The following article shows what religion was probably like during the middle ages. It's interesting to note that modern American religious doctrine would never allow such treatment, although the spiritual foundation for exorcisms is still just as valid now as it was 1000 years ago. After all, the devil still exists, even in American religious culture, right?
In the article below, a young Romanian nun is murdered by a priest who believes she is possessed by the devil. The priest can't understand why the press has latched on to the story and explains that his methods are normal and in fact, well known to other priests.
So, this makes me wonder - who among us here in the US is possessed by the devil? We no longer have ritualistic exorcisms like they did in the past - at least in mainstream churches. Is this because the devil has been defeated, or because church and community leaders recognize that religion would be in trouble as an institution if we continued to kill anyone who we suspected of possession by the devil?
Clearly the latter is correct, but the question for religious people remains: If the devil really does possess people, then why don't we have more exorcisms? If he does not actually possess people, then has he given up? Or perhaps he never existed in the first place....
THE FOLLOWING IS THE ARTICLE FROM JUNE 18 2005 ------------------------
By Laura Chiriac
Tanacu, Romania - A Romanian Orthodox priest who ordered the crucifixion of a young nun because she was "possessed by the devil" and now faces murder charges was unrepentant on Saturday as he celebrated a funeral mass for his alleged victim.
"God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil," Father Daniel, 29, the superior of the Holy Trinity monastery in north-eastern Romania, said before celebrating a short mass "for the soul of the deceased", in the presence of 13 nuns who showed no visible emotion.
He insisted that from the religious point of view, the crucifixion of Maricica Irina Cornici, 23, was "entirely justified", but admitted that he faced excommunication as well as prosecution, and was seeking a "good lawyer".
Cornici was found dead on Wednesday, gagged and chained to a cross, after fellow nuns called an ambulance according to police.
Mihaela Straub, spokesperson for the police in the province of Vaslui, said Daniel and four other nuns had claimed Cornici was possessed and should be exorcised.
Before being crucified she had been kept shut up for several days, her hands and feet tied and without food or drink, he said.
Cornici had entered the monastery just three months before, after visiting a friend who was a nun there, police said.
As her coffin entered the church of the monastery Saturday no church bells were sounded while nuns cast distrustful glances at the strangers, including two AFP reporters, present at the ceremony.
Claps of thunder from an approaching storm were sometimes the only sounds to break the silence.
"This storm is proof that the will of God has been done," Daniel said.
"You see it?" said the priest, gesturing at the body, lying in an annexe and still showing the marks of the gag. One of the nuns, Sister Martha, added, "She can't be laid in the church because she was possesed."
Daniel has lived for the past four years in the isolated monastery located in the hills of one of the poorest regions of Romania, without running water or electricity.
"Over there, in your world, the people must know that the devil exists. Personally I can find his work in the gestures and speech of possessed people, because man is often weak and lets himself be easily manipulated by the forces of evil," said the bearded young priest.
"I don't understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this. Exorcism is a common practise in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests," he said.
A 34-year-old parishioner who had come to defend Daniel and gave her name as Dora, said Sister Irina " had to be punished, she had an argument with the Father during a Sunday mass and insulted him in front of the congregation."
Sociologist Alred Bulai said that corporal punishment was still commonly used in certain Romanian monasteries.
"It's happening particularly in the isolated monasteries, where the superiors have difficulty understanding the current realities and adapting themselves to modern life," Bulai said.
Since the fall of the communist regime in December 1989, the Orthodox Church, which represents 85 percent of Romania's 22
million inhabitants, is rated in many opinion polls as the most trusted institution in the country.
Vitalie Danciu, the superior of a nearby monastery at Golia, called the crucifixion "inexcusable", but a spokesperson for the Orthodox patriarchate in Bucharest refused to condemn it.
"I don't know what this young woman did," Bogdan Teleanu said. - Sapa-AFP
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Posted by dngnb8 on Jun. 20, 2005 |
Dont confuse the actions of morons as actions of God.
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Posted by Artsygal on Jun. 22, 2005 |
I agree with B8.
Exorcisms are not that uncommon. What is bizarre is the crucifixion-- a practice which is NEVER used anymore because it is so primitive and hideously painful.
This man substituted the normal exorcism routines and used crucifixion as a way to expell demons that he thought posessed this woman. More than likely, he was probably just a whacko. Nobody practices this anymore because it's so horrid and it is such a holy symbol.
God didn't do this, a psycho religious extremist did. Whether or not she actually was possessed by evil spirits, we shall never know.
