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Ivan Nikolaevich Ponomarev

...continued from part sixteen.

15. In “Memories of the Polish Rebellion of 1863” by Mr. I. N. Ponomarev, in the September issue of the “Istorichesky Vestnik” for 1896, the author recounts the following inexplicable fact, which he himself witnessed, together with the officers of the Uhlan Regiment, where the author was released from the corps shortly before the start of the 1863 uprising.

The author tells us:

The third squadron, in which I was, was assigned to camp in the village of Kvitki, located ten miles from the headquarters that remained in the city of Korsun (Kiev province). The large village consisted of several hundred houses, and since in Little Russia almost every house has a garden, Kvitki, buried in greenery, occupied several miles in circumference. The quartermasters who met us announced that there were no comfortable apartments for the officers, and the only tolerable premises were allocated for the squadron commander, adding that there was a good private residence, but they did not dare to occupy it either.

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Yelets Monastery in Chernigov

...continued from part fifteen.

14 . Mysterious Phenomena in Chernigov in the 1840's*

The following took place in 1843 or 44 (I don’t remember exactly), in Chernigov, in the house of my uncle (on my aunt’s side), the priest Father John Gerasimovich Menailov.

Father John was known and revered in Chernigov as a priest of the strictest life, always ready to be there and with those to whom he was needed; he was considered a saint.

At the same time, I was in the district theological school and was a singer in the Yelets singing choir (the rector’s choir of the seminary), which lived in the Yelets Monastery in Chernigov.

As a nephew of Mother Menailova, I went to them every Sunday and feast day and spent the whole day with them until evening. The Menailov family consisted of a husband, wife, two sons, two daughters, and a niece, my cousin, Anna Emelianovna Kornukh, who lived with them temporarily. There was one servant, a tall, healthy girl, not in her first youth, a local native.

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Ponetaevka Monastery

 

...continued from part fourteen.

13. Strange Phenomena in a Russian Peasant's Hut

A good friend of mine, under whose command I served in Nizhny Novgorod, in the Chamber of State Property, P. L. Betling, now living in retirement on his estate in the Ardatovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province, informed me in January 1889 of a remarkable incident that occurred quite unexpectedly in the village of Silino, located 15 versts from him. This incident caused some noise in the area, especially since the peasant family, an involuntary witness to these phenomena, was brought to criminal responsibility and almost paid for a matter that was incomprehensible to them.

The essence of the matter is that in the village of Silino, in the house of the former village elder Chekanov, from September 23 to November 1, 1888, strange phenomena began to occur: knocks were heard, things were thrown and - which is the main feature of the phenomenon - various voices were heard, which entered into conversation with members of the Chekanov family and strangers who came to inquire. It is remarkable that these phenomena, as in mediumistic séances, occurred in the dark, and were revealed only in the presence of Chekanov's ten-year-old daughter. There is no reason to assume deception here, for these phenomena soon became a source of trouble for the owner, and he did not know how to get rid of them until he accepted the advice given to him to resort to prayer, which we will discuss below.

Now let's move on to the details.

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...continued from part thirteen.

12. Stories About Phenomena on the Farm of A. V. Shchapov (Ural region) in 1870–1871

All this (set forth in the above-mentioned letter of Shchapov) was nothing to us, compared to what we had already endured, if only that had been the end of it; but imagine our horror that as soon as we moved to the farmstead in the first days of March, this force began to roam the house again from the very first step. And this time the phenomena occurred even without the presence of my wife. Thus, once, before evening, a large heavy sofa began to jump on all four legs before my eyes, and what's more, at the time when my old mother was lying on it, frightened, of course, in the most terrible way. This incident has a special significance for me because before that I seemed not to be able to check myself in many things that I had seen and heard, since there were strangers around all the time, and I could have been under someone else’s influence, although, I repeat, there were no doubts even then, but here, after all, the entire sofa was in full view, since it was daytime, there was no one and nothing under it, my old mother was lying on it completely calmly, in the room, except for me and the boy at the door in the hall, there was also no one, and meanwhile the five-six pood sofa, with the old woman lying on it, jumped up three or four times, as I said, on all its legs at once - it is clear that this is in no way a hallucination.

