We welcome Father Damaskinos from Cyprus. He is a monk and a missionary in Africa. Father, we welcome you, and we would like to hear some of your experiences from Africa.
Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank God for giving me the opportunity to be here in Cyprus, the land of holy people.
As far as magic is concerned, the situation among the people there is catastrophic. There is no love between people.
One time, I asked someone who was carrying a small wooden figure: “Why do you have this with you?” He answered me: “With this, I protect myself and my family from the magic of other people.” He placed all his faith in this small wooden figure.
When we baptize people there, we explain to them that they must remove these magical objects from themselves. One person was not convinced to take it off. No matter how much we tried to put him in the water to baptize him, he was unable to enter. An invisible demonic force was pushing him away.
Eventually, he was baptized, but he had not truly accepted the faith. When he was in church to receive Holy Communion, he fell down and had convulsions, like an epileptic seizure. We explained to him the reasons why this happened, but he did not want to listen, and he died without confessing the truth.
One day, I was with a priest there, and we saw a naked girl. The priest said to me: “This girl is a magician. She came from another village far away.”
I asked: “How did she come here from such a distance?”
The priest answered: “You do not know. She came flying through the air.”
According to what was believed there, in order to succeed in magic, she had taken a small child, torn out the heart, and drunk the blood. In this way, they believed that demons held magicians in the air and allowed them to fly.
Another time, Father James was in Africa and asked a magician: “How do you harm people?”
The magician said: “Look, I touch them and I cause them problems.”
Father James replied: “Do the same to me.”
The magician answered: “I cannot touch you. You, the Orthodox priest, are full of fire.”
Another time, a man believed to be possessed by a demon went to a Catholic priest to ask him to cast the demon out of him. According to the story, the demon inside the man said to the Catholic priest: “You are a Capuchin. Do you think I can hear you?”
The speaker then says that, according to his belief, Catholics do not have divine grace.
Now I will tell you another story.
Three former magicians went and were baptized without confessing their sins first. According to the story, the demons said to them: “We do not care what you have done, but do not mention it to Father Meletios.”
Before being baptized, these three men had killed a woman and her two children. Someone witnessed this, found others, and they went to kill this former magician.
The former magician then made a deal with the demons, saying: “If someone kills me, I want you to reveal to my family who my killers are.”
They took him to bury him. According to the story, an invisible force did not allow the coffin to
Black magic in kongo
We welcome Father Damaskinos from Cyprus. He is a monk and a missionary in Africa. Father, we welcome you, and we would like to hear some of your experiences from Africa.
Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank God for giving me the opportunity to be here in Cyprus, the land of holy people.
As far as magic is concerned, the situation among the people there is catastrophic. There is no love between people.
One time, I asked someone who was carrying a small wooden figure: “Why do you have this with you?” He answered me: “With this, I protect myself and my family from the magic of other people.” He placed all his faith in this small wooden figure.
When we baptize people there, we explain to them that they must remove these magical objects from themselves. One person was not convinced to take it off. No matter how much we tried to put him in the water to baptize him, he was unable to enter. An invisible demonic force was pushing him away.
Eventually, he was baptized, but he had not truly accepted the faith. When he was in church to receive Holy Communion, he fell down and had convulsions, like an epileptic seizure. We explained to him the reasons why this happened, but he did not want to listen, and he died without confessing the truth.
One day, I was with a priest there, and we saw a naked girl. The priest said to me: “This girl is a magician. She came from another village far away.”
I asked: “How did she come here from such a distance?”
The priest answered: “You do not know. She came flying through the air.”
According to what was believed there, in order to succeed in magic, she had taken a small child, torn out the heart, and drunk the blood. In this way, they believed that demons held magicians in the air and allowed them to fly.
Another time, Father James was in Africa and asked a magician: “How do you harm people?”
The magician said: “Look, I touch them and I cause them problems.”
Father James replied: “Do the same to me.”
The magician answered: “I cannot touch you. You, the Orthodox priest, are full of fire.”
Another time, a man believed to be possessed by a demon went to a Catholic priest to ask him to cast the demon out of him. According to the story, the demon inside the man said to the Catholic priest: “You are a Capuchin. Do you think I can hear you?”
The speaker then says that, according to his belief, Catholics do not have divine grace.
Now I will tell you another story.
Three former magicians went and were baptized without confessing their sins first. According to the story, the demons said to them: “We do not care what you have done, but do not mention it to Father Meletios.”
Before being baptized, these three men had killed a woman and her two children. Someone witnessed this, found others, and they went to kill this former magician.
The former magician then made a deal with the demons, saying: “If someone kills me, I want you to reveal to my family who my killers are.”
They took him to bury him. According to the story, an invisible force did not allow the coffin to be buried. The coffin pulled the men who were carrying it in another direction, leading them to the house of the people who had killed the former magician, in order to reveal who the murderers were.
At the funeral, everyone was frightened. They did not know what to do. The dead man appeared to begin breathing inside the coffin, and his son started speaking to him, believing that his father was alive, although he was not.
After the murderers were revealed and everyone became afraid, his son came to me asking for help. I brought another priest with me to bury him.
Everyone who was there was very frightened. After they saw what we did, how we prayed according to the Orthodox tradition, and how we prayed for the repose of the man’s soul and buried him, they believed that we had greater spiritual power than they did. be buried. The coffin pulled the men who were carrying it in another direction, leading them to the house of the people who had killed the former magician, in order to reveal who the murderers were.
At the funeral, everyone was frightened. They did not know what to do. The dead man appeared to begin breathing inside the coffin, and his son started speaking to him, believing that his father was alive, although he was not.
After the murderers were revealed and everyone became afraid, his son came to me asking for help. I brought another priest with me to bury him.
Everyone who was there was very frightened. After they saw what we did, how we prayed according to the Orthodox tradition, and how we prayed for the repose of the man’s soul and buried him, they believed that we had greater spiritual power than they did.
