43rd National Táncház Festival & Fair • 5–7 April 2024
Issue:
Starting page: 34
Serie:
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My meetings with a Moldavian soulseer – excerpts from a book about a Hungarian Csángó Moldavian woman, Jánó Ferenc Ilona. Starting in 1969 Kóka Rozália visited Jánó Ferenc Ilona in the village of Lészped/Lespezi, Romania for 37 years – documenting her visions and important life events. „A soulseer is a man or woman who according to Hungarian folk belief has supernatural powers, can contact the dead, bring news from them, or help with healing…” Ilona was nine in 1943 when her mother died. She began having visions when she was 11. When she was 12 she saw Jesus. Jesus was 12 years old too. She and Jesus knelt and prayed together. She said she’d seen many places in heaven and saw Saint Francis, Saint Anthony and God. She also saw Satan and had to go with him to a place where she saw souls altered by their pain. She pleaded with Satan not to leave her there. When she called out: “Jesus! Don’t leave me here!” The sky opened, rays of light and angels appeared. The angels took her away. In hell she had also seen those who stole chickens and eggs…(to be continued). From the book by Kóka Rozália published in 2006 by L’Harmattan in Budapest.