T R U E L I F E I N G O D
6
At Easter 2008, the Russian physicist Andrey
Alexandrovich Volkov, of the Russian Research
Centre “Kurchatov Institute,”
1
was appointed head
of a scientific mission which aimed at investigating
the miracle of the Holy Fire. The project was
organized by professor Alexander Moskovsky, for
the needs of a documentary dedicated to the role of
miracles in religion.
On Holy Saturday 2008, around 9am, Andrey
Volkov entered the Church of the Resurrection
armed with the necessary equipment. The basic
instrument he used for his measurements was an
oscilloscope
2
which was connected to a laptop
equipped with the appropriate software. He located
himself approximately ten meters from the Holy
Sepulchre and his basic priority was to record
the phase of electromagnetic radiation at specific
frequencies.
The results of his measurements, as well as the
conclusions that were extracted from them, were
described by him one year later, on 21 April 2009,
in the following interview he gave to the Russian
newspaper, Vera:
- Andrey Alexandrovich, why did you go especially to
investigate the nature of the Holy Fire? Does this coincide
with your scientific field?
- For the last 12 years I have been working on so-
called low heat plasma.
- What is that?
- The largest portion of the material of the universe
is in a plasma state: the stars, the galactic clouds,
the interstellar environment. It is a highly ionized
gas… On Earth though, this is a rare phenomenon,
which we learnt to reproduce only fairly recently.
For instance, during surgery they have started
using scalpels made of a very thin plasma flow,
which is heated up to about 5,000– 7,000 degrees.
This is a high heat plasma with which we can only
cut through matter. But there is also low heat
plasma, at approximately 40–80 degrees, which can
heal wounds. I work on the development of such
medical healing machines, and we have already
started to produce them.
- And what is the connection with the Holy Fire?
The Holy Fire Miracle
The Holy Fire is a miracle that occurs every
year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
in Jerusalem on Holy Saturday, the day
preceding Pascha. It is considered by many
to be the longest-attested annual miracle in
the Christian world, though the event has
only been documented consecutively since
1106.
In an interview in 2000, the Orthodox
Patriarch of Jerusalem, Patriarch Diodorus I,
described the miracle:
“In the tomb, I say particular prayers that have
been handed down to us through the centuries
and, having said them, I wait. Sometimes I may
wait a few minutes, but normally the miracle
happens immediately after I have said the prayers. From the core of the very stone on which Jesus lay an indefinable
light pours forth.
“It usually has a blue tint, but the colour may change and take on many different hues. It cannot be described in
human terms. The light rises out of the stone as mist may rise out of a lake - it almost looks as if the stone is covered by
a moist cloud, but it is light.
“At a certain point the light rises and forms a column in which the fire is of a different nature, so that I am able to light
my candles from it. When I thus have received the flame on my candles, I go out and give the fire first to the Armenian
Patriarch and then to the Coptic. Then I give the flame to all people present in the Church.”
The Scientific Measurements of Russian Physicist Andrey Volkov
on Holy Saturday 2008
