Home>Teachings

Geocentrism

Dormition Skete
2022


“The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaimeth the working of His hands (Ps. 18:1).”

Creation of the World, 12th C., Cathedral of Monreale, Palermo, Sicily

Introduction

We have all been taught in school that the earth goes around the sun once a year, and the earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours. It is just common knowledge, a basic fact. Ever since Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo (1564-1642) came along, we have replaced the primitive geocentric model with the much more sensible heliocentric model. After all, the sun is so large and the earth is so small, and that is how gravity works: the smaller body orbits the more massive body. Right?

Well, actually, geocentrism has never been disproven based on scientific observations; not one experiment has proven the earth to be moving. The heliocentric (or acentric) model has been adopted by secular scientists based on their own philosophical assumptions and metaphysical worldview.

We will endeavor to show in this report that there is strong scientific evidence that supports geocentrism, which says that the earth is motionless at the center of the entire universe. This cosmological worldview has been the tradition of the Church from the beginning, and is revealed by the holy Scriptures. We will present a short version to summarize this information, followed by a longer version with more details.

Short Version

St. Gregory Palamas: “He disposed and composed all things in complete natural harmony between themselves, each in relation to all, and all in relation to each. He surrounded the motionless earth, as a central point, with the higher circle of the perpetually moving heavens, holding them in place by means of what lies between, all according to His wisdom, that the universe might stay stable while in motion. When the heavenly bodies all around were moving unceasingly and at great speed, the motionless earth had of necessity to take its place at the center, its stability counterbalancing the motion, lest the sphere of the universe roll off its course.” [Homily Six, To encourage fasting, including a brief word on the origin of the world]

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The earth was the very first physical object created in our universe, the main focus of God’s creation of the cosmos, and God placed it in the very center of all the celestial bodies He would subsequently create for the earth’s and humanity’s sake. The laws of gravity tell us that in every system of masses, there is always one fixed point that is the center of mass (center of gravity), around which all the bodies in the system will orbit. The earth was placed at that very point, so that even though the universe is filled with huge masses (like our sun), everything will still orbit the common center of mass.

Many secular scientists will even admit that such a geocentric universe is physically possible.

Let us briefly consider some relevant scientific developments during the 19th and 20th centuries that pointed to a motionless earth. From 1818 to 1873, many different experiments were conducted in order to detect the “ether wind” caused by the earth’s orbit around the sun through the ether (the fabric of space). Arago, Babinet, Angstrom, Hoek, Fizeau, Airy, and Mascart all measured a null result. In other words, they did not measure any movement of the earth through the ether (the medium that fills the whole universe).

In 1887, the Michelson-Morley experiment was also conducted in order to measure the earth’s movement around the sun. Using light beams in a special apparatus, they were shocked when the results showed that the earth was not hurtling through space at 30 km/sec (67,000 mph). Michelson himself described the results of his own experiment: “This conclusion directly contradicts the explanation...which presupposes that the Earth moves.” [“The Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether,” American Journal of Science, Vol. 22, August 1881, p. 125.]

The results of this experiment absolutely baffled the scientists at the time. As science historian Bernard Jaffe noted, “The data were almost unbelievable. There was only one other possible conclusion to draw, that the earth was at rest. This, of course, was preposterous.” The scientific establishment believed so strongly that the earth goes around the sun that they could not figure out this experiment. For the next 20 years, they scrambled to come up with explanations.

Finally, in 1905, Albert Einstein, probably at the instigation of his Freemason handlers, came to the rescue of heliocentrism with his Theory of Special Relativity, saying that the speed of light is constant, there is no ether, and outer space is a vacuum. Additionally, when an object moves, its length shrinks, its mass increases, and time slows down. No physical justification was offered for these supposed phenomena. In this way, he was able to explain away the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment which had plagued science for so long.

At that time, many top scientists criticized Einstein’s newly concocted theory as nonsensical. Dr. Robert Sungenis, a geocentrist, remarks,To this very day, no scientist in the world has ever explained, let alone proven, the precise physical reason why matter should shrink in length when it moves, or how time can dilate in the process, yet they believe it nonetheless.” [Galileo Was Wrong, vol. 1, p. 227.]

