How Does the Devil Perceive our Prayers Yet Cannot Read our Thoughts?

By Lay Preacher Demetrios Panagopoulos (+ 1982)

A young monk had a question:

"How does Satan perceive someone's noetic prayer and turns away from them, but he does not have the power to know the thoughts they may have within them?"

That night, a certain female Saint appeared to him while he was sleeping, and she said to him:

"Niko (this was his name), you question how Satan perceives someone is praying noetically, while it is God alone who knows the thoughts of someone?

Listen:

Like the stove, which burns wood internally and we do not see the fire, but the heat tells us that the stove contains fire, so Satan may not see your prayer, but because he burns when he approaches you, he realizes that you are united with God, through prayer."

The Creepiest Scene in Jesus Film History

The King of Kings

(1927)

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille

Despite the odor of sanctity around the set and production, DeMille began his Jesus-epic with a thoroughly extra-biblical episode at the lavish pleasure palace of the high-living and scantily-clad Mary Magdalene, played by the beautiful Jacqueline Logan. When Mary Magdalene discovers that one of her lovers, Judas Iscariot, has forsaken her to follow a certain preacher from Nazareth, she leaves the party-in-progress, hops on her chariot, and rides off to gain him back. When she finally meets Jesus, there follows one of the most dramatic and frightening and in my opinion greatest scenes in Jesus-film history. The scene depicts the seven ghostly deadly sins reluctantly being exorcised from her body, by the use of simple double exposures. Up to this point, this is the high point in the film. After this dramatic and unusual opening, with its sexual lustiness, which DeMille knew would draw people into the story, the film begins its conventional and reverential treatment of the incidents of Jesus' life.

Thoughts on Watchfulness and Vigilance After Watching "A Nightmare on Elm Street"

I was at my local drive-in theater a few days ago watching the 1984 original A Nightmare on Elm Street, which I've seen at least a dozen times over the years, though this was my first time outdoors in the woods. For those who don't know, the movie centers around the spirit of Freddy Krueger, who in life was a serial killer that targeted children, and who now uses a gloved hand with razors to kill his victims in their dreams, causing their deaths in the real world as well. The more I see this film, the more I see Orthodox Christian themes of watchfulness and vigilance that one often encounters in its literature.

St. John Chrysostom on Whether Disembodied Souls Wander the Earth

By St. John Chrysostom

(From Homily 28 "On Matthew))

Nor indeed is it possible for a soul, torn away from the body, to wander here any more. For "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God" (Wisdom 3:1); and if of the righteous, then children's souls also; for neither are they wicked. And the souls too of sinners are straightway led away hence. And it is evident from Lazarus and the rich man; and elsewhere too Christ says, "This day they require your soul of you" (Luke 12:20). And it may not be that a soul, when it is gone forth from the body, should wander here; nor is the reason hard to see. For if we, going about on the earth which is familiar and well known to us, being encompassed with a body, when we are journeying in a strange road, know not which way to go unless we have some one to lead us; how should the soul, being rent away from the body, and having gone out from all her accustomed region, know where to walk without one to show her the way?

The Confession of a Demon During an Exorcism Regarding Saint Kallinikos of Edessa

St. Kallinikos of Edessa

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

What I will describe next is authentic, because it is revealed by a serious and central figure of this event.

The late Kallinikos greatly loved Archimandrite Iakovos Pachis, preacher of the Metropolis of Arta. He knew him and appreciated him, when Metropolitan Ignatios of Arta was the locum-tenens of the Holy Metropolis of Aitolia and Acarnania. Many times he tried to get Fr. Iakovos elected as Metropolitan. But his desire was not fulfilled as long as he lived. Eventually, Fr. Iakovos became Metropolitan of Argolis one year after the repose of Kallinikos (in 1984). He himself did not seek such a thing, so he did not know who helped him to be elected.

