[Question:]{.underline} Is the ceremony of the “Holy Fire” a real and legitimate miracle?
[Answer:]{.underline} The ceremony of the “Holy Fire” or Holy Light takes place at 12:00 Noon on Holy Saturday (in the Orthodox calendar) every year in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It has been recorded since the fourth century and the Eastern Orthodox claim that this miracle has taken place every year since at least 1106. The Orthodox patriarch enters alone into the Holy Sepulchre, whilst the Armenian bishops wait outside. He recites a series of traditional prayers and then awaits for a miraculous lighting of the 33 candles that he is holding in his hands. He then comes out and lights the candles of the other bishops and of all the people present. It is claimed that this “fire” is not like regular fire and does not burn or harm, at least for the first 33 minutes after it has been lit. The miracle is revered throughout the Orthodox world, and the “fire” is taken from Jerusalem.
Descriptions are precise, and the event is very public. The Israeli authorities always inspect the Patriarch to ensure that he has nothing on him with which he could light the candles, precisely to exclude a fraud. Before them, the Ottoman Turk authorities did the same thing. It is difficult to accept the rationalists’ claim that it is a “pious fraud”, and that the candles are covered with phosphorous so that they will spontaneously ignite. However, there are many who claim this, and who quote Edward Gibbons in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Pope Gregory IX in 1238 as condemning it as a pious fraud (wikipedia.org).
All in all, it seems unreasonable to claim that all the bishops of the Orthodox, Armenian and Coptic churches, who are not in agreement on liturgical or theological questions, nor in communion with one another, would all be involved in a deliberate deception. Why would they be united in such bad will? Consequently, it seems most reasonable to accept the pious belief in the miracle, that takes place in virtue of the power of the Resurrection of our Divine Savior, and is symbolic of the light of Faith and the fire of love, which we also in the Latin rite venerate on Holy Saturday, under the title of Lumen Christi, after the blessing of the Paschal fire. It does not seem necessary to claim that since the Eastern Orthodox are separated from the one true Church, that they would necessarily be deprived of this traditional miracle, which is really a part of their unchanging and traditional liturgy. From the same perspective, it is perfectly possible to admit the miracle, given on account of the good faith of many of the simple faithful and the integrity of their liturgy, without for as much considering it as some kind of legitimization of their schism.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.