In 1913, Georges Sagnac experimented with light beams moving around a rotating table with mirrors. He found that the speed of light was not constant, and that there is such a thing as absolute motion. This is a complete refutation of Relativity.

In 1925, the Michelson-Gale experiment endeavored to measure the earth’s rotation on its axis. They succeeded and found almost the exact speed of the earth’s rotation. In reality, what they measured was the 24-hour rotation of the ether around the earth. Thus, there was a seeming contradiction: the Michelson-Morley experiment had detected no movement of the earth revolving around the sun, yet the Michelson-Gale experiment measured the earth’s (ether’s) rotation with great accuracy. Only a geocentric model can explain both experiments.

Einstein’s theories continued to be denounced by many famous scientists. For example, Nikola Tesla called Relativity “[a] magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles, and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king.” [New York Times, 11 July 1935, p. 23, c. 8.]

More compelling evidence for geocentrism was later collected from three different space probes (1990, 2001, and 2009). These probes observed irregularities (anisotropies) in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation that formed a pattern: a plane that stretches from one end of the universe to the other, that goes right through the 23.5 degree angle between the sun and the earth’s equator (the ecliptic). There is another such plane of anisotropies that intersects the earth’s equator. (See picture on p. 10.) So there are two planes that stretch across the whole universe, and they just happen to intersect at our little earth. Scientists named this discovery the “Axis of Evil,” because it completely overturns the idea that the earth is not in a special location, and they have no way of explaining this phenomenon.

In addition, other scientists noticed that spiral galaxies were aligned and were spinning with respect to the same Axis of Evil. [Longo, 2007.] There was another study on quasars, which were observed to be rotating parallel to each other, even though they are trillions of miles apart. These quasars were also nearly exactly aligned with the Axis of Evil. Yet another study, examining a number of black holes, showed that they also were aligned and in the vicinity of the Axis of Evil; the study concluded that the probability that this happened by chance was less than 0.1%. [Alignments of Radio Galaxies in Deep Imaging of ELAIS N1, March 2016, MNRAS, p. 1.] Also, it appears that the galaxies of the universe are preferentially arranged in concentric spheres around us.

The modern geocentric model is the neo-Tychonian model, in which the moon and the sun orbit the earth, and the other planets orbit the sun. The stars’ and galaxies’ orbits are centered on the sun as the geometric center, while the earth remains the fixed center of mass of the whole universe. (See p. 12.) The fabric of the universe is the ether. It carries the universe around the earth every day. What we understand as vacuum or the vacuum of space is actually composed of a super dense, frictionless ether composed of particles at the Plank scale (10-33 cm), 20 orders of magnitude smaller than an electron. Thus it is completely imperceptible by any means of measuring, although its effects can be observed (e.g., Michelson-Morley Experiment, etc.). Dr. Sungenis states: “As light can move through a solid block of transparent material, analogously, solid objects can move through the Planck ether that permeates the universe.” Even modern science is inclining towards this explanation of the fabric of space, as seen in Quantum Mechanics and String Theory.

Also, there is no speed limit for light. In a geocentric universe, there is a tremendous centrifugal force created by the rotating universe. The increased tension of the ether causes the speed of light to dramatically increase as the distance from earth increases. This means that light can travel from the very edge of the universe to the earth in a very small fraction of a second (10-11seconds according to Dr. Robert Sungenis).

Furthermore, the earth is not tilted, as Psalm 103:6 confirms. Rather, the sun’s orbit around the earth is tilted at a maximum angle of 23.5 degrees. In addition to orbiting the earth every day, the sun oscillates yearly between 23.5 degrees below our equator and 23.5 degrees above the equator. This is what gives the earth its seasons. (See figures on p. 16.) Therefore, in the geocentric model, all of the relative distances and observed movements of the sun, planets, and stars are the same as in the heliocentric model. All of the so-called “proofs” that the earth is moving or rotating are equally explained in a geocentric system by the forces created by the rotating universe.