An important incident is narrated in writing by Protopresbyter Demetrios Kostopoulos, priest of the Church of Saint Basil in Argos, who was an eyewitness:

"On the Sunday of Pentecost in 1986, after the Divine Liturgy, I was with our late Metropolitan Iakovos at the Holy Monastery of Saint Marina, which is on the hill Larissa (Castle) of Argos.

The purpose - at the request of their family - was for the Metropolitan to 'read' exorcism prayers over their two daughters, who were 17 and 18 years old, who had been tortured by demons for years.

During the 'reading' the demons were vicious against the Metropolitan, and at one point said to him: 'Twice I tried to kill you, but you were saved by your Lady (the Panagia) and that toothless elder of yours (Fr. Athanasios Hamakiotis)!'

After a little while, suddenly, the two demons began to scream in terror: 'Go away, Kallinikos, you're burning us, you're twisting us, leave us alone, go away...!'

Surprised, I asked the Metropolitan: 'Which Kallinikos are they seeing, Your Eminence, that is burning them?'

'Of Edessa,' he replied.

'And how did he get here, Your Eminence?' I asked.

'I invoked him mentally,' he answered.

The Metropolitan then asked the demons: 'Do you know Kallinikos?'

'Yes,' said one of them, 'he had removed me years ago from a young man in Agrinio.'

'Ahh,' whispered the Metropolitan, 'that explains the matter.'

'What matter, Your Eminence?' I asked him.

'I'll tell you as soon as we're done,' he replied.

When the exorcism was completed, our late Metropolitan narrated how the late Metropolitan Kallinikos of Edessa, when he was a preacher of the Holy Metropolis of Aitolia and Acarnania, had mentioned in one of their discussions that two clergymen in Agrinio (he did not reveal their names), were called to pray for a young demon possessed man. After reading the exorcisms, one of them left. The other, sympathizing with the tortured young man, stayed with him almost all night praying and finally the demon left!

The two young demon possessed girls - as our late Metropolitan had told us a few months later - were released from the demons at the tomb of Fr. Athanasios Hamakiotis, where they had gone to venerate at the suggestion of the Metropolitan." (Argos, April 25, 2013.)

Metr. Iakovos of Argolis

Metropolitan Iakovos of Argolis many times told me about this incident. In fact, he told me when many people accompanied me on a visit to Nafplio. In addition to what Fr. Demetrios writes, Iakovos had told me that the demon, among other things, said:

"You're burning me. But it's not your fault, it's the fault of the one who made you a Metropolitan." Immediately Iakovos asked: "Who made me a Metropolitan?" The demon replied: "Kallinikos (it should be noted that the young woman did not know Kallinikos, who had died a few years prior). He loved you, he wanted to make you a Metropolitan, but he made you one now when he is in heaven. He had removed me some years ago from a man (indeed he had healed a demon possessed man) and I fought him all his life. I managed to eat his flesh (with sickness), but he shines in heaven. His empty wallet sanctified him. He protects you. If I see you without him, I will hurt you."

Metropolitan Iakovos himself said many times that this scene was shocking and creepy.

From the book Καλλίνικος Μητροπολίτης Ἐδέσσης. Μιά "ὁσία μορφή". Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

The Possessed Woman and Holy Communion (Fr. Ioan Iovan)

Fr. Ioan Iovan, a survivor of torture in communist prisons, gives his testimony of a miracle healing that happened around 1950 when he was the spiritual father of Vladimiresti Monastery in Romania. The miracle shows how God works through Holy Communion and how He cast out a devil from a possessed woman.

Synaxarion of the Venerable James, Who Was Beguiled to Worship the Devil

St. James, Who Was Beguiled to Worship the Devil (Feast Day - June 13)

Verses

Haughtiness is not the most severe passion,

But through it the enemy beguiled James.

Because he loved Christ, the blessed James hated the world and parted with all of his belongings, without needing any of these things. After this, however, through his cooperation with the misanthropic devil, he became prideful, to the point where he dared to say: "Who knows my salvation better than I?" He therefore pursued many and great struggles, not by asking the experienced, as the divine Fathers teach, but by his own will and self-indulgence, and through this he was beguiled by the demons.