Professor Alexei Osipov. "Search for Truth on the Path of Reason".
Nevertheless, what does all of this
show? It shows that even obvious supernatural phenomena do not in and of
themselves prove the sanctity of those persons, confessions, or
religions through which and where they occur. Similar phenomena can
occur according to faith (According to your faith be it unto you [Mt
9:29]), or by the action of another spirit (see 1 Jn 4:1; Acts
16:16-18), insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the
very elect (Mt 24:24). They could also be occurring for reasons that we
do not yet know.
Here, for example, is a remarkable thing
that happened to a spiritual daughter of the holy ascetic of the
twentieth century, Bishop Basil (Preobrazhensky) (†1945):
In the home of one of Bishop Basil’s
spiritual daughters, Eudocia, a lampada before the icon began to light
up by itself at midnight. "It seems that the Lord is calling me to rise
for prayer," she thought, but actually she had her doubts. Should she
accept this as something grace-filled, or delusional? She could already
feel a sort of flattering spirit within her heart, telling her what a
woman of prayer she is, since the Lord Himself lights the lamp for her.
The next night Eudocia invited her
friend, Ekaterina Dimitrievna, and the lampada lit itself in her
presence as well. Then she invited a third witness to spend the night.
The same thing happened in her presence. This finally convinced Eudocia
to accept the phenomenon as something grace-filled.…
When the holy hierarch heard about this
from her, he said sternly, "No, this phenomenon is not from grace, but
from the enemy. And because you accepted it as being from grace, I am
giving you a penance: do not receive the Holy Mysteries for one year.
The lampada will not light itself again."
Truly, the lampada did not light by itself from that day on.
From this we can understand why the
saints always regarded all manner of miracles, visions, dreams,
revelations, myrrh-streaming, etc. with such great caution and
discerning mistrust. They insistently warn the faithful not to hastily
accept all of this as a divine miracle, so that they would not fall into
a demonic trap by lightly accepting a lie as truth. They therefore said
of various inexplicable phenomena, "Do not blaspheme—do not accept it!"
