‘Virgin Mary’ building may become shrine
The Florida office building that has drawn 1.5 million people to view
a rainbow-coloured image of the Virgin Mary will become a permanent shrine
if
the building’s owner has his way. Mike Krizmanich, the owner, said
he believes the apparition is a gift from God to be protected and shared.
He told
the Tampa Tribune newspaper that he planned to turn the building into
a permanent home for the apparition and use its inside office space for
a
spiritual purpose. “I don’t know how I wound up with it,”
he told the paper.
Krizmanich’s Seminole Finance Corporation was housed in the $1.3
million building until the business was sold this year. But he said he
did not want to sell the building, even to a religious organization, and
prefers to set up the shrine himself.
(Source: Reuters)
Glass experts who happened to be meeting near the ‘Virgin Mary’
building, examined the window where the image is seen, but failed to explain
it completely. For two days, scientists and manufacturers who were gathering
at a nearby convention visited the site and debated the possible origins.
After some discussion, they concluded that the image is the result of
“corrosion of metallic elements of the glass’s coating”
— a common process in certain types of glass that have aged. But
the glass experts could not explain why the rainbow-coloured swirls form
the image of the Virgin Mary.
“We’re not able to explain how the shape appeared or why it
appeared,” said George Pecoraro, a scientist with a glass manufacturing
company. “It could be an accident or maybe it’s divine intervention.”
Carlo Pantano, a professor of materials science and engineering at Pennsylvania
State University, said: “We can try to explain it, but not who controlled
it or why it happened here at this time.”"
(Source: Associated Press)
from: Share International June 1997
Reprinted
courtesy of © Share
International
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