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Good afternoon Father. Someone yesterday posted about waking up from his op and found an icon of St. Ephrem by his bed someone had left. I had a similar experience I told him about I will copy and paste it below. My question is do you believe the saints come to us in forms of people for what ever reason it may be at times? When I was in Cyprus 2 years ago I got bitten by a mosquito my leg got infected made me really ill as I'm allergic to them . I ended up in hospital 2 days before my birthday for a week. On my birthday 17th July I woke up to this old lady all in black nudging me saying to me marina ksibna (wake up). I thought it odd her knowing my middle name didn't know who she was I said to her thelis kati?? She just looked into my eyes scary she was and gave me some leaflets and said thkievaseda and walked away. I put them down and went back to sleep. Later on I picked them up as I was bored and read them. They was the story of ayia marina she left a little oikona of Ayia marina too. And my birthday falls on ay. Marinas day. Just was all so odd that day so day the nurses kept calling me marina my middle name.. Spooked me right out that day who the old woman was!!!
Answer to Question 53.
I was just reading the comments on this post when your question came up. When we are in need it is natural to ask our friends and family to pray for us. We hope that through the prayer of many God will speedily hear our request and come to our aid. Praying for one another is an act of love and it is our duty as Christians to pray for each other. The Church is a family of brothers and sister all with the same Father in heaven. When someone passes over to the other side he does not stop being a member of this great family. All our faith and hope is that there is life beyond the grave. As Orthodox Christians we believe that with his death on the Cross Christ overcame death. There is only the temporary death of the body but the person still lives on in the world of spirits. “God is the God of the living, and not the dead”. How then more natural can it be for us to seek the prayers of our fellow brothers and sisters who not only have passed over to the spirit world but have through their way of life found favour with God and find themselves bathed in his glory. Is it not more natural and logical to put our trust in their prayers than our fellow Christians who are still living in this world? We know that prayer to the Saints is pleasing to God, because of the witness of the Scriptures and the abundant experience of the Church. God has revealed to the world that he himself has honoured them through the many miracles they perform when they are beseeched to act as mediators. Through these miracles we are assured that such prayers to the saints are pleasing to God, and because we recognize the great grace that God has bestowed upon His Saints, we have great confidence when we ask their intercessions. But you ask if I believe that the saints can appear to us. Even today there are thousands of written and unwritten experiences of people having seen saints or being cured by a saint that we cannot deny that they come to our aid. So many people have been cured after the medical profession had declared that there was no hope for them. People do see saints, but we must also be careful not to accept all apparitions as being saints from God because demons are also known to appear as saints to delude us, but this is another story and would take too long to explain.
Same member
Thank you father. On that note would you say or do you think that if a Saint did come to us that she /he would come in the appearance they died in?? As an example ayia marina died when she was just 17 a young girl. Would she appear to someone as a young girl or could she appear as a old woman???
Answer
We know that demons can appear as bright angels and saints and have on occasions even appeared as Christ so this tells us that those who belong to the spirit world can appear in various forms. After his resurrection, Christ appeared to the disciples in such a way that they didn’t recognize him. I believe that a saint can appear in whatever form if they so wish. The soul is eternal and so doesn’t have an age as the human body has. Someone may be wrinkled with old age when he dies, but that is only the body; his spirit remains young and never ages.
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