The Holy Fire: a miracle?

Critics of the Holy Fire have two main explanations for it.

They say that the spontaneous ignition of the candles is explained by the special structure of the candles. The Holy Fire gets to the candle the wick of which is saturated with solution of the white phosphorus in benzene two-three minutes before the ceremony. The substitution of the solution may increase the period till inflammation till 10 minutes. Since 11th century the Arab historians mention the methods of spontaneous ignition.

The burning lampion in the Church has also found the materialistic explanation. Critics used the diaries of the Jerusalem priest that mentions two cases of disclose of the Holy Fire when it was initiated by one of the burning lampions.

The mentioning of the miracle flashes is not present in the texts of 19th century although these texts are the main sources of the information about it. In the majority of texts before 19th century the miracle flashes are not mentioned. However there are the ancient descriptions of these phenomena.

According to critics the flashes are too similar to the flashes of photo cameras of millions of journalists and photographers that are present during the ceremony.

The phenomenon that the fire doesn't burn the body was also explained by critics. They repeated the same phenomenon with the ordinary fire. But they didn't manage to put it to the hair. But the problem of hair and the Holy Fire is not so simple. There are evidences of both cases when the hair burns and doesn't burn with the contact from the Holy Fire.