Sky sphere. Mosaic from the Cathedral of St. Mark Venice, 12th cent.

The question about the influence of celestial luminaries on the human fortunes excited the scientists in deep anciency as well as in the "dark" Middle Ages and keeps exciting until nowadays. In the history of various nations we often find the idolatry of luminaries: of the Sun - in Egypt, Peru and Persia; of the Moon - in China; of the stars and planets - in Babylon and Rome etc. The astrology (the fortune-telling by the stars and planets) exists already for several thousand years and now again is becoming popular in the countries of the "civilized world" and unfortunately in Russia too.

The Saint John of Damascus of the eighth century wrote: "The Greeks say certainly that via the ascent and descent and rapprochement of these stars, Sun and Moon all our matters are arranged; we however affirm that though of them the omens of the rain and drought, of the cold as well of the heat, of humidity as well as of the heat, as well as of the winds and things like these , but by no means of our deeds. For we having been originated of the Creator gifted by the free will are the lords of our deeds. For if we do everything because of the star motion, then we commit what we do by the necessity, and what is committed by the necessity is neither virtue nor vice; and if we have neither vurtues nor vices then we are worthy neither praise nor penalty; and God would appear unjust giving boons to some people and the disasters to the others". In other words the heavenly phenomena equally to the social, political or economical conditions by no means annul the moral responsibility of the man for the violation of God's commandments and on the other hand they do not prevent anybody to come to the Lord with the repentance and faith in forgiveness of the sins.

* One can read an interesting and absorbing brochure by the priest Rodion "People and demons", Saint-Petersburg, 1993, Ch. 2, about the pernicious essence of the astrology and its links with magic and occultism.

Creation of the World. Mosaic, Italy, 12th cent.

At the same time the Bible advises to intently look at the surrounding world "for His eternal glory and Godness through observing the creatures are visible" (Romans 1, 20). The first Chapter of the Bible tells about the creation by God of the Sun "to rule the day", of the Moon "to rule the night" and of the stars "in order to illuminate the Earth", i.e. the significance is indicated of the heavenly bodies for maintaining the conditions necessary for the life on the Earth. "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork" - claims David the prophet in the 19th Psalm.

Let us try to give a brief account on what is known to science of our days about the character of influence of the space bodies on the Earth and on the people. It will help us to convince ourselves in absence of any serious scientific foundation in the false doctrines of the modern star-counters who now emphasize the "scientific" character of their horoscopes. Just as the true God-inspired religion of Orthodoxy is substituted by various distortions and pseudo-religions so the genuine scientific study of nature based upon the unbiassed meek-wise study and analysis of the real facts is frequently substituted by pseudo-scientific theories connected with magia and occultism. This similarity is not surprising since the source of all these false and baneful for the salvation docrines is the God's enemy, "the father of lie" - diable and subjected to him demons - "the wicked spirits of the skies". They (false doctrines) have also common place of origination - the ancient Babylon.

We begin our account with the remote stars. The nearest of them is situated in the Centaurus constellation at the distance of 4 light years, i.e. about 38 trillions kilometers from our Sun. According to the (accepted now by many physisists) general theory of relativity the whole set of the space substance determines the fundamental properties of space and time connected with propagation of light and motion of spatial bodies. This important influence of the remote stars and galaxies is distinguished by the exclusive stability and its deviations are not observed by the modern devices. The same can be said about the so-called "relic" heat radiation which is uniformly coming to us from all directions and fills all unbounded emptiness of the cosmic space.

However, even the stars are changeable. Rather frequently (approximately once every century) the explosions occur of the so-called Supernova stars when in short time the giant amounts of energy and substance are thrown out and powerful fluxes of space rays harmful for all what is living are exhausted. If such an explosion would occur in one of the stars close to the Sun then the whole Earth would instantaneously burn in the space fire. Several years ago the astronomers observed this striking phenomenon in the neighbour galaxy "Magellanic clouds". During one month this exploded star shone brighter than the whole galaxy (which counts about 100 million stars) and was visible by the unaided eyes even in the daytime. The Egyptian, European and Chinese chronicles tell about similar stars flashed out in the past centuries . The tremendousness of such explosions testifies the boundless might of the Most High and His providencial care of the people who live on the tiny planet nearby the (medium in size) star, and - indirectly - of the brevity of the existence of the life on the Earth.

