Holy Fire to be brought to Chisinau for sixth time

A group of priests will bring the Holy Fire from Jerusalem to Chisinau on the eve of Easter, for the sixth time in a row, mass media consultant-priest of the Metropolitan Church of Chisinau and All Moldova, Octavian Mosin, has told Info-Prim Neo. The Holy Fire will be fetched by the Bishop of Tiraspol and Dubasari, Iustinian. He will be accompanied by priest Teodor Balanutu from the Metropolitan Cathedral and priest Nicolae Boenetchi from Stefan Voda. The delegation will be met by representatives of the Moldovan Embassy in Israel at the airport in Tel-Aviv. On April 26, the Holy Fire will be conveyed to the “God’s Birth” Metropolitan Church in Chisinau, from where it will be shared out among the priests and parishioners that will come to the Cathedral. The Holy Fire is believed by Orthodox Christians to be a miracle. It is considered by many to be the longest-attested annual miracle in the Christian world. It has taken place at the same time, in the same manner, in the same place every single year for centuries. No other miracle is known to occur so regularly and so steadily over time. It happens in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the holiest place on earth, where Christ was crucified, entombed, and where He finally rose from the dead. From the core of the very stone on which Jesus lay, an indefinable light pours forth. It usually has a blue tint, but the color may change and take many different hues. The light rises out of the stone as mist may rise out of a lake. It does not burn. At a certain point the light rises and forms a column in which the fire is of a different nature, so that the priests are able to light their candles from it. The Metropolitan Division urges the archpriests and clerics from the Metropolitan Church of Chisinau and All Moldova to come to meet the Holy Fire and take it with them to the country’s settlements.