Preface to the Russian edition of
“When millions saw the Virgin Mary”
Hegumen Varsonofii (Khaibulin)
Foreword by Orthodox Publishers.
The Zeitoun apparitions of the Mother of God
cannot be classified as phenomena in the traditional sense of this term, phenomena that were honored by the great saints and chosen ones of God in all the ages of the New Testament era.
Their unprecedented total duration (more than three years), the duration of individual phenomena (April 30, 1968 — 2 hours 15 minutes continuously), an unlimited number of eyewitnesses of the most diverse spiritual state, an unusually generous outpouring of healing Grace, which restored the health of many, including terminally ill, — all these are signs of promised grace-filled events, called in the Gospel signs of special, predestined times.
In the New Testament text, such times are denoted by the Greek noun καιρός, and their onset by the verb πληρόω. The latter in relation to time can have two opposite meanings: “end” or, conversely, “begin, be fulfilled.”
Both of these words are contained in the Greek text of the Gospel prophecy about the trampling of Jerusalem by ethnic groups (see:
Luk 21:24). The translations of this prophecy that have come down to us: until they die, until they end (the times of Gentiles, pagans, peoples)
— are dictated by the interpretation of St. John Chrysostom: “He said: 'Jerusalem will be trodden down by many nations, until the times of many nations be fulfilled.' By this he meant the years to come until the consummation of the world.” “the Jews will recover neither their city nor their temple in days to come” (Against the Jews.
Homily 5).
But from June 1967 until now,
all
Jerusalem has been under the rule of the State of Israel, which in 1980 proclaimed it its eternal indivisible capital.
The Copts felt the mystical connection of the Zeitoun phenomena with the fate of Jerusalem, but interpreted them in a narrowly patriotic sense: as a grace-filled consolation brought to them by Umm an-Nur (Arabic for “Mother of Light”)
after the seven-day war of June 1967, which ended with the defeat of Egypt. The apparitions began on April 2, 1968. The Copts did not notice the exceptional importance of this date. According to the most scientifically based chronology, it was
April 2, 30 A.D.
the solemn Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem took place (see: Appendix to the New Testament. Brussels: Life with God, 1964, p. 523).
The Zeytun apparitions of the Mother of God began on the day that the Savior called “the day of Jerusalem”, the time of
such
a Visitation,
such
a Service to his world that the inability to recognize this time will be the cause of the terrible tragic fate of the Holy City and its children, predicting which the promised Lamb of God wept for him (see:
Luke 19:41-44).
With the conquest of the eastern half of Jerusalem (they took possession of the western half in 1947), the false messianic aspirations of the early restoration of the Old Testament Solomon's temple were revived in the Jews. In the Egyptian apparitions, the Orthodox can read the answer to these expectations.
Under the New Testament conditions, the temple of the Living God is called to become a human person, or a heart, inseminated by the incarnate Word and bearing fruit by the Spirit of God. In the Person of the Ever-Virgin Mary, this calling was fully realized already on the day of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. On one of the feasts of the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary is sung as the “Most Pure Temple of the Saviors.” For in this Temple Not Made by Hands dwells all the fullness of the grace of the Holy Spirit, in Her are concentrated all the perfections promised to the Church by its Creator and Head.
The ancient Solomon's Temple was a prototype, an Old Testament shadow of this Lively Temple. How can this shadow come to life before the life-giving rays of the Mother of
the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world
(John 1:9),
especially in the current conditions, when thousands of eyewitnesses of the Egyptian apparitions testify: “She is all Light from Light”?
The name Jerusalem (“the habitation of the Lord” — see:
Psa 135:21)
is one of the many biblical names for the sacred center of
the promised good land.
In the parable of the Sower
(Luke 8:8-15),
the Savior explained the new meaning of this ancient biblical image (see:
Deut 3:25;
4:21;
8:7,10). In the light of this interpretation, the Pre-Kind and Most Pure Heart of the Virgin Mother becomes the sacred center of the promised land. In the New Testament conditions, the biblical “Jerusalem-centrism” (see:
Psa 135:21;
Psa 137:6)
should be read as “Mario-centrism” of the ecclesiological self-consciousness of the people of God.