The planets moving in the field of the central body of our system (i.e. around the Sun) are situated at the distances of about billions of kilometers from the Earth. On the basis of the planets positions with respect to the zodiacal constellations the asrological horoscopes are compiled. However according to scientific data the gravitation and other fields of these planets are very weak and they do not reach the Earth. It is possible that these weak fields can perturb a little bit the planets orbits and the orbits of their satellites or cause some vibrations in the Sun's shells. It must be emphasized that the influence mentioned is spread at once over the whole nature of the Earth and is not objectively related to certain people or to the groups of them (by the birth dates, nationality, sex etc). In fact if the planets would effect the people individually then the twins born simultaneously and in the same place would have very similar characters and fortunes ; but this is quite not so what is shown by the example of the Bibleic brothers Isav and Jacob - the sons of Isaac and Rachel. The asrologists themselves accept that the success in compiling the horoscopes depends to greater extent on the information they receive from the certain "space beings", i.e. from the fallen spirits. Thus the astrological approach to the prediction of the "auspiciousness" or "unauspiciousness" for some actions of a given person (this is just the essence of compiling the horoscope) has no scientific foundation at all. The astrology is rather (as it was already mentioned) a kind of fortune-telling magia and applying to such fortune-telling is strictly prohibited to Christians: "There shall not be found among you anyone who ... uses divinations, or an observer of time, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter of mediums, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination onto the Lord" (Deuteronomy, 18, 10-12).

Quite near the Earth (only 380 thousand kilometers) its natural rather large satellite - the Moon - is situated. Its gravity attraction causes the raising tides in the oceans, seas and subsoil waters. The Moon's phases influence for sure the physiological processes in the people's, animals' and plants' organisms, though the character of these effects is not studied sufficiently. The fullmoons and newmoons strengthen the psyhical excitability of the people (somnambulism) and make easier the influence of the demonic forces on their souls what we see on the example of the youth of whom in the Gospel it is written that "he is lunatics and greatly vexed" (Matthew 17, 15).

The comets which roam among the planets and acquire the uncanny "tails" when approaching the Sun have been always considered as the forerunners of the future calamities. Only for few of these unordinary objects the trajectories are known (the Galleus comets is the most known of regular comets). Many comets appear quite unexpectedly from the depth of the solar system and move with enormous velocities nearby the Earth. Last year the comet previously decayed into twenty huge pieces had collided with the Jupiter (the largest of all the planets in the Solar system) and caused the strongest changes in its atmosphere. It is obvious that the collision with similar comet would lead to the total desruction of the Earth's biosphere. Even the relatively small icy comet fallen in 1908 in the Tunguska river basin had caused destruction of animals and plants within the radius of several hundred kilometers. It is horrible even to imagine what would happen if the "Tunguska meteorite" had fallen in some populated area or in the ocean, what would cause the wave of not less than one hundred meters heigh and would completely destroy all the coastal cities and townships. If the moment of the collision had been be shifted in time only by several minutes a terrible disaster would have occurred.

Despite all written above, the most important for the people's life is, however, the Sun situated at the distance of 150 million kilometers from the Earth and maintaining by its attraction all the planets on certain orbits. The light and the heat come to the Earth from the Sun. The total power of the solar energy which falls onto the Earth exceeds ten thousand times all the energy resources used by man. One percent increase or decrease of this flux would be enough for the life on the Earth to disappear either because of the unendurable heat or unbearable cold. The heat balance is very subtle: even the smallest changes in the atmosphere's composition (the hotbed effect) or in reflecting ability (pollution) can lead to disastrous changes in climate. The subtlety of the heat balance demonstates once again the goodness of our Heavenly Father : "for He makes His Sun to rise on the evil and on the good " (Matthew 5, 45). There are evidences of the changes that occured in the past in the climate of different regions. Thus during the period of Roman Empire the territory of the modern Sakhara desert was well moistened and abundantly fruit-bearing. There were the periods of wetting and drying in Central Asia and even in Europe. Some scientists ("ethnologists") bind this very fact with the "great migrations of peoples" in 4-6 and 13-14 centuries.

