Divine appearance of the day

By Ted Thornhill for MailOnline

 

Wood you believe it? Churchgoers in Russia have begun worshiping a tree after claiming that religious icons with the faces of Jesus and the saints appeared on its trunk.

The images began to appear on the birch tree in the village of Burmakino in central Russia's Kirov Oblast last month in the places where gardeners had trimmed off old branches.

Villager Valentina Naumova explained: 'We thought nothing of it until the tree started to form these arched shapes, just like church icons.

'Then the faces of Jesus and his disciples began to appear in them and we realised this really must be God's work.

'It seems to me that they had come to us because they wanted to tell us something.'

The village has had no church building of its own since it was destroyed by Communists in the 1930s. In the Soviet Union, all church owned property was confiscated and turned over to public use and most of it - like the property at Burmakino - was destroyed.

Now whole congregations of people gather in front of the tree to pray and give thanks.

Icons are powerful religious images in the Russian Orthodox Church and are believed to be able to work miracles.

Church leaders are so impressed with the display they now plan to rebuild the village's church, the Kazan Divine Mother church.

Spokesman Father Felix Ozerov explained: 'The holy father has spoken and we are listening.'

Source: Mail Online 

Damien's note: Another example of pareidolia, of course: the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist, as in considering the moon to have human features. 

With all due respect, the image looks more to me like the bad portrait of St. John featured in an episode of Hot In Cleveland, when Elka [Betty White] painted the wall of a church. Her effort looked more like a monkey than a monk. 

And to get a little bit spiritual, I suspect Jesus would rather people see his face in the face of the suffering and the poor rather than in a tree.

And I take no credit for the dreadful puns in this article, either. Nup, as you know, is pun spelled backwards, and a nup is a nup.