were lit from an oil lamp. Another Armenian priest serving in Jerusalem, Archimandrite Ghevond, also clearly noted, that “the fire carried out of the Holy Sepulcher by the Armenian and Greek ministers is an ordinary natural fire, lit in two lamps by the Greek archimandrite in the most ordinary way shortly before those who, after prayer, will bring the holy light with this fire to people enter the Edicule.”

In 2001, Metropolitan Cornelius of Petra, locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne of Jerusalem, interview Greek TV channel MEGA stated that “[the patriarch’s] prayers have the power to sanctify natural fire, since there is also supernatural fire. Here we are talking about natural fire, but the prayers offered by the patriarch or bishop sanctify natural fire, and therefore it has grace. This is a natural fire that is lit from an unquenchable lamp that is kept in the sacristy of the Church of the Resurrection.”

What got the greatest resonance was what was done on camera. confession Orthodox Archbishop Isidore (Fakitsas) in a conversation with Greek journalist Dimitros Alikakos. In the conversation, the archbishop admits that he personally used a lighter to light a lamp in the Edicule, from which the blessed fire was then distributed. After the publication of Alikakos's book, representatives of the Jerusalem Patriarchate filed suits against him and his publishers for libel and violation of journalistic standards, but these accusations were rejected court in Athens.

It is significant that official representatives of the Jerusalem Patriarchate and other Orthodox churches (including the Russian Orthodox Church) avoid directly calling the rite of the descent of the Holy Fire a regularly recurring miracle or unequivocally insist on its supernatural origin. For example, Patriarch Theophilus III of Jerusalem interview 2021 did not say that the fire appears miraculously, but emphasized its spiritual meaning: “The rite of the Holy Fire is mainly an anticipation of Christ’s resurrection... The Holy Fire is a reflection of the light that burns in every heart that seeks God.” In 2020, Nikon (Golovko) secretary of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem described ritual on Holy Saturday as “a divine service that will be performed according to the charter of the Jerusalem church” and added that “it is performed not only here in the Holy Land, but, for example, on Athos.” In 2018, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), then head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, noted, that “it is absolutely not necessary to believe in the descent of the Holy Fire in order to be an Orthodox Christian,” since this is not stated in the Creed. The topic of the Holy Fire is discussed with extreme caution in the academic “Orthodox Encyclopedia” published under the editorship of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' - for example, in the extensive article “Easter“only references are given to medieval authors and liturgical texts, but nothing is said about the origin of the fire itself.

Often, as an argument in favor of the supernatural origin of the Holy Fire, it is mentioned that, at least in the first moments, it does not burn and that you can even “wash yourself” with it. “Verified” did not find direct and verifiable evidence of this. Some clergy, for example, priest Alexander Timofeev, teacher of the Moscow Theological Academy, claimthat fire burns just like any other. About the same experience they tell and some believers. As an explanation for why other people don't feel hot, lead Religious ecstasy is natural in such an environment. To our knowledge, there have been no experimental studies of the Holy Fire, the results of which have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

The evidence listed above allows us to consider the rite of the descent of the Holy Fire as a divine service that arose in Jerusalem around the 9th century and is associated primarily with the symbolism of the resurrection of Christ as the “light of the world.” The fire, which is then distributed to believers, is lit by people (for example, with matches or a lighter), but from the point of view of Orthodox doctrine, this does not prevent it from being venerated in the same way as other consecrated objects.

Cover photo: Mar Sharb via Wikimedia Commons