We should also know that the Church fathers unanimously teach a geocentric universe with an immovable earth. Saints Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Hippolytus, Gregory the Wonder-worker, Methodius of Olympus, Aphrahat, Athanasius, Ephraim the Syrian, Kyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, John Chrysostom, John Cassian, Jerome, Anastasios the Sinaite, Bede the Venerable, John of Damascus, Gregory Palamas, and Kosmas of Aitolia all discuss a geocentric universe. The Church fathers always say that the sun goes around the earth, and never the other way around. There is a unanimous patristic consensus on this topic.

The holy Scriptures also support geocentrism, as when Jesus (Joshua) of Navee made the sun and the moon stand still so that he would have more time to destroy Israel’s enemies. Also, when God hearkened to the supplication of King Hezekiah and prolonged his life, He gave him a sign by turning back the sun, so that day had 32 hours of daylight. There are other passages in the psalms and the rest of the Scriptures that say the earth is immovable.

Finally, as Orthodox Christians we know that our earth is special. It was the first thing God created. Everything else in the cosmos was made for our sake. On this very earth, God became man, died, and rose again for our salvation. Therefore, no one should be intimidated by secular science, “for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God [1 Cor. 3:19],” in Whom we have our trust.

Longer Version

Is Geocentrism Even Possible?

Is it physically possible that the earth could be the center of the universe? Didn’t Isaac Newton (1643-1727) say that the laws of gravity predict that less massive objects will orbit more massive objects? Not exactly. All the bodies in a system of masses will orbit their common center of mass, a single fixed point. Clearly, if our solar system were the only objects in the universe, the sun would be the center of mass (center of gravity), and we would expect the earth to orbit the sun. But our universe is composed of many more objects than just our solar system. There are innumerable other stars and galaxies that must also be taken into consideration when determining the center of mass of the whole universe. Isn’t it possible that God would place the earth in that very center of mass, the one single point around which everything else turns?

Many secular scientists, with their new Theory of Relativity, have even admitted the validity of geocentrism.

George Ellis, a famous cosmologist, stated: “People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations. For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations.” Ellis has published a paper on this. “You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.” [Scientific American, “Thinking Globally, Acting Universally,” October 1995.]

Sir Fred Hoyle: “We know that the difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance.” [Astronomy and Cosmology A Modern Course (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1975), p. 416.]

Albert Einstein: “The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either coordinate system could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, ‘the sun is at rest and the earth moves,’ or ‘the sun moves and the earth is at rest,’ would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems.” [Einstein and Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, 1938 ed., p. 248.]

When Edwin Hubble observed that everything in the whole universe was redshifted, these results were very surprising to the scientific community. Paul Davies, editor of Nature magazine, stated: “These redshifts are due, of course, to matter flying away from us under the impetus of the Big Bang. But redshifts can also arise from the gravitational attraction of mass. If the Earth were at the center of the universe, the attraction of the surrounding mass of stars would also produce redshifts wherever we looked!”

Dr. Hubble himself admitted, “Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central Earth.... This hypothesis cannot be disproved, but it is unwelcome and would only be accepted as a last resort in order to save the phenomena. Therefore we disregard this possibility.... The unwelcome position of a favored location must be avoided at all costs.... Such a favored position is intolerable.... Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position…must be compensated by spatial curvature. There seems to be no other escape.” [The Observational Approach to Cosmology, 1937, pp. 50, 51, 58, 59.]

Dr. Gerardus Bouw, a geocentrist, explains further: “There have been other mathematical expositions showing that the physics of the geocentric universe is the same as the heliocentric. Birkhoff has taken an approach in which he combined the Coriolis and centrifugal forces to be part and parcel of the definition of gravity. G. Burniston Brown arrived at geocentric solutions from Newtonian gravity and used a purely classical approach. Moon and Spencer took a classically-oriented look at Mach’s principle and arrived at a geocentric model. Nightingale has also derived a non-relativistic geocentric model. Rosser expanded on the Lense and Thirring papers explaining how the outer reaches of the universe could not only be moving many, many times the speed of light, but also how the universe would not fall apart, even if it were rotating trillions of times per second. All of these physicists (and there is not a geocentric Christian in the bunch) conclude that there is no detectable, experimental difference between having the earth spin diurnally on an axis as well as orbiting the sun once a year or having the universe rotate about the earth once a day and possessing a wobble centered on the sun which carries the planets and stars about the earth once a year. In none of these models would the universe fly apart, nor would a stationary satellite fall to earth. In every one of these models the astronauts on the moon would still see all sides of the earth in the course of 24 hours, the Foucault pendulum would still swing exactly the same way as we see it in museums, and the earth’s equator would still bulge. In other words, each of these effects is due to either the centrifugal force, Coriolis force, or some combination of the two and can be totally explained in any geocentric model.” [A Geocentricity Primer (Cleveland, OH: The Biblical Astronomer, 2004), p. 115.]

