Visions Outside the Church
by Monk Gorazd
Many people have heard that
the Mother of God has supposedly appeared to Roman Catholics in
various places. They do not know what to think about these events.
Some even go so far as to think that since the Mother of God appears
to Roman Catholics, it follows that the Roman Catholic Church is a
true, grace-filled church, especially since various miracles and
healings take place at the locations of the visions. Fatima, in
particular, has aroused much interest among Russians living abroad
because the apparition allegedly speaks about Russia in strongly
anti-communist terms, leading them to overlook the heretical and
anti-Orthodox content of the message as a whole. What are we to make
of these appearances and the claims made for them? What criterion
should we use to guide us in testing the truth of visions outside of
the Orthodox Church? Hopefully, what follows will help in
understanding such phenomena.
The Holy Fathers, knowing
that Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, advise us to
be cautious and distrustful of all appearances in the visible world.
“If you are silent in a good way, desiring to be with God,”
says St. Gregory the Sinaite, “never accept any physical or
spiritual appearances, either outside or inside yourself, even if it
might be an image of Christ, or an angel, or some Saint, or if light
should appear, or imprint itself in the mind...Be attentive, that you
may not come to believe something, even if it is something good, and
be not captivated by it before consulting those who are experienced
and are able to analyze the matter, so that you do not suffer
harm...God is not displeased with the person who is attentive to
himself, even if he, out of fear of deception, does not accept even
that which is from Him, without consulting and testing....” We
might add that the Lord God could at all times give full assurance to
a person, if He is pleased to do so, concerning the truth of a
vision. If such caution is necessary concerning visions WITHIN the
Orthodox Church, how much more circumspect should we be in relation
to apparitions OUTSIDE the one, true Church! The sole criterion for
examining these visions should be their Orthodoxy. If in any respect
their Orthodoxy is lacking, then they must be rejected: even if 99%
of the message is Orthodox and only 1% deviates from the doctrines
laid down by the Church, then the whole must be rejected. God cannot
deny Himself or preach untruth even in the smallest degree.
Let us examine three
well-known cases which have occurred in our own century. First, we
will deal with Fatima, which is of special interest, since the
apparition there speaks about Russia and its role in the destiny of
mankind.
Towards
the end of the First World War, at Fatima in Portugal, between May
and October, 1917, three shepherd children, two girls and a boy, had
a series of visions of someone whom they said was our Lady, the
Blessed Virgin.. .Throughout the six months of the apparitions, the
messages which Lucia was told to make public, at that time or
somewhat later, were largely concerned with the need to encourage
devotion to the rosary and to our Lady’s immaculate heart, and
with the need for mankind to change the direction in which it was
moving. Failure to make that change would bring down the wrath of
God... (from Studies in Comparative Religion. A Question
Concerning the Second Vatican Council, by Verak).
In
December, 1940 Sister Lucy (the only one of the three who remained
alive and who is now a nun of the Carmelite order) wrote to Pope Pius
XII saying, “In 1917 the Most Holy Mother prophesied to us the
end of the war which at that darkened the face of Europe; she
prophesied another war and said that she would come again. She
insisted on the dedication of Russia to her most sacred heart,
promising in return to hinder the spread of false teaching from
Russia and to convert Russia.” (from News About Fatima, the
Greatest Miracle of Our Time, Brussels, 1962 p. 144). It is
necessary to remember that Catholics understand “the conversion
of Russia” to mean her conversion to Roman Catholicism. Again
we read in the journal The Fatima Crusader (issue #17,
April-May, 1985): “So it may well be that the conversion
of a few Russians to Catholicism now is part of God’s
preparations for the conversion of Russia when the Pope and bishops
finally obey the command of our Lady of Fatima to consecrate Russia
in the manner prescribed by God...The reason why Jesus gave this
specific command to the Pope and bishops is because he wants his
whole church to recognize the consecration of Russia as a triumph of
the immaculate heart of Mary...Sister Lucy records...in a letter
dated May 18, 1936: ‘Intimately I have spoken to our Lord about
the subject and not long ago, I asked Him why He would not convert
Russia without the Holy Father making the consecration. He replied,
“Because I want My whole Church to acknowledge that
consecration as a triumph of the immaculate heart of Mary so that it
may extend its cult later on and put the devotion to the immaculate
heart beside the devotion to My sacred heart” ‘.“
Here something should be
said about the un-Orthodox forms of devotion to the sacred heart of
Jesus and the immaculate heart of Mary which the apparition
advocates.
