25 April 2006

Dying old and leaving a beautiful corpse

A Greek Orthodox monk who died 15 years ago is attracting huge crowds of worshippers hailing a "miracle" because his body is largely preserved. Vissarionas Korkoliakos, clad in his robes and the Book of the Gospels clutched in his hands, was discovered intact last month when he was disinterred during repairs to his crypt at Agathonos monastery, near the central Greek city of Lamia.

"Even [his] soft parts are intact," a senior cleric said as the Orthodox Church called it "a celestial sign, a message for our people and our time".

Medical experts said that the body of Korkoliakos, who died in 1991 aged 83, was only partially decomposed because of low humidity in his tomb.


The Times, 25 April 2006

[Far be it from me to be a Doubting Thomas, but in this news report from Samara, he doesn't look too flash. Even for a dead person. But it's just super that his 'soft parts are intact', isn't it?]

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