Zlaya Korcha: Invisible fire of death

The end of the millennium was approaching and when a plague of invisible fire broke out, cutting off limbs from the body and consuming many in a single night, the sufferers thronged to the churches and invoked the help of the Saints. The cries of those in pain could be heard in villages beyond the eighth or the tenth house and quite far off in the fields; the stench of rotten flesh was unbearable. Many were tortured and twisted by a contraction of the nerves; others died miserably, their li...