Evil Spirit Behind the Stigmata

We share this video below as a modern example of how the saints test the spirits and discern between what is from God and what is delusion clothed in spirituality. The encounter is between St. Sofian (Boghiu) of St Anthimos Monastery in Romania and a popular female mystic in Damascus named Mirna (or Myrna) El-Akhras or Myrna Nazzour.

St. Sofian (+2002) became a novice at the Rughi Monastery at the age of 14. He was made a hieromonk in 1945 and an abbot in 1950.  His whole adult life was devoted to hesychasm and monasticism which led him to become a renowned spiritual father and iconographer. This brought him into conflict with the Communists. He was a confessor who endured 16 years of hard labor in communist prisons for his faith and his involvement in the “Burning Bush” hesychastic movement.

Then, we have Mirna Nazzour (born 1964, aka Soufanieh). She was born into a mixed-faith household with her father being a Greek papist and her mother being Greek Orthodox. She was educated in a mix of Papal, Orthodox, and government schools as a child. At age 18 she married, then later that year, she had an experience of her hands exuding oil while praying. A few days after that, she claims to have been visited by the Virgin Mary, and this eventually led to repeated apparitions accompanied by oil on her hands and regular experiences of the stigmata. The alleged appearance of the Virgin Mary emphasized to Mirna the importance of union among the divided churches of the world. She also claimed to have had Christ come speak to her. This lady troubled the Orthodox faithful for a long time in Syria and the whole Middle East.

So these are two very different lives. As Mirna grew in popularity, this concerned the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. Upon St. Sofian's visit to Damascus, the Patriarchate handled it as described in the video below, narrated by Bishop Qais Sadiq of Erzurum (assistant to the Patriarch and assists serving the Antiochian community in Romania). This incident took place when Saint Sofian Boghiu worked as an iconographer in Lebanon at some point. He visited Lebanon and Syria several times.

Used with permission. Special thanks to Ziad Khairallah from Vladimir Travel for allowing us to present this excerpt. Original found here.