A
Roman Catholic nun, Mary Margaret Alacoque (who died in 1690),
allegedly had a vision of Jesus Christ who showed her His heart,
burning with love, and asked her to spread devotion to it. The
revelations she received were first printed in the account of her
life by the Jesuit bishop Lanje and caused such a scandal that the
edition was destroyed. Due to the fact that these “revelations”
were so exposed to the public eye, they were condemned by Pope
Clement in 1772. Nonetheless, this cult continued to exist under the
auspices of the Jesuits, and finally entered into the mainstream of
Catholic religious life (Pastoral Theology, Part II,
Archimandrite Constantine, Jordanville, 1961, p. 16). Sacred heart
pictures and devotions became a major part of Catholic spirituality,
and the popes added their endorsements in encyclicals, granting
indulgences for the observance of the devotion. Not to be outdone,
other groups, claiming to have seen apparitions of Mary, put forward
the idea of devotion to “The Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
The heart of Mary was sometimes depicted together with the sacred
heart of Jesus motif: a picture with two hearts...and later, the
sorrowful heart of Mary, with five or seven swords piercing it,
became extremely popular...It would be difficult to accuse Roman
Catholicism of denying the divinity of Christ, rather they have split
the wholeness of Christ, emphasizing His human nature as a separate
devotion, sometimes in a crudely biological way. This violates a
central principle of the Councils, that devotion should be given to
the devotion of Christ, and not to one of His natures, or parts of
His body. Thus, by fragmenting the wholeness of the Son of God, a
tendency develops to ‘Nestorianize.’ Parts of the body of
Christ should not become parts of isolated objects of adoration, nor
should they be pictorially depicted (i.e., a heart on fire, or a
heart crowned with thorns surrounding it)” (from Comparative
Religion, “Roman Catholicism: Some Devotional Practices,”
by Father George Mitchell). We mention these devotions here in order
to illustrate the abyss which lies between Orthodox and Roman
Catholic spirituality.
Yet another series of
apparitions took place in a small mountain village called San
Sebastian de Garabandal in the north of Spain.
These apparitions took place
between June, 1961 and November, 1965. The seers were four young
girls. We repeat some of the messages given:
“The
Virgin also reminded us very often about visiting the blessed
sacrament. As a matter of fact even in her final apparition (November
13, 1965) the Virgin told me, ‘Conchita, why do you not
go more often to visit my Son in the tabernacle?’ When I saw
the Virgin I said to her, as if there were a spy in the village, ‘You
know, there are some Protestants here.’ The Virgin replied,
‘They are all my children.’ The angel came and said,
‘Many cardinals, many bishops and many priests are on the road
to perdition and taking many souls with them. Less and less
importance is given to the Eucharist.”
It is interesting to note
that in 1967 Conchita Gonzales (one of the seers) started to have
doubts about the apparitions:
“Yes,
in 1967, sometime after the apparitions had taken place, I did have
doubts. It happened suddenly on August 15. I will never forget
it. There were many people around me and I was overwhelmed with the
feeling that I was not honest. I felt I was deceiving all those
people and that I ought to confess it. I went to a priest and told
him that it was like an illusion or a dream or living a lie, that I
had never seen the Virgin and that I had been deceiving everybody all
the time...These doubts and denials of the Virgin’s apparitions
lasted five or six days. Since then, up to this time, I have
confusion and doubt within me” (from Miracle at Garabandal
by Conchita Gonzales with Harry Daley, Dubleday and Company,
N.Y., 1983).
We mention this apparition
here to show that even in a case where the seer herself is ultimately
uncertain of the reality of what she saw, the story still seems to
find apparently serious believers. They are not even discouraged by
such disturbing facts as the following, reported by one of the seers:
“After the apparitions
started, we never missed a day of communion. When there wasn’t
a priest in town, an angel would come down to give us communion...At
one point we were instructed by a priest to ask how it was that,
since only a priest could consecrate the hosts, the angel was
administering communion to us. We did ask, and the Virgin said that
the angel would come down and take the already consecrated hosts from
tabernacles on earth.”
Can we not imagine the
consternation this would cause in the church from which the hosts
were taken! Can it be possible that angels need to take hosts from
the tabernacles of churches? In the Orthodox life of St. Onuphrius an
angel does, indeed, bring the Holy Communion, but it is quite
unthinkable that an angel would need to take the Holy Gifts from an
earthly tabernacle.
The third series of visions
we will mention began on June 24, 1981, in the Yugoslavian town of
Medjugorje, where a number of young children began to have visions of
what they considered to be the Mother of God. The apparition has
claimed that these revelations will be the last in the world. In
November, 1982 the apparition said, ‘After these revelations
finish there will be only some false revelations in the world.”
People have flocked to Medjugorje from all over the world even though
the local Roman Catholic bishop of Mostar, Pavao Zanic, who denies
the verity of the apparitions, made a public declaration in the name
of the Yugoslavian Bishops’ Conference to the effect that “It
is not permitted for pilgrimages or for other manifestations to be
organized which are motivated by the supernatural character
supposedly attributed to the events of Medjugorje.”
Already in 1981 the seers
were saying: “There will be a visible and lasting sign on the
hill of the apparitions; it will come soon, you will see it in a
short time. Wait a little longer, be patient.” And again: “The
sign will be on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1981, then at
Christmas, then at New Year, etc.” Needless to say, no sign has
yet appeared on the hill. For an Orthodox reader it is sufficient to
know only some of the ecumenical messages given by the apparition to
be certain that it is not the Mother of God who is appearing there.
