6 True Stories of Resurrection from the Dead (6 Photos)

Matthew Wall, farmer

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On October 2, 1571, the entire village of Broging, in Hertfordshire, England, buried a young farmer named Matthew Wall. The one who was most killed was the beautiful bride of the deceased. The day was chilly and drizzling. The procession was already approaching the church where the funeral service was to take place, when suddenly... One of the men carrying the coffin slipped on wet leaves. The coffin fell and hit the ground, but it was immediately raised and the procession continued. Another minute passed when a persistent knocking sound was heard from the coffin. Matthew Wall came back to life and demanded to be released! After his miraculous resurrection, Matthew married his bride and lived happily with her for another 24 years. And after his second death, a will was left. Part of the fortune was allocated so that every year on October 2, the path in front of the church was carefully swept, after which the funeral bell was to sound, and then the wedding bell. This tradition is still observed in the village. Locals call October 2 “Old Man's Day.”

In late mythology and modern culture

For more details see Folk Christianity

After the spread of Christianity, various kinds of fairy tales, myths and works of art about the resurrected dead continue to exist. They syncretically combined both features of pagan myths and folklore, and Christian elements, for example, the vulnerability of the living dead to holy water and the crucifixion. Among the characters of the 20th century, the most recognizable living dead are: the bloodsucker vampire[138][ not in the source

][139][
not in source
], popularized by the novel Dracula, and the zombie of West African beliefs, which gives its name to the modern image of the cannibalistic corpse[140].

Anne Greene, child killer

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In 1650, Anne Greene was convicted of killing her illegitimate child and hid the body in her master's house. The woman was sentenced to death by hanging and led to the gallows. In her last word, Anne declared that she was innocent and fervently prayed to God to accept her soul. After this, the executioner knocked out the bench from under the condemned man’s feet and left him hanging for half an hour. During this half-hour, Anne's friend "beat the woman in the chest, hung his whole body on her legs... lifted her up and then pulled her down with force." It was assumed that this would hasten death and reduce the suffering of the unfortunate woman. Then the rope was cut, Green's lifeless body was placed in a coffin and a doctor was invited to dissect her. But as soon as the doctor began to make the incision, a groan was heard. There are two versions of what happened next: First, the doctor immediately began to warm her up, give her various herbs and slowly brought her back to life. The second - they threw her on the floor and began to kick her, which is why Ann finally came to her senses. However, both versions agree on one thing - the woman was found innocent, lived a long life after that, gave birth to three children, of whom she became the most exemplary mother.

In music

• Requiem
• The second symphony of Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), first performed in 1895, is called “Resurrection” (Auferstehung). The textual part of the symphony (IV, “Urlicht”) expresses the idea of ​​a craving for resurrection: “Man lies in the greatest need. Man lies in the greatest suffering. How I wish I were in heaven" (Der Mensch liegt in größter Not, Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein, Je lieber möcht' ich im Himmel sein). The text was taken by the composer from the collection of German folk songs The Boy's Magic Horn.

Marjorie McCall, woman with a ring

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The inscription on the monument: “Marjorie McCall Lived once, buried twice.” This story took place in the 18th century in Ireland. Dr. John McCall's wife Marjorie came down with a fever and died soon after. The doctor was a very wealthy man and at one time bought his wife an expensive engagement ring. He didn’t want to leave it on the deceased’s finger at all; he couldn’t remove it. So they buried him with the ring. Soon, in the hope of taking possession of the doctor's jewelry, Marjorie's grave was opened by grave diggers. But they also failed to pull the ring off the swollen finger. And then it was decided to saw off the finger. As soon as the sharp blade touched the deceased’s finger, Marjorie came to life, sat up in her grave and squealed shrilly. The desecrators of the graves were licked off like a cow with its tongue. Marjorie somehow crawled out of the grave and wandered home. Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, a widower was pouring out his grief in the company of his relatives, and at the same time began to slowly evaluate the prospects of the suddenly formed freedom. Somewhere in the morning a timid knock was heard. The widower opened the door and was stunned to see his missus on the threshold in funeral attire, stained with earth and blood. The shock was too strong for the doctor. He collapsed dead and was buried in the grave intended for Marjorie.

About the resurrection of the dead

His conciliar message to St. The Apostle Peter begins with the words: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...” (1 Pet. 1:3).

The apostle says that they, the holy apostles, were dead.