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...continued from part twelve.

11. Letter from V. A. Shchapov to the former manager of the Iletsky villages, Major A. V. Pokotilov, in response to a request from the Orenburg branch of the Imperial Geographical Society dated January 18, 1871.

In fulfilling your request regarding the message about the miracles that have happened and are still happening at the present time, I only ask you to forgive me that my story may not be as coherent and consistent, but that it is true and not fictitious - I vouch for it and present witnesses who will confirm all this.

I will begin with the fact that on November 16, having returned from the small town of Iletsky to my farm, I learned from my family and employees that during my absence, namely from November 14 to 15, i.e. on the eve of Sunday, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, something unusual began to happen. Namely, as they told, at first they were frightened by a loud knock on the wall with a fist, then a defiant knock on the glass of the outside window facing the forest; then they clearly heard that above their heads, i.e. on the ceiling, someone was dancing, and this dance was so distinct and natural that at first they thought that it was our cook Maria, who was continuing to make fun of herself, whom my wife, for the sake of a joke, in order to entertain the child, made dance in the room that evening. According to the information, however, the cook was asleep; and the knocking, repeated from time to time, and the dancing did not cease until the morning. The following night, they said, about 11 o'clock the same thing was repeated again. Despite the fact that all the servants in our house (up to 6 people) were gathered and surrounded the house, strictly watching whether this was a joke of some eccentric or swindler, but all their observations and even shots from a gun near the house - did not lead to anything; the knocking on the wall, on the window and the dancing, with small breaks - all continued as before, so that they spent that night almost without sleep.

Halloween and the Cowardly Christian

When Halloween comes around, horror stories come to mind, conceived by the human mind, based on nightmares and fears.

But the greatest horror story was not conceived by the human mind, but by God Himself. It is a story of utter betrayal, complete isolation, relentless torture, bloody gore, agonizing death, complete darkness, merciless violence and the dead coming back to life.

God the Father sent His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into the world He Himself created, and united His divinity with our humanity, in order to deliver humanity from their enslavement to the devil and the consequences of death by His voluntary suffering and sacrifice. The Creator of all things was therefore tortured, mocked, spit on, crowned with thorns, scourged and put to death through a humiliating and cruel crucifixion by His very creation He fashioned, offering His blood once for all time to atone for the sins of humanity.

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The Dagg House as it appears today.

...continued from part eleven.

18. Phenomena in Restless Houses, Proving the Existence of Dark (Demonic) Forces

1. In 1874, in the village of Shakoldany, Vilnius province, in the house of a peasant named Begansky, stones, firewood, etc. were thrown, and a bottle of milk was walked around the hut; they tied it with a rope to a nail – it came loose and walked around again; they threw it out into the yard – it returned to the hut. Suspicion fell on the farrier Bardadym, who whispered to this bottle of milk for Begansky’s sick child. A case was opened. The Vilnius joint chamber of the criminal and civil court, by its ruling of May 28, 1874, released the peasant Bardadym from trial on charges of fraud, but the sworn testimony of six witnesses to the former apparitions did not lose its significance because of this. The ruling of the chamber was published in full in "Rebus Magazine" in 1894 (p. 182).

2. In 1873, Simbirsk province, Ardatovsky district, in the village of Barashevo, in the priest's house, from December 23 to December 28, "various self-movement and flying of objects" occurred; a samovar with boiling water rose from the floor and flew about two arshins; bricks were torn out of a Russian kitchen stove and smashed to pieces; household dishes and utensils flew in different directions and broke. "The moment of lifting any object from a certain place and its flight was never noticed under my careful observation, but only its fall," writes Priest N. P. Tsvetkov in his letter to A. N. Aksakov dated June 14, 1874, which was published in "Rebus Magazine" in 1882 (p. 391).