George Blatzas, the Doctor of Saint Paisios, Has Reposed

George Blatzas reposed in the Lord on the Monday of Renewal Week, 3 May 2021, on the feast of his patron saint, the great martyr George.

George Blatzas was not only a leading surgeon, but also a consistent Christian and confessor of the Christian faith from his teenage years, as a mediator of the civil strife. The spiritual son of the preacher of the Metropolis of Kitros and Katerini and later a well-known missionary of Africa, Fr. Charitonos Pneumatikakis, he had a connection early with Mount Athos and especially with Saint Paisios.

A 2019 Scientific Study on the Characteristics and Effects of the Holy Light of Jerusalem

Prof. Giulio Fanti experimenting with the properties of the Holy Light

Giulio Fanti, Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Padua, presented an interesting paper in 2019 titled "Is the 'Holy Fire' Related to the Turin Shroud?". Below is the summary:

This paper presents the experimental results obtained on the “Holy Fire” (HF) in the Edicule of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. It is not the aim of the present paper to study how the HF is formed, but that to study its characteristics and effects and to detect if these features are in some way comparable with those typical of the Turin Shroud (TS). The following experiments have been performed and discussed: HF temperature and spectrum; photos in visible light and infrared; effects of the HF and of a common fire (CF) on linen fabrics; possible air ionization in the environment of the Holy Sepulcher. While some results appear not easy to explain from a scientific point of view, some experiments seem to show no appreciable difference between the HF and a CF. In addition to these experiments, the author detected various series of strikes of lightening emitted at regular intervals at a frequency variable from 3 to 10 Hz, not easy to explain because not typical of flashes produced by photographers. Various facts connected to the HF appear related to what it has been detected in reference to the TS that shows a double image of a man up to now not reproducible nor explainable and, in agreement with the Christian tradition, that shows some traces of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Read the full paper here.

 

For more information on the Holy Light, see here.