Why are they dead? Because after the terrible execution on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, their hopes collapsed, and everything was covered in impenetrable darkness - there was no hope, everything was crumbling.

How could the promise of Christ, which He gave them in response to the question of the Apostle Peter, be fulfilled on them:

- ... behold, we left everything and followed You; what will happen to us?

Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man sits on the throne of His glory, you also will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:27, 28).

The holy apostles deeply believed that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of God. And what?! He is nailed to the cross, He is buried.

How, how is it possible to survive this?! What heart can withstand such a terrible test?!

But when the Lord rose, then immediately they rose from the dead: He raised them up by His resurrection.

And we, all of us who believed in Christ, would also be dead if Christ had not risen, for our spirit demands, as absolutely obligatory, immortality. Our spirit cannot in any way come to terms with the fact that such great righteous people, like, for example, our reverend and God-bearing father Seraphim of Sarov, would simply die, disappear, sink into some kind of abyss of non-existence.

After all, our heart demands, absolutely demands, that the evil deeds of evil people be punished, for in this life, as we often see, they very often go unpunished.

The heart demands that the suffering of the righteous be rewarded with eternal heavenly joy.

If Christ had not risen, then these hopes would have collapsed just as the hopes of the holy apostles collapsed.

This is what St. says about it. The Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“If it is preached about Christ that He rose from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain” (1 Cor. 15:12-14).

What would we believe then if Christ had not risen? How could they believe in eternal truth, in God's absolute justice?

If Christ had not been resurrected, then all the preaching of the apostles about Christ would have no power. Our faith in Him would be vain, hopeless, for “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.”

If you do not believe in the resurrection of the dead, then God could not raise Christ, therefore those who died in Christ would perish.

That is why the feast of the Resurrection of Christ is so great for us, fills our hearts with such joy, that Christ by His resurrection confirms that there will be a general resurrection, for He was the first of those resurrected.

Christ is the firstborn, then Christ's at His coming.

This is our faith. This explains our bright joy on the great day of the Resurrection of Christ.

“But someone will say: How will the dead be raised? and in what body will they come?” (1 Cor. 15:35).

This is the question that all unbelievers ask to this day, considering the resurrection of the dead impossible.

What nonsense, they say, is it to believe in the resurrection of those people who were torn to pieces by wild beasts? How can one believe that a person swallowed by a shark or burned without a trace in a fire will be resurrected?

They feel that the power of this question is irresistible, that no one can answer this question.

We will not answer it - the Apostle Paul will answer.

"Reckless! What you sow will not come to life unless it dies. and when you sow, you do not sow the future body, but the bare grain that happens, wheat, or something else. but God gives him a body as he wills, and to every seed his own body” (1 Cor. 15:36-38).

The grain thrown by the sower into the plowed ground ceases to exist as grain: it disintegrates, decomposes, it seems to die, but only as if, because the great forces of life are embedded in it. From a grain that has ceased to exist, by the power of God a large, beautiful, useful and necessary plant grows for us.

Not every seed produces the same plant, but the Lord gives each one with His life-giving power a special body: a special body for an ear of wheat, a special body for an oat, a special body for a bush. And where are all these bodies from?

From a seed that died.

By whose power do these new bodies grow and appear? Of course, by the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, which lives in every cell of both animal and plant organisms.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.” A dead human body is buried in the ground, sown in decay—“sown in humiliation,” for what could be more humiliated than a human corpse beginning to rot—and “is raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in strength. the spiritual body is sown, the spiritual body is raised. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42-44).

These are the words of St. You all need to understand the Apostle and firmly remember: “There is a spiritual body, and there is a spiritual body.”

The spiritual body is our present body, it is flesh and blood; these are bones, muscles and entrails. St. speaks about him. Apostle Paul that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50). And spiritual bodies doomed to decay cannot inherit incorruption.

How should we understand these words?

Let us remember in what body the Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected, is it the same body in which He lived before His death?

No, in another, in a new body, in a body that had extraordinary properties that it did not possess during life.

The body of the Risen Savior miraculously passed through closed and locked doors.

We also know that the apostles did not recognize the Risen Jesus, just as Luke and Cleopas, who were going to Emmaus, did not recognize Him when He joined them on the way and talked with them for a long time. They recognized Him only when He broke bread with them at supper, just as He broke it at the Last Supper. But immediately He disappeared from their eyes. Here is another new property of the body of Christ after His Resurrection.

So, the body of the Risen Lord was not a spiritual body, but a spiritual body.

