On the eve of Christian Easter celebration, Samuel Agoyan, the priest who represents the Armenian Patriarchate in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, told 'Hadashot 2' about the miracle of the Holy Fire - to the great indignation of the representative of the Coptic church who demanded to stop the shooting immediately.
As NEWS.IsraelInfo writes in the article 'the Jerusalem priest unearthed a mystery of the Holy Fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre', the Holy Fire ceremony which takes place on the last Friday on the eve of Orthodox Easter annually attracts thousands of Eastern Christians to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. According to the belief supported by the Orthodox churches, a miraculous, non-burning flame "descends from heaven" into the hands of the Greek patriarch, who, along with the patriarch of the Armenian church, distributes it to believers gathered around the church.
The priest Agoyan, who has attended the Holy Fire ceremony in the Edicule of the Tomb three times, honestly told the reporter Igal Mosko that the patriarchs lit the bundles of wax candles from an oil lamp inside the empty tomb, adding that there was nothing mysterious about the Holy Fire. "God works miracles, but not for the amusement of people," the clergyman explained.
These words angered a Coptic clergyman, who was standing next to him. "Stop the shooting, he lies!" the clergymen cried. Agoyan objected that the Copts, unlike the Armenians, do not attend the Holy Fire ceremony, but this irresistible argument did not convince his brother in Christ who continued to convince the Israeli journalist that a miraculous fire descends from the sky, and the crafty Armenian tells lies.
The Holy Fire is delivered from Jerusalem to Moscow, Athens and other Orthodox capitals by special planes, about which the author of the report about the strife, "secrets and lies" in "the main shrine of the Christian world" had not failed to inform the Israeli audience. Foreign medieval prejudices always look funny - and harmless, unlike own voracious "holy cows".
But a real miracle at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was a recent strike, when representatives of three mutually hostile Christian denominations were able to unite in the struggle against Jerusalem's mayor's office.
