The Spiritual World: On the Existence of Demons (10)

...continued from part nine.

16. The Power of Church Exorcisms

Having been in the priesthood for more than 30 years and interacting with people of various statuses, I have heard more than once from some that evil spirits do not exist, and that the so-called possessed are either sick with natural ailments, or pretend to be so in order to avoid work, or to seek compassion for themselves in rich but superstitious people.

I will not enter into any considerations about the existence of spirits: for an Orthodox Christian this truth is beyond any doubt. I will only point out examples of such ailments that I have seen, which cannot be explained either by natural causes or by pretense: they were truly cruel, and yielded only to the power of the exorcism prayers laid down by the Church for the expulsion of evil spirits.

On August 12, 1856, I was with my wife in the provincial town of Oryol on business. In our absence, my eight children, especially the younger ones, were out playing, frolicking, and joking. My ten-year-old son Orestes stood out more than all of them. The household and neighbors laughed at him a lot and marveled at his various inventions. Two days later, toward evening, we returned home and, thank God, found all the children healthy. At dusk, the worker, as is his custom, went out to the field with the horses for the night, and I went to my vegetable garden with two children, Orestes and another, my nine-year-old son Arkadios, to guard the vegetables there from the cattle wandering around at night. I don’t know whether my sons prayed to God when they went to bed with me or not, but they soon fell asleep, and I didn’t sleep for a long time. Around midnight, suddenly my Orestes jumped up quickly, started running around the haystacks and seemed to be catching something. Seeing this, I said to him: "Orestes, why did you get up and what are you doing?" And he said to me: "Please wake up Arkadios: we'll catch this cat and kill it; it jumped from the haystack onto my chest, woke me up and hurt me badly."

A Conversation on Psychiatric Illnesses and Demonic Possession with Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos

Elder Epiphanios was asked:

"Many Christians maintain that psychiatric illnesses are due to demonic influence and, with this viewpoint, they reject the use of psychiatric medicines. What do you have to say about this position?"

Demonic Possession or Mental Illness?

By Archimandrite Vasilios Bakoyiannis

The Common Symptoms

It is certainly possible for a person who is mentally ill or suffers from nerves to display the same symptoms as someone who is possessed. For example: The possessed person might not want to say “Lord have mercy” or to go to church, to confess or to take communion. (An unbeliever might also refuse to do these things, but that doesn’t mean that the unbeliever is possessed).

It is possible, according to psychiatrists, that someone who is mentally ill, faced with the Honorable Cross or the relics of saints, or in attendance at the Divine Liturgy, might shout “I’m burning, I’m burning,” without that meaning that they are possessed. We know of such cases. Any sins which they might have committed, the psychiatrists go on to say, in conjunction with their stricken conscience, would suffice to make the sufferer feel as if he or she were burning when brought face to face with the sacred objects of our Faith.

Why is Saint Anastasia Known as the "Deliverer From Potions" (Pharmakolitria)?

By John Sanidopoulos

The Great Martyr Anastasia of Sirmium was martyred sometime between 290 and 304, but after her relics were transferred to Constantinople in the fifth century, during the reign of Emperor Leo I, and to Rome in the sixth century, her popularity quickly rose throughout the Christian world. In Constantinople, they were installed in the fourth century Anastasis Church in the Portico of Domninus, near Constantine's forum. In old Rome, they were installed in the fourth century titular basilica of Saint Anastasia, built perhaps by Constantine's sister, Anastasia, to honor either the Resurrection of Christ or the original Roman martyr of the same name. In 824 Theodore Krithinos, oikonomos of the Great Church, travelled to Rome on an embassy to the Pope, and while there discovered an anonymous long Passion narrative of St. Anastasia written in Latin. After translating it to Greek, he brought it to Constantinople, which helped spark a revival in devotion to the Saint. Because of these events, churches throughout the Roman Empire were dedicated to her, and in each were iconographic portrayals of her holding a medicine bottle. Why?

Lycanthropy (Werewolves) in Byzantine Times

What is interesting about the contents of the article below was the advanced methods of psychiatry in Late Roman (Byzantine) times which treated symptoms of lycanthropy as a mental disorder, while in the West centuries later, following the Fall of Constantinople in the fifteenth century, it was often seen as a symptom of demonic possession.

"Lycanthropy in Byzantine Times (AD 330—1453)", 

History of Psychiatry, Vol. 20, No. 4, 468-479 (2009).

By E. Poulakou-Rebelakou, C. Tsiamis, G. Panteleakos, D. Ploumpidis 

(all from the University of Athens)

Abstract:

In this paper, the original Greek language texts of the Byzantine medical literature about lycanthropy are reviewed. The transformation of a human being into a wolf and the adoption of animal-like behavior, which were already known from mythology and had been presented in the scientific works of ancient Greek and Roman physicians, were examined by six Byzantine physicians and explained as a type of melancholic depression or mania. In spite of the influence of Byzantine medicine, its rationality in the interpretation of lycanthropy was forgotten in medieval and Renaissance times when it was replaced by explanations based on demonic possession and witchcraft. More recently psychiatry has treated the phenomenon as a subject of medical inquiry and has again explained the condition in terms of a mental disorder.