It would be arrogant to separate Christians who live in the US from any others in the world. No, it is not that it is defeated and no, it is not that the devil does not exist in the church.
Christianity is a peaceful and loving religion. There are a few people who are psycho fundamentalists that give people a bad name, or push their faith onto those who didn't ask to be given a holier than thou speech.
We don't drag people out into the streets and crucify them for being possessed because we are educated. You must keep things in context. When people crucified other people or hung them, or burned them at the stake for being a witch, there was a serious lack of education and ethics. It was ignorance. The justice system as it exists today would prevent anyone from being crucified because of laws and regulations, ethical violations, blah blah blah.
Nobody is killed for these reasons anymore because it is exceedingly difficult to prove and people have a broaded perspective on humanity and human nature. We know now that people who are schizophrenic, bi-polar, or suffer from dissociative identity disorder have chemical imbalances in the brain that make them act the way they do... it is not possession by evil spirits.
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Posted by ion craiova-romania on Jul. 02, 2005 |
It was not in the way mass-media presented the case. Something about the girl.(Irina is her name) She grow up in an orphanage in Romania. After she leaves the orphanage she worked few months in Germany end returned in Romania with some money. Those money she give to a relative to be hold over for a period of time, because she was afraid that she could loose the money or somebody rob her. She have a good friend of her in that monastery, went to her, likes the life there end decided to remain in the convent One day she decided to recover her money from that relative of her but that person tell Irina that she aint got the money anymore. When she come back to monastery she begun to pray all the night that God melt the hart of the relative, to recover her money .In the morning she had terrible crisis, she bunt the walls of the cell, she roared all the time. The priest decided to call an ambulance. He make three calls to the nearby hospital but the medical staff tell him every time that they dont have an ambulance at their disposal at that moment.(the hospital of Vaslui who is the capital of the county of Vaslui has four ambulances) In the end, the priest and the nuns of the monastery took Irina, bind her legs and her arms and go to the hospital whit a very old car of the monastery. Every day nuns of the monastery visited her, bringing food and staying whit her many hours (in Romania food in the hospital its a big problem).When they visited her first time to the hospital they saw her being BIND UP whit belts from the bed. Irinas diagnostic was schizophrenia. In two weeks her health was improving and she was out of the hospital. She returned to the monastery and took the medical treatment the doctors give to her but after few days she was having crisis again .Because of the fact she was having great crisis each day, his brother who was to in the monastery , spooked whit the priest to do Mystery of Holy Unction and the prayers of St. Basil the Great .(reading the prayers of St. Basil the Great its a common fact in the orthodox churches of romania- many people do that for wealth ,success in the examinations and many other things). Because she cried they decided to tie her up on a board whir towels .They put a blanket on the board, but when they saw her breaking her bindings they bind in whit chains. They knock together another board and bind her arms, hoping that will keep her from moving. She was lying horizontally on this board (not cross).In all this time she roared and spoke pornographic words and the priest who read from the holy book prayers of St. Basil the Great decided to put an adhesive band on her mouth for the time of reading. For three days she was kept in the monastery church, the nuns of the monastery being close to her and trying give her food and water but she refused. After three days regained consciousness and spoke to the nuns and she was perfectly normal after a long time. They fed her and untied her. After a very short time they went into the monastery's garden and had a walk and then a rest on the grass. The girl sat and after a short time fell into a coma. They alerted a Christian they know at the ambulance, which (ambulance) came very soon and took her to the hospital. There she died and the doctors threw the blame on the priest. Then the media made him a criminal. Televisions, newspapers, radio-stations and others were presenting the case with this kind of titles: A Devil-priest Kills a Young Nun , A nun was rack by a priest and die being crucified , One devil- priest kills a nun by starvation and exorcisms . He was already executed by the Romanian media wherefore the true is not interesting, only the sensations news. They demand a 25 years prison for the priest and make the public to demand death penalty (albeit the death penalty is not accepted in romanian laws). A growing hysteria was rise by the press at that point that the priest and the nuns were almost lynched by the crowd when they were taken by the police. Unfortunately, until now, nobody in the Church helped them by only listening to them. And this makes that the attacks of the media against the Orthodox Church to be empowered by the clergy. Please, present to anyone this situation as it is. We need the truth, and nothing else.
Sorry for my English, (I learned reading from internet), first, I dont was intend to write but seeing so much lie in media I was decided to do something.
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Posted by The Man on Jul. 02, 2005 |
Thanks for writing to us, Craiova. :)
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