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June 20, 2011

Archangel Michael Healing the 7 Lepers: A Fresco in the Lesnovo Monastery Through the Eyes of a Dermatologist

Author Affiliations

Author Affiliations: School of Medicine, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia.

Arch Dermatol. 2011;147(6):660. doi:10.1001/archdermatol.2011.118

The Lesnovo Monastery, built in 1341 and dedicated to the Holy Archangel Michael, is located in northeast Macedonia. Archangel Michael, the patron saint of the monastery, is venerated as the champion of God's people: the Jews in the Old Law and the Christians in the New Testament. However, at the place where he was first venerated, Phrygia (an ancient region in what is now Turkey), his standing as an angelic healer eclipsed his traditional involvement in military matters. Local folklore held the belief that in the earliest ages of Christianity, St Michael caused a medicinal spring to spout, where all the sick people who bathed there and invoked the Blessed Trinity and the Archangel were restored to health.1

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