The bodies of all resurrected people will be similar spiritual bodies.

When will they be resurrected and by what force? Of course, only by the power of God.

They will be resurrected as the holy prophet Ezekiel saw, to whom the Lord showed a field full of bones.

“... and he led me around around them, and behold, there were quite a lot of them on the surface of the field, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me: Son of man! will these bones live? I said: Lord God! You know it. And he said to me: Prophesy against these bones and say to them: “Dry bones! listen to the word of the Lord!” Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will put spirit into you, and you will live. And I will cover you with sinews, and I will make flesh grow on you, and I will cover you with skin, and I will bring spirit into you, and you will live, and you will know that I am the Lord. I prophesied as I was commanded; and when I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a movement, and bones began to come together, bone to bone. And I saw: and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew, and skin covered them from above, but there was no spirit in them. Then He said to me, Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, O son of man, and say to the spirit, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O spirit, and breathe on these slain, and they will live. And I prophesied as He commanded me, and the spirit entered into them, and they lived and stood on their feet—a very, very great army” (Ezek. 37:2-10).

Here is a wonderful picture of the resurrection of the dead by the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit.

But by the time of the Last Judgment, not all of humanity will die; many will remain alive. What will happen to them?

St. speaks about this. Apostle Paul: “I tell you a secret: we will not all die, but everything will change, suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible, and we will be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51-52).

Soul bodies will be transformed into spiritual bodies.

What was said in the Revelation of God to St. will happen. to the Apostle John the Theologian: “Behold, I make all things new.”

Everything will perish, everything will be burned by fire. The sun will darken, the stars will fall, everything will perish, and the Lord will create everything new - a new sky and a new earth, a new universe.

He will create with His Divine power our new spiritual bodies - not mental, but spiritual, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, but must become spiritual.

This, which I brought to you from the Holy Scriptures, I think, is completely sufficient for all those about whom Christ said that only those will inherit the Kingdom of God who will humble themselves as children, who will listen to the Holy Scriptures with childlike trust and simplicity.

You all, I think, are like this: do not criticize the Holy Scriptures, do not call them fairy tales and fables.

And good for you!

Be like children, humble yourself before God, as tiny children humble themselves before their parents.

But outside the church there are many proud people who do not want to be humbled, like children, who do not want to unconditionally believe the words of the Holy Scriptures.

Perhaps such people are present in the temple now.

And I will answer them, because the answer from the Holy Scriptures is not intelligible to them. I will give them a different answer - from philosophy.

They say that it is pointless to believe in our afterlife existence, because the science of physiology has proven with exhaustive accuracy that all mental life is connected with the activity of the brain.

Therefore, they ask us how one can believe in some kind of other life, when a person’s brain rots, when the ability to think disappears, when the heart stops and all life of feeling ceases.

Yes, we know physiology no less than they do, and perhaps much more, and we answer: you do not believe in anything spiritual, you believe only in the material, in what you can see with your eyes, hear with your ears, touch with your hands .

Well, believe it; and we believe it.

But besides this material world, there is another world for us, immeasurably more important and huge - the spiritual world.

On earth, the only creature possessing spirituality and intelligence is man. Man is the only creation of God on earth gifted with spirit.

But is it really possible to think that everything ends with man, this first beginning of rationality and spirituality?

This would be impossible, already from the point of view of the law of evolution in which you, materialists, believe.

The law of evolution requires the endless progress of forms and beings.

How can it be, from the point of view of this law, that all rationality stops at man? This makes no sense from the point of view of evolution: this law requires that there be other forms of intelligence and spirituality, immeasurably higher than our spirituality and our intelligence.

This law already requires faith in the existence of disembodied spirits, angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, who in spirituality are getting closer and closer to God, and we, people, are only the beginning of spirituality.

So, spirits certainly exist, and what the holy Apostle Paul repeats twice in his epistles is undoubtedly true.

He wrote that the human being is tripartite and consists of body, soul and spirit.

Materialists talk about the body and they talk about the soul when they talk about the complex work of our brain and feelings.

But we go much further, we say that in addition to this soul, recognized by materialists, but otherwise called, there is a spirit.

We will find much and much about the spirit in Holy Scripture; We will find that in Scripture two words - spirit and soul - often replace one another.

But let us find other places in which it is clear that the spirit is something different from the soul.