Thus we see that even secular scientists who are honest will admit that geocentrism is perfectly viable.

So if we, as Christians, believe that God created the earth first (Gen. 1:1), before all other things, that humanity is special, that everything else in the cosmos was created for us, and that on this earth alone God became man and walked among us, it isn’t so hard to believe that the earth is the center of the universe.

Unfortunately, the opposite view has become the norm among most secular (usually atheist) cosmologists, which is summarized in the Copernican (or Cosmological) Principle. This Principle says that the earth is not in a special location, since there are no special locations, and the universe looks the same in every direction and from any vantage point. We live on an insignificant speck of dust, lost in the endless sea of space, in a forgotten corner of the universe.

Let us examine some experiments that have been done to see if such a worldview is reasonable, or whether it would be more reasonable to conclude that the earth is in fact in a special location.

Experimental Observations

Geocentrist Dr. Philip Stott writes: “Many experiments were performed specifically to demonstrate and measure the motion of the earth around the sun. To everyone’s surprise and grief all of them gave the speed of the earth’s movement through space to be a stunning zero. No significant movement could be measured at all. The most famous of the experiments was done by Michelson and Morley. Typical of comments on their results are those of Bernard Jaffe: ‘The data were almost unbelievable. There was only one other possible conclusion to draw, that the earth was at rest. This, of course, was preposterous.’

“As ‘preposterous’ as the measurements of Arago, Trouton and Noble, Airy, Thorndyke and Kennedy, Theodore de Coudres, and several others. They also found the earth to have a zero velocity through space.” [Thinking and Reasoning, http://www.reformation.edu/scripture-science-stott/stott-intro.htm.]

Let us look at some of these experiments and historical developments.

1818: Dominic Arago observed a particular star through a telescope at different times of the year, expecting that since the earth moves around the sun, the distance between the star and the earth would change, and so he would have to refocus the telescope. He didn’t have to refocus the telescope, meaning that the distance between the earth and stars stayed essentially the same.

From 1818 to 1873, many different experiments were conducted in order to detect the “ether wind” caused by the earth’s orbit around the sun through the ether. Babinet, Angstrom, Hoek, Fizeau, Airy, and Mascart all measured a null result.

1871, “Airy’s Failure”: Geocentrist Malcolm Bowden explains, “Telescopes have to be very slightly tilted to get the starlight going down the axis of the tube because of the earth’s ‘speed around the sun.’ Airy filled a telescope with water that greatly slowed down the speed of the light inside the telescope and found that he did not have to change the angle of the telescope [as compared to a telescope filled with air]. This showed that the starlight was already coming in at the correct angle so that no change was needed. This demonstrated that it was the stars moving relative to a stationary earth and not the fast orbiting earth moving relative to the comparatively stationary stars. If it was the telescope moving he would have had to change the angle.” [The Basic Scientific Arguments for Geocentricity, 1999, http://www.biblicalscholarship.net/geobasic.htm.] This was astounding to the scientific community, and his experiment became known as “Airy’s Failure” because he failed to show that the earth was moving around the sun.

1887, Michelson-Morley Experiment: In order to measure the earth’s movement around the sun, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley devised an apparatus in which a beam of light was split into two perpendicular beams which would bounce off mirrors and then be recombined. The result would be detected with an interferometer, which can measure the phase difference between the two beams (in other words, their difference in speed).

