People-stigmatics - one of the unique miracles, the existence of which the Catholic Church was forced to confirm.
Since then, as the stigmata became known to the whole world, they are equated with divine marks or signs of the Devil, then they consider it to be a focal point. So which of these points of view can be considered closest to the truth?
What are stigmata?
In ancient Rome, stigma was called stigma, which was placed on the bodies of slaves or dangerous criminals. This identification sign helped honest citizens of Roman society avoid the risk of hiring a thief or a servant who had escaped from his past master. From the Greek language, the word "stigma" is translated in a completely different way - it means a wound or an injection. It is in this sense that today it is used.
Stigmata - wounds, ulcers and bruises, causing painful sensations and imitating the mortal wounds of Christ. Previously it was believed that they can appear only on the body of Catholic devotees and religious fanatics. In the modern world, cases of the appearance of wounds in people who have little in common with faith are more often recorded. They are called stigmatic. Since the origin of marks is still considered to be mystical, not all stigmatists hurry to express themselves.
History of the appearance of stigmata
At the crucifixion, Jesus had bleeding wounds on his hands, feet, heart and forehead. Traces of injuries from nails and thorns can be seen on almost any icon. Bloodprints in the same places were found on the Turin Shroud - doubts, that before the death the Savior was bleeding, it can not be!
The first bearer of stigma is the apostle Paul. In the Letter to the Galatians it is possible to find the phrase "for I bear the plagues of the Lord Jesus on my body", which he said after the death of Christ. However, some skeptics believe that Paul only implied his injuries from beating stones.
"Once they beat him with stones. This happened in Lystra during the first missionary journey. Three times I was beaten with sticks and I was patient. "
That's all that is known about those beatings.
The first documented emergence of stigmas, which can no longer be questioned, occurred with the thinker and the Catholic saint, Francis of Assisi. After believing in God, he founded a monastic order and decided to give prayers to the Lord. During their reading on Mount Vern on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross in 1224, he was haunted by the bleeding at the site of the wounds of Christ.
"The palms of the hands and feet seemed to have been pierced in the middle with nails. These tracks had a round shape on the inside of the palms and an elongated shape on the back side, and around them - ragged flesh, like flames, curved outward, as if in the palm of the nails were actually pinned. "
At the end of life, stigmata began to bring serious physical suffering to Francis. He was seriously ill, but still never complained to his brothers in the monastery. His contemporaries recalled:
"The monks saw that Francis submissively subjected himself to healing iron and fire, causing a hundred times more acute pain than the disease itself. But they saw that he never complained. In recent years, skin and bones remained of him, stigmata burned on his hands, he was vomiting blood for days on end. "
One simple-minded brother said to him: "Father, beg the Lord that He will deliver you from these unbearable pains and sorrows."
The last two years of Francis's life have passed under the sign of interest in the saint by believers. Particularly surprised pilgrims "invisible nails" in his hands. The holes were distinct and if someone pressed one of them on one side of the hand, then another wound appeared on the other. No doctor could explain the origin of the lesions.
Since the XIII century to our days, there have been at least 800 cases of sigmata in humans. Of these, the Catholic Church agreed to recognize only 400 certificates.
Who deserves to be a stigmatist?
The original theory of priests that the grades bestow upon their appearance those who believe in the existence of God failed when the stigmata began to harass atheists, prostitutes and murderers. Then the ministers of the church had to agree with regret that God does not choose people to demonstrate his miracles. In 1868, the 18-year-old daughter of the Belgian worker Louise Lato began to complain about hallucinations and eerie dreams. Then every week on her hips, feet and palms began to appear spontaneous bleeding. Having repeatedly examined Louise carefully, the medical academy of Belgium was forced to give the name to the new diagnosis "stigmatization". There were no changes in the state of health of a girl who had never visited a church.
For so many centuries, the Vatican has collected many evidence of bleeding and compiled a curious statistics. 60% of people who wear stigmata are still Catholics by faith. Most of them live in Greece, Italy, Spain or Serbia. Less often, stigmata can be seen among the inhabitants of Korea, China and Argentina. 90% of those who took over part of the suffering of Jesus are women of different ages.
The most curious cases
In 2006, the whole world learned about the stigma of Giorgio Bongjovanni from Italy. Giorgio traveled all over Europe - and in every country there were doctors who wanted to examine him. Journalists and medics, the Italian took in a hotel room - he did not have the strength to get out of bed. In addition to the usual stigmas on his hands, he showed a bloody cross on his forehead. A harbinger of what happened to him was the appearance of the Virgin, who ordered Bondjovanni to go to the Portuguese city of Fatima. Giorgio had ulcers on his body. During medical research, doctors note with surprise that the blood of a man smells like roses. The stigmatic calls himself a prophet and claims that Jesus will soon return to earth to perform the Fair Trial.
In 1815, Dominic Lazari's girl was born in the same country, whose purpose leaves more questions than answers. Since childhood, she was pursued by an evil fate: at the age of 13, the unfortunate woman was orphaned and refused to eat. A few months later, when she began to return to normal life a little, one of the relatives jokingly locked Lazari in the mill, where they sat without light all night. From fear she began epileptic seizures and Dominica paralyzed. To take food she did not: any food caused her an attack of severe vomiting.
At the age of 20, "the symbols of Christ" appeared on the palm of a lying patient. In whatever position her hands were, the blood flowed in the direction of her fingers: she seemed to be attached to an invisible cross. Before death on his forehead, Dominica had a trace from the crown of thorns and immediately disappeared. She died at the age of 33.
The suffering of Dominica Lazari does not look so terrible against the background of what Teresa Neumann experienced. In 1898, a girl was born in Bavaria, who was destined to survive a terrible fire in 20 years and get a concussion from falling down the stairs. After spending seven years in bed in a paralyzed state, she regularly listened to the doctors saying that she would never be able to walk.
In 1926 Teresa rose up, contrary to their forecasts, and her vision, lost due to burns, returned to her. Having been healed of some diseases, it immediately acquired a new one: on the body of Neumann there were injured stigmata. From that very day, every Friday until her death in 1962, she fell into oblivion. Again and again, Theresa experienced the day of the crucifixion of Christ on Calvary. Markings began to bleed, on Saturday the blood stopped, and a week later everything was repeated again.
The Orthodox Church is at variance with the Catholic Church in everything that relates to stigmata. During the Middle Ages, representatives of Orthodoxy were the first to initiate a witch hunt, having considered the bleeding wounds of stigmatic people as "the marks of the Devil". A century later, the Catholic Church acknowledged a mistake and confirmed that stigmata are a manifestation of the divine principle. But will all believers agree with them?