Accordingly, the Old Testament parimiias about the “House of God” (see:
Gen 28:17),
“House of the Lord” (see:
Ezek 44:4),
“House of Wisdom” (see:
Prov 9:1)
Orthodox worship refers to the Personality of the Ever-Virgin. “House of God” in an unconditional sense is She, the Mother of God. But we, the people of God, are called His house conditionally,
if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end
(Heb 3:6).
In the New Testament conditions, all the commands of the Holy Spirit to worship God in this sacred center (see:
Psa 29:2;
Psa 99:9)
and all the most joyful eschatological promises of the Jewish prophets pointing to it are transferred to the Most Good and Pure Heart.
Such are the promise of the reign of
the people of the saints of the Most High
under the whole heaven
(Dan 7:18,22,27)
and the promise of
such
an exaltation of the Mountain of the House of the Lord and
such
a gathering of peoples to Her, as a result of which the blessed time of grace-filled peace and the irreversible general disarmament of the peoples will come (see:
Isaiah 2:2-4;
Micah 4:1). In the light of the New Testament (“Mariocentric”)
vision of the sacred topographical images of the Bible, it is not difficult to see in these promises the prediction of the greatest triumph of the Most Pure and Good Heart of the Mother of God and all of us, which will restore the original (see:
Acts 4:32)
trinitarian unity of many Christian hearts into one Heart of the Wife, the bride of the Lamb, eternally co-reigning with the Heavenly Husband and Bridegroom of the Church.
The main thing that the Copts did not understand is that the current great signs from heaven
(Luk 21:11)
reveal the true meaning of the prophecy about the trampling of Jerusalem by ethnic groups (see:
Luk 21:24)
and allow us to give the only possible translation of it: “and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled (begin).”
Zeytun and occasionally recurring in different places in Egypt, phenomena like Zeytun (the last time they were observed in Cairo in December 2009)
are the sign of these predestined times.
The olive branch
in the pure hands of the Mother of God of Zeytun (in the apparitions of 2000 in Asyut it was carried by radiant celestial “doves”)
heralds the approach of the time of fulfillment of the brightest eschatological promises of the Bible, in particular the “blessed time of peace”. This is how the messages of the late His Holiness Patriarch Pimen in the 1970s interpreted the promises of the prophets Isaiah
(Isaiah 2:2-4)
and Micah
(Micah 4:2-4).
The prophecy about the trampling of Jerusalem by ethnic groups links the fate of the Ancient Israel and the New Israel (the Church of Gentiles). The olive branch of the Most Pure Dove of Zeytun and the luminous Heavenly “doves” of Asyut portend those grace-filled changes in the Church of Gentiles that will cause the Jewish people to turn to the True Messiah, according to the prophecy of St. Apostle Paul (see:
Rom 11:25), and the onset of the times of anapsyxis (rest, comfort, Sabbath)
from the face of God the Father, according to the prophecy of St. Apostle Peter (see:
Acts 3:19).
So, on April 2, 1968, phenomena began in which it is not difficult to see an act of the greatest Motherly and guiding ministry of the Lamb of God, the Wife of the Lamb (this name of the Church of Christ in eschatological completion belongs, first of all, to the Ever-Virgin Mary), service to the world of Gentiles, peoples, all mankind. In some Zeytun apparitions, the Mother of God addresses Her blessing to the north, south, east and west, to the peoples of the whole world.
The absolute inattention to the guiding ministry of the Mother of God, demonstrated today by the Eastern Patriarchs and that part of our theologians, who in biblical eschatology consider only the prophecy about the Antichrist to be reliable and, in fact, are promoting disbelief in all the bright promises of the prophets and apostles, is a symptom of a deadly disorder of the ecclesio- and eschatological consciousness, which in the corresponding biblical prophecies is predicted as the defeat of the saints from the “seed of the serpent” (see:
Dan 7:21;
Rev 13:7)
with the most serious consequences of this defeat for the people of God (see:
Dan 12:7;
Rev 13:15).
But the Mother, Governor and Guide of the people of the church in Her Egyptian apparitions announces the approach of the end of this hard time, the nearness of the greatest triumph of the Church of Christ. Let this truth be proved by life itself.
On behalf of the Orthodox Brotherhood of Our Lady of Zeytun
Cleric of the Vladimir Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church
hegumen Varsonofii (Khaibulin)
June 2010
Source:
Предисловие к русскому изданию
«Когда миллионы видели Деву Марию»
See also
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