Michelson-Morley Experiment

The idea was that the light beam going in the direction of the earth’s travel would lag behind the perpendicular beam. They expected to observe a speed v (as in the diagram) of 30 km/sec, which would be the speed required for the earth to orbit the sun. Instead, they found only a small fraction of that, not nearly enough for the earth to be moving. (This small speed that they did measure can be explained by the rotational movement of the ether around the earth.) Michelson himself described the results of his own experiment: “This conclusion directly contradicts the explanation…which presupposes that the Earth moves.” [“The Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether,” American Journal of Science, Vol. 22, August 1881, p. 125.]

The results of this experiment absolutely baffled the scientists at the time. They believed so strongly that the earth goes around the sun that they could not figure out this experiment. For the next 20 years, the scientific establishment scrambled to come up with explanations, but none of them were satisfactory. Even up to 1930 (Joos), similar experiments were conducted by others with different modifications and in various locations, thousands and thousands of trials in all, but all of them yielded the same result. It should also be noted that until the early 1900s, in general, all scientists believed in the ether. After all, electromagnetic waves (light) have to have a medium in which to propagate.

In 1905, Albert Einstein, a Jew, came to the rescue of heliocentrism with his Theory of Special Relativity, saying that the speed of light is constant, c (3x108 meters/sec), regardless of the speed of the observer. He also proclaimed that there is no ether, and outer space is an empty vacuum. Additionally, when an object moves, its length shrinks, its mass increases, and time slows down. No physical justification was offered for these alleged phenomena. In this way, with his mathematical trickery he was able to explain the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment which had plagued science for so long.

Naturally, this outlandish theory sparked controversy, and many of his fellow scientists denounced these ideas as nonsensical. Dr. Robert Sungenis, a Roman Catholic geocentrist, remarks, “We need to remind ourselves that the so-called ‘shrinking of the instruments’ and ‘slowing of the clock’ is all the result of the fallacious interpretation of the Michelson-Morley experiment, an interpretation that was forced upon the science establishment in order to keep the Earth from being motionless in space. To this very day, no scientist in the world has ever explained, let alone proven, the precise physical reason why matter should shrink in length when it moves, or how time can dilate in the process, yet they believe it nonetheless, for, as we will see later, it is their only defense against going back to pre-Copernican days.” [Galileo Was Wrong, vol. 1, p. 227.]

1913: Georges Sagnac split a beam of light into two beams moving in opposite directions around a rotating table with mirrors. The light beam travelling in the opposite direction as the rotating table went faster than the other light beam, so when both beams hit the interferometer, a fringe shift (difference in speed) was detected. One beam had a speed of c+v, where v is the speed of the edge of the rotating apparatus; the other beam had a speed of c-v. Besides proving the existence of the ether, this also meant that the speed of light is not constant and that there is such a thing as absolute motion. This experiment is just one example of how Einstein’s theory was debunked.

1915: In order to patch up all the problems that were left unsolved by Special Relativity, Einstein contrived his Theory of General Relativity to explain gravitational effects as curvatures in space and time.

1925, Michelson-Gale Experiment: With a similar experimental setup as in the Michelson-Morley Experiment, Albert Michelson and Henry Gale wanted to see if they could measure the earth’s rotation on its axis using light beams (in other words, to detect the Sagnac “effect”). With a large rectangular interferometer (1.2 miles perimeter), the concept was that the light going clockwise would travel at a different speed than the light going counterclockwise through the apparatus. This is exactly what they found, and they measured the rotational speed of the earth as 98% of its actual value. In reality, what they measured was the 24-hour rotation of the ether around the earth. Thus, there was a seeming contradiction: the Michelson-Morley experiment had detected no movement of the earth around the sun, yet the Michelson-Gale experiment measured the earth’s (ether’s) rotation to a high degree of accuracy. Only a geocentric model can explain both experiments.

Michelson-Gale Experiment

Einstein’s theories continued to be criticized by many top scientists, including Lorentz, Mach, Michelson, Miller, Planck, Poincare, Rutherford, Sagnac, Soddy, and van der Waals. In 1935, renowned inventor Nikola Tesla called Einstein’s Theory of Relativity “[a] magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles, and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king;...its exponents are brilliant men, but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists.” [New York Times, 11 July 1935, p. 23, c. 8.] Even one of Einstein’s greatest former admirers, Dr. Herbert Dingle, stated: “The magical influence of this word [relativity] has transformed science in this field into a superstition as powerful as any to be found in primitive tribes.” [Science at the Crossroads, London: Martin Brian & O’Keeffe, 1972, p. 33.]