For instance:
“All
the religions are the same before God. God commands in all these
religions as a king in his realm.”
(Counter-Reformation-Catholic, 201 Eng. ed. Cf. Fr. Blaise,
500 Messages a Vivre, p. 370, Montreal, 1986.) “In God neither
divisions or religions count. It is you in the world who have created
the divisions because believers have separated themselves from one
another.” (Apparition of the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje, Jan
Urban [in Czech]. The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the XX
Century, Sept ./Oct;, 1987; Nov./Dec., 1985).
For
the uninformed, this message has a seductive appeal and is in keeping
with the “one world” thinking. But as Orthodox Christians
we know that to say “all the religions are the same before God”
is a denial of Christ as the only Truth. Is it not He Himself who
says, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto
the Father, but by me (John 14:6). Therefore, to say that all
religions are the same is a denial of Christ!
Without
attempting to analyze too deeply the meaning of all the messages it
is sufficient enough to realize that each one of these apparitions,
claiming to be the Mother of God, accepts the sacraments of the Roman
Catholic Church (Holy Communion, Priesthood, Confession) as true,
grace-filled Mysteries. This alone makes these apparitions totally
unacceptable for us since we know that grace-filled Mysteries can
only be found in the one, true Church of Christ. Since the Western
Church separated itself from the one, true Church in the 11th century
there can be no question about the existence of true Mysteries in the
Roman Catholic Church. “The Church is one and only she has the
fullness of the grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit. No matter who,
or in what way one has fallen away from the Church, whether in
heresy, schism, or in uncanonical gatherings, one loses the communion
of the grace of God. Therefore no sacraments performed outside the
Church have any grace-filled power.” (Archbishop Hilarion,
There Is No Christianity Without the Church, p. 114, San
Paulo, Brazil, 1954.) Even the presence of healings is not a proof of
the truth of the appearances. Healings might be from God, from
natural causes, or if God allows, from the evil one. Sozomen, in his
Ecclesiastical History (Book II, #5) writes: “The temple
of Aesculapius in Aegis, a city of Cilicia, and the temple of Venus
at Aphaca, near Mt. Lebanon and the river Adonis, were undermined and
entirely destroyed. Both of these temples were highly honored and
revered by the ancients...because those among them who were infirm in
body were delivered from diseases because the demon manifested
himself by night and healed them.” In the Vita Patrum of
St. Gregory of Tours we read in the life of St. Friardus the Recluse,
“And as they courageously persevered in prayer, the tempter
appeared at night to the deacon Secundellus, taking the form of the
Lord and saying to him, ‘I am Christ, to whom you pray every
day. Already you are holy, and your name is written in the Book of
Life. So go out from this island and perform healings among the
people.’ Secundellus, taken in by this deception, left the
island...and even so as soon as he laid his hand upon the sick in the
name of Jesus Christ, they were healed.”
The words of Archpriest
Boris Molchanov are very timely here:
“It
is very important to be aware of that little-known but remarkable
spiritual law by which all false and hypocritical Christianity will
inevitably lead its followers to acceptance of the Antichrist or to a
movement which will prepare for his appearance. In every false
teaching, like in the Pharisee’s attitude towards truth, there
is hidden the seeds of eternal damnation. Foolishly and in vain many
people do, not accept the importance of dogma. The close union
between dogma of the faith, practical, moral activity, and the
struggle for salvation has been expounded on by bishop Ignatius
(Brachaninoff) and His Beatitude Metropolitan Anthony (Krapovitsky).
According the teaching of the Church, there is nothing as import as
confessing divinely-revealed Truth, in the work of The Word of God
itself bears witness that God must be worshipped in Spirit and in
Truth (John 4:23-24). Truth is not some kind of insignificant thing,
which one could relate to as one wishes. In the truth, the Spirit of
Truth, Who proceeds from the Father, is present in a real way. And
correspondingly, in every lie, there is present the father of lies,
the devil. Therefore, a person who confesses the truth receives the
Sprit of Truth; and the one who confesses a lie will necessarily
assimilate the spirit of lies, the fallen spirit. Outside the one,
holy Orthodox Church there are not, and there will not appear the
means for recognizing the Antichrist, nor is there any grace-filled
power to resist him and all his temptations (Epoch of Apostasy,
Jordanville, 1976, p. 18)
We
do not need heterodox apparitions to call us to repentance, prayer,
and fasting. Further, these apparitions accept Roman Catholic
sacraments, the papacy, encourage un-Orthodox forms of piety, and
embrace false ecumenism. In our troubled times, times of subtle
temptations and sublime deceptions, when false miracles, visions, and
apparitions are on the increase, we Orthodox Christians should work
out our salvation with fear and trembling, holding firm to our Holy
Orthodox Faith and looking for guidance and inspiration to our Holy
Orthodox Church alone.
From the monograph The Vatican and Russia, and Visions Outside the
Church: A View of the Spiritual and Political Trends in Roman
Catholicism (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1990).
Reprinted with permission. Posted on 11/12/2007.
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