Saint Eumenios Saridakis, the Demon Possessed Girl and the Miraculous Icon of Saint George

One afternoon in the year 2005, a girl and her father from Larissa visited the Koudouma Monastery in southern Crete, asking to visit the Church of the Panagia.

Entering the church, the girl could not offer veneration, because something prevented her. The father explained to the Abbot that his daughter was suffering from demonic influence and the late Elder Eumenios from the village of Ethia in Crete appeared to her in a vision before this time (they had never heard of him) and urged her persistently to come to his tomb and he would heal her, because, as he told her, He had suffered the same from demons, "only I suffered from pride, while you from blasphemy."

The Gruesome Copper Tripods of Emperor Trajan That Flowed With Grace

When the emperor Trajan reigned [98-117 AD], he not only killed Christians on a daily basis who confessed Christ, but the cursed man threw their holy relics into dishonorable and impure places. At that time there were five nuns [Agalida, Apollinaria, Daria, Mamthusa and Thais] who lived as ascetics in a hermitage and kept the commandments of God. In addition to other virtues, this was also their indispensable labor: collecting the honorable bodies of holy martyrs, anointing them with perfumes, wrapping them in shrouds, and burying them in their hermitage.

Learning of this, Drosis, the daughter of the emperor Trajan, sneaked out of the court one night, and went to these nuns, carrying with her expensive coverings, and asked them to go together and collect some relics of the martyrs.

Documentary Trailer: "Satan Wants You" (2023) Explores the Roots of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's

Premiering at SXSW, Satan Wants You is a new documentary from directors Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams that’s set to explore the infamous “Satanic Panic” wave of the 1980s.

Satan Wants You tells the untold story of how the Satanic Panic of the 1980s was ignited by “Michelle Remembers,” a lurid memoir by psychiatrist Larry Pazder and his patient Michelle Smith. Supported by the Catholic Church, the bestselling book relied on recovered-memory therapy to uncover Michelle’s childhood abduction by baby-stealing Satanists.

A Linguistic Analysis of How "Mediums" Lie

 

 

How does Tyler Henry, the "Hollywood Medium", perform his “psychic readings”? Which linguistic and psychological strategies are involved? This language analysis gives a scientific explanation of Tyler’s self-proclaimed abilities. The video zooms in on Tyler’s reading of Hoda Kotb on The Today Show and makes relevant comparisons to other “psychic mediums” like Long Island Medium and John Edward.

 

Links to previous analyses of self-proclaimed mediums: 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikwyh... (John Edward)  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyccc... (Long Island Medium)

 

 

A Critical Examination of One Orthodox Christian Article on Halloween

A few weeks ago the Orthodox website Pemptousia.gr published an article titled "Halloween: The Modern Version of Ancient Celtic Paganism". The article is in Greek (translated in English below; all endnotes numbered in this article are found in the original article) and was published in the ecclesiastical tri-monthly periodical Διάλογος (April-June 2017, issue 88). With the rise in popularity of Halloween in Greece, and all over the world for that matter, the author sought to set the record straight on what exactly Halloween is and what its origins are. Unfortunately, the author did a terrible job and presented a lot of misleading information. This is especially unfortunate that it is published in Orthodox Christian periodicals and is now online on an otherwise very good and beneficial website associated with Vatopaidi Monastery on Mount Athos.

How Is It That More Than One Demon Can Inhabit a Human Body?

By St. Theophan the Recluse

“My name is Legion, because we are many” (Mark 5:9). Spirits are not corporeal, so they do not fill or occupy places like bodies. This explains the physical possibility of many spirits staying in one person. The possibility of morality on the part of spirits is clear from their immorality or the absence of any moral principles, and from the human side – from the multilateral contact of his spiritual structure to the gloomy realm of impure forces.

But this only explains the possibility; the reality of the possession of demons is subject to conditions that we cannot determine. We can only say that the infestation of spirits is not always visible, it is not always revealed by the known actions of the possessed. There is an infiltration of spirits that is undetectable, hidden; there is also the power of the spirits over the minds, besides the body, when they lead them as they please, through the passions  at work in them; people think that they are all acting on their own, being a laughing stock of evil forces. What to do? Be a true Christian, and no enemy force will defeat you.

On the Monk Who Pretended He Was Demon Possessed (St. Paisios the Athonite)

In the old days there were Fathers who even pretended to be demon possessed, in order to hide their virtue and spoil the good opinion others had of them.

When I was in Philotheou Monastery [1956-1958], which was idiorhythmic at the time, there was a Father who had previously been an ascetic in Vigla.*

He, as soon as he realized that the Fathers there had taken a whiff of his asceticism and his spiritual advancement, left with the blessing of his spiritual father.