Commenting on modern science, Douglas Jones remarks, “The odd thing is that science has such a ridiculous track record to serve as such a powerful veto-house of truth. If we think in terms of centuries and millennia, few other disciplines turn inside-out so flippantly and quickly as the natural sciences. Nothing can take the puff out of the scientific chest more than a study of its history. Perhaps that’s why it’s so rare to find science departments requiring courses in the history of science. The history of science provides great strength to the inductive inference that, at any point in its history, that day’s science will almost certainly be deemed false, if not laughable, within a century (often in much less time).” [“A Rating System for Science,” Credenda, 9(1).]

But besides all the above-mentioned experiments, even more compelling evidence for geocentrism appeared starting in 1990. The Big Bang, which had become the scientific consensus, predicted that the universe would be basically homogeneous, the same everywhere. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation (low-energy radiation coming from all directions in space) that was discovered in 1964 seemed to match the prediction. But in 1990, the COBE space probe revealed that within the CMB, not only were there irregularities (anisotropies) all over the universe, but these anisotropies formed a pattern; they were aligned from one end of the universe to the other. The scientists were astonished at this observation, so they sent up another probe in 2001 called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). This probe gave the same data, but it also showed that this alignment pattern exactly intersects the 23.5 degree tilt between the sun and the earth! It also found a second plane that goes through the earth’s equator. So there are two planes that stretch across the whole universe, and they just happen to intersect at our little earth.

(Taken from Robert A. Sungenis and Douglas Rudd)

The scientific establishment named this discovery the “Axis of Evil,” because it completely overturns the Copernican Principle, the idea that there is nothing special about the earth’s location. Again, in 2009, the Planck probe found the same anomaly with even greater precision instruments. The modern atheist cosmologist Dr. Lawrence Krauss stated, “But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.” [“The Energy of Empty Space is not Zero,” 2006.]

Robert Sungenis: “But this is not all. At about the same time as WMAP, other scientists noticed that spiral galaxies were aligned and were spinning with respect to the same Axis of Evil. [Longo, 2007.] Still other scientists were studying the placement of quasars [the nucleus of a galaxy] in the universe and found that their light was polarized with respect to the same Axis of Evil. In this case, a research team, using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, discovered 93 of these polarized quasars, spanning distances over billions of lightyears. The first thing they noticed was that the rotation axes of all 93 quasars were aligned with each other [parallel], in spite of the trillions of miles of distance between them.” The alignment is also in the same vicinity as the Axis of Evil.

Furthermore, when black holes are observed, we can see jets of material being ejected in a way that corresponds to the rotation of the black hole. A recent study observed black holes in one section of the sky near the Axis of Evil and found that they also, like the quasars, were all aligned. In their report, the scientists A. R. Taylor and P. Jagannathan stated: “We examine the possibility that the apparent alignment arises from an underlying random distribution and find that the probability of chance alignment is less than 0.1%.” [Alignments of Radio Galaxies in Deep Imaging of ELAIS N1, March 2016, MNRAS, p. 1.]

Also, it appears that the galaxies of the universe are arranged in concentric spheres around the earth. John Hartnett and Koichi Hirano did a study that indicates that the redshifted galaxies are periodically spaced. The data is statistically significant to the 4-sigma level, meaning there is a 99.994% probability that galaxies are preferentially distributed in distinct shells. [Galaxy redshift abundance periodicity from Fourier analysis of number counts N(z) using SDSS and 2dF GRS galaxy surveys, 2007.]

Sloan Digital Sky Survey of Galaxies

The Geocentric Model

St. Athanasius the Great: “For who that sees the circle of heaven and the course of the sun and the moon, and the positions and movements of the other stars, as they take place in opposite and different directions, while yet in their difference all with one accord observe a consistent order, can resist the conclusion that these are not ordered by themