Holy, or consecrated water - water that consecrate the church on the feast of Theophany (Epiphany). Consecrated water on other days: the day Genesis Honest Trees of Life-Giving Cross in celebration cutting off. In addition, the sanctification of waters carried prayers, when Christians bring water from home, and the priest blesses it with a prayer. Superstitious people are trying to "get" it baptismal some water, believing that it alone is the "real" holy water. And water, consecrated in other days, such force as Epiphany, did not possess. But it is not. Any consecrated in the Church of water (and not only Epiphany) is present with holy water, with all its healing and miraculous qualities. To understand why this is so, you need to know What is the essence of holy water.

For the first time a person comes into contact with holy water in the Sacrament of Baptism. Many see baptism as a magical ritual, which may protect people from harm. But if that were the case, then no one baptized person does not have anything bad happened. And seeing this, all the rest immediately ran to be baptized. And come to paradise on earth. But paradise for some reason not yet come. Hence, baptism - not a magical protective ritual, but something else. What? Before answering this question, let us remember when there was baptism. In Scripture it is first mentioned in connection with the name of John the Baptist. Came to him the Jews were immersed in water of the Jordan River as a sign that they refuse to commit evil, washes off, "flush" the mud of sin, so that the purity of the soul to meet the Messiah, whose coming John preached. Messiah - Jesus Christ, immersed in the Jordanian water, blessed them with His divine light. Thereby clearing and releasing all the people who were baptized in the Jordan before him and after him (which is why the holy water is also called "Jordan"). Clear - from sin, freed - from the prison of death. Before the coming of Christ in the entire universe reigned supreme death. Any living creature necessarily had to die. And to die forever. True, created the image and likeness of God, the soul does not die, but death goes to hell, where it was doomed to eternal torment. This applies to all, even the righteous. Hopes to avoid the hell was not from anyone, because all humanity is punished for the sin of Adam and Eve.

Christ took upon Himself the sins of the world, including original sin, because of which the world came death ("For in the day when the taste of it, death will die"). But death itself He took upon Himself. And "death abolished," as sung on Easter Sunday. Abolished - thus overturned. Think about it: who can undo the most ruthless, the most inescapable law of the universe? Only the one who created this universe. God lifted her by his death, followed by the Resurrection. That is why, plunging into the water Epiphany, a person is baptized, in the words of the Apostle Paul, "the Lord's death", so - and in the resurrection and eternal life. But first - in death. Threefold immersion in water rights with a head at the baptism means the burial of Christ and his three-day stay in the tomb. In the sacrament of baptism a person dies to sin and being reborn to new life in God - an infinite life. Baptism - no protective ritual, not a sign of man's belonging to a church. Baptism, and only it opens a path to immortality. Baptism - the birth of a new, immortal man. "If a man be born of water and the Spirit, he can not enter the kingdom of God." And if ordinary water gave birth to a biological, death, the holy water gives life without death. This - the water of immortality, the water of eternal life. This is the essence of which is already living in eternity. And it does not matter how long ago - the day, year or century. That's why it does not spoil. Those who drink the blessed water, drinks the water of immortality.