And from the new science of metapsychology we know that the manifestations of the spirit are amazing, extraordinary, mysterious and at the same time irrefutable.

We learn that the spirit can lead an independent existence, at times leaving the body and soaring somewhere in the vast distances; that the spirit has enormous power over the body, that it controls all the functions of the body; that spirit permeates every cell of the body; that the spirit must shape the body, form it.

If, as is certain and is recognized not only by philosophers, but also by other scientists, the spirit has great power of influence on the body, why cannot we think that the resurrection of the dead will occur by the power of the spirit?

You just heard in the wondrous vision of the prophet Ezekiel how he was commanded to call upon the spirit from all four corners, so that the spirit would enter the bodies clothed with flesh and skin, and they would come to life. The spirit revived them.

People who consider our belief in immortality to be meaningless must try to understand this. We must understand that the spirit has enormous power and limitless ability to give life to the body, even to revive the dead, even to resurrect the dead.

You, good simple people, you who believe with childlike faith, do not need all this science that I have just outlined.

I didn’t say this for you, but for those who are proud and put their minds above all else.

And you, my beloved and close to my heart, always remain with your childish faith.

Believe with all your heart that Christ has risen and we will all rise again by the power of God.

May 6, 1951

Odran of Ion, buried alive

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In 548, peasants from the town of Iona (Scotland) decided to build a chapel next to the old cemetery. The problem was that everything done during the day was somehow mystically destroyed at night, and every day the builders started work all over again. Eventually, one of the builders, named Columba, heard a voice proclaiming that the work could only be completed if someone agreed to bury themselves alive at the base of the chapel. Columba had a son (according to another version, brother) a monk named Odran, who volunteered to sacrifice his life, hoping to save his soul. The monk was put underground and walled up, after which construction went like clockwork. Soon the chapel was finished. A little more time passed, and Columba began to yearn for Odran. He opened the prison, from which the head of a monk immediately appeared, who began to ask to be returned to the light of God. But Columba did not approve of the “cowardice”, quickly pushed Odran back into the hole and again walled him up more securely. My own son. Or brother.

Origin of the word

In the Etymological Dictionary of the Modern Russian Language by N. M. Shansky (1968), the word “resurrect” is derived from the Church Slavonic kres

- “revival, health”[1].

The Etymological Dictionary of the Modern Russian Language by A.K. Shaposhnikov (2010) says that the word comes from the Church Slavonic *vskrѣshati

from the stem of the verb
*vuzkrěsiti
, a prefix derivative from
*krěsiti
“to strike fire”[2].

In the Historical and Etymological Dictionary of the Modern Russian Language by P. Ya. Chernykh [3], with reference to I. I. Sreznevsky [4], it is explained that the word “resurrect” comes from Old Russian. cross

, which meant “solar turn” (a sharp change in the flow of time).

In the 19th century, there was a version that the word “resurrection” is a calque of the Greek “ανάστασης”, which literally translates as “restoration” or “uprising”. Entered the Russian language through the Christian tradition[5][6][7].

Thomas a Kempis, failed saint

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The Catholic monk Thomas a à Kempis wrote the famous book “The Imitation of Christ,” which was very popular even during the author’s lifetime. And after the death of Thomas in 1471, the highest Catholic authorities even wanted to canonize him for the same book, which required exhuming the body. When the coffin was opened, we saw bloody scratches on the lid from the inside and huge splinters under the nails of the deceased. What saint would fight death so desperately, the high priests reasoned. And, despite the undoubted miracle of the resurrection from the dead, they still decided not to canonize Thomas.

In Sumerian-Akkadian mythology

In the mythology of ancient Sumer and Akkad, the supreme god Marduk and the healing goddess Gula were endowed with the ability to resurrect the dead.

In the ancient work “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” the goddess Ishtar threatens to resurrect the dead: “I will pave the way into the depths of the underworld, I will raise the dead so that the living will be devoured, then there will be fewer living than dead!”

Literature

• Vasiliev P.P.
  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907.
• Ivanov M. S.
  Resurrection of the Dead // Orthodox Encyclopedia. - M.: Church-Scientific, 2005. - T. IX: “Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God - The Second Coming.” - pp. 423-437. — 752 p. — 39,000 copies. — ISBN 5-89572-015-3.
• Archpriest Georgy Florovsky. Resurrection of the Dead
  . Archived copy from April 17, 2009 on the Wayback Machine
• St. John of Damascus. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith. Book 4 (Chapter XXVII).