Besides light and heat the fluxes of particles originated in the solar spots come from the Sun. The mechanism of generation of this "solar wind" is now continued to be studied by means of the devices carried out into the space. Fortunately the major part of these particles (protons) do not reach the Earth because they are deflected by its magnetic field which creates sort of protection shield. Only near the magnetic poles the channels exist for protons to penetrate into the Earth's atmosphere what is manifest in picturesque "northern lights". The solar wind is extremely non-uniform. During the "quiet Sun" years there are but few spots (these spots are in essence the giant flashes) and respectively the proton flux is small and the Earth's magnetosphere does not exert the vibrations and jumps. Conversely when there are many spots and the particle flux is great the magnetosphere exerts the shock actions and can even break in some places. The areas of the nothern lights shift to the low latitudes and the magnetic field vibrations penetrate up to the surface and even inside the Earth, the electric field of the atmosphere increases as well as concentation of the positive ions which influence harmfully onto the living creatures. This results in the weather changes (pressure and humidity vibrations etc), the demolishing of the ozon layer, increasing of the number of earthquakes and worsening of the living organism conditions.

The number and sizes of the spots on the Sun, as was noticed already in the middle of the 19th century, change with certain periodicity (in average 11 years) what seems to be caused by the pertubation action of the planets' gravitation field. Moreover, because the Sun rotates with the average period of 27 days, in the same rhythm it changes the extent of influence of solar spots on the Earth. The point is that the solar wind coming out from the spots areas reaches the Earth in 3 - 4 days. It is the time interval between the moment when the spot is directed toward us and its effect on the geophysical indices. These electromagnetic storms influence essentially the health condition of the people and animals. The number of deaths (especially among the heavily ill beings), the number of suicides, heart attacks, enterings into the psychiatric clinics increase drastically.

Sometimes the solar spots become visible without any devices ("the Sun was black" - is written in one of the ancient chronicles) and people who lived during those years of exclusive solar activity related with these spots the awful droughts and epidemies as well as the bellicosity of the peoples. "Why do the nations rage and the people imagine the vain thing?" (Psalm 2, 1-2). The Soviet scientist Alexander Chizhevskiy related the peaks of the solar activity with the "political activity of masses" because in the 20th century the maximal numbers of spots were observed in the years 1905, 1917, 1929 and later in 1940, 1954, 1968, 1979. For these scientific views ("inconvenient" for the Soviet power) he was arrested and spent much time in exile.

At present we go through the greatest (in this century and for the whole period of observations) peak of solar activity. The first tooth of the activity graph was in 1990-91 and after some decrease the number of spots and their sizes increased again so much as to become the continuous stripe. Therefore it is not surprising that last years there occured the unprecedented floods, hurricanes, epidemies (sometimes of previously quite unknown deseases) and earthquakes. Quite recently the information has come of the monstruous (several hundred meters) vibrations of the Moon surface. Some experts fear that these "moonquakes" can lead to the cleavage into parts of our natural satellite. Thus in the nature the signs are more noticeable of the demise of the world and of the second advent in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ when according to His word "there shall be the signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars ... and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven" (Luke 21; 25, 11).

It is commonly recognized that now the excitability of the people has significantly sharpened; it is expressed in the increase of the psihical shifts, suicides and deaths, in the extremely terrifying crimes, local wars and general shortening of the life duration. There's no doubt that the same periods were also in the past centuries, and by this many particulars of the historical events are explained. But after the storms in the Sun the calmness again restored, the spots diminished or even disappeared completely and as a consequence the "good in the air" came. Shortly (maybe in one year) the nowadays grandious maximum must come to an end.

As Orthodox Christians we must always remember and realize that the solar flashes and floods of tide caused by Moon and all other events in the nature are under the providencial rule of the Most High "Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, of all visible and invisible things". The Lord very frequently makes use of the laws of the nature and space objects (which are created by Him!) in order to manifest His will and might, to the peoples' persuasion and correcting. The God can, of course, act and apart from the laws of nature established by Him; such manifestations of the Godness are called miracles. They also serve for the good of those people who have belief in the Lord. However much above the Wisdom and Omnipotence stands the God's Mercy expressed in His unlimited Love to the perishing sinners.

We finish with the splendid words of the Apostle Paul who wrote that "neither Principalities, nor Powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord" (Romans 8, 38-39).

Gennadiy A. Kalyabin was born in 1947 in Samara (form. Kujbyshev). Gratuated from Moscow Physics Technical Institute, specializing in mathematics (analysis, differential equations). PhD in Physics and Mathematics. Author of more than 50 scientific works and papers. Professor of the Aerocosmic University of Samara, where he works since 1973. Gives lectures on Natural Apologetics at Samara Theological Seminary.