A lady recounted the following shocking incident that marked her life when she was young:

A lady recounted the following shocking incident that marked her life when she was young:

"I was seven years old and it was Christmas Eve, we lived then, in a provincial town of Macedonia, in the black and terrible Occupation of '41, when the executions and massacres of innocent people were merciless and massive, the imprisonments, beatings and tortures terrifying, and hunger irritated everyone...

My family was very pious and even more pious were grandpa and grandma! People of prayer and almsgiving!

On Christmas Eve, my five-year-old sister woke up and asked me to accompany her out into the yard to use the toilet (at that time, toilets were outside, in the yards). There were six of us children and we all slept on the floor, on mattresses. There were no beds and feathers and quilts, like today...

Slowly, therefore, we went out of the room, into the small corridor towards the courtyard. Opposite was the room of grandfather and grandmother, but we were surprised, because we saw a bright light coming out of the cracks and the many openings of the shabby door.

We got closer and then, through the cracks, we saw our grandmother engulfed in flames! We immediately shouted: “Fire, fire, grandma is burning…”.

Of course, everyone woke up, as expected. Our parents ran first, who opened the door to grandma and grandpa’s room, looked inside, and then closed it gently and quietly. They then returned to our room, and our father said to us in a low voice:

“Don’t be afraid, my children, what you saw is not fire. It is the flames of the Holy Spirit that look like fire!! It is slowly disappearing!! This is how it always happens when grandma and grandpa pray, almost all night long!

If my children grandfather and grandmother, as well as who knows how many other unknown Christians, had not prayed so much, we would have been cut to pieces by the Bulgarian occupation troops... From such prayers and vigils, the Lord will never allow our Homeland and our Faith to be lost!