Against the Fear of Ghosts (Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko)

Against the Fear of Ghosts 

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

"And when the disciples saw [Jesus] walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, 'It is a ghost!' And they cried out for fear" (Matt. 14:26).

We have many bad habits, customs, and rituals that have remained from ancient times, when our ancestors were still pagans. However, what is characteristic of pagans is improper for us Christians. For example, many of us suffer from a fear of ghosts. They are afraid to be alone in a room at night, and they even fear stepping outside into the darkness; every dark corner appears to them as a dread specter. In places where a corpse lay just a few days ago, or when passing through a cemetery at night, such fear knows no bounds. Likewise, how much timidity and fear are felt upon entering a forest or any secluded place! "Fear has big eyes," as the Russian proverb goes; thus, the slightest noise or rustle in a deserted area, especially at night, the echo in the forest, the shadow of a tree swaying in the wind — all of this sends the soul into indescribable shudders. Consequently, it often happens that extraordinary phenomena are perceived in places where, in reality, they do not exist at all.

November 29-30 is Romania's Halloween

 

Since 1989 some parts of Romania, especially the region of Transylvania, celebrates Halloween on October 31st mainly as a western import due to its association with Vlad Tepes, who is said to have been Bram Stoker's inspiration for Dracula, becoming more popular after 2007 when Romania joined the European Union. The equivalent of Halloween for traditional Romanians is really celebrated on November 29-30, which is a public holiday known as Saint Andrew's Day. Saint Andrew is the patron saint of Romania who is known as the Apostle who brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to the land.

The superstitious believe that on Saint Andrew’s Eve, November 29th, the border between the physical world and the invisible world vanishes, ghosts and ghouls come to life, magic is more powerful and therefore a series of charms and rituals must be performed to protect the household, animals, and people. On this particular day the future can be revealed: girls who want to dream of their future husbands hide a little branch of basil under their pillow, peasants plant wheat seeds and pray it will sprout so that the next year will bring plentiful crops, animals and especially wolves are said to be given the gift of speech but whoever hears their secrets will be cursed, and the weather on Saint Andrew’s Day is a preview of the winter to come.

Relics of Ancient Superstitions in Modern Greece (An Essay from 1856)

By Prof. Henry Martyn Baird (1832–1906)

Author of Modern Greece, A Narrative of a Residence and Travels in that Country (1856)

It is not my intention, in the present paper, to investigate the nature of superstition; nor shall I attempt to account for its origin and prevalence. In some form or other, it has existed in every country with which we are acquainted, and, at the present day, it can boast of as many slaves as in the most remote antiquity. This is a fact which Mr. De Quincey, in his admirable essay on Modern Superstition, has exhibited in a clear light. The European as well as the Asiatic, the inhabitant of Christian England, equally with the pagan, are firm believers in the reality of a vague and mysterious influence exercised over man, and the natural objects with which he is connected, by a superior order of beings.

The Fathers of the Church and the Evil Eye

By Matthew W. Dickie

Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how difficult even the most highly educated and sophisticated Christians of the late fourth and early fifth centuries found it to rid themselves of the idea that envy lends a malign power to men’s eyes. The idea at issue is that the eyes of envious men are able, unaided, to inflict injury at a distance. This is the belief called the “evil eye” by speakers of English and other modem European languages, though that significantly is not the way in which most men in pagan and Christian antiquity would have referred to it. The difficulty that such fathers of the church as Basil, Jerome, and John Chrysostom had with freeing themselves from the idea is some indication of how deep-seated it must have been in the general population.

On Dreams, Superstitions and the Evil Eye

By Archimandrite Vasilios Bakoyiannis

A Greek proverb says “The devil has lots of legs.” He can walk many paths, some of them very torturous. So he is perfectly capable of trapping you at any time.

Mediums, the occult, astrology and so on, are paths that the devil treads. Just how and why, we will have a look at now.

DREAMS

Should we believe in dreams? If you have a dream that suggests something bad is going to happen to you, should you take it seriously or not pay any attention to it? There are human, diabolical and God-sent dreams. The only ones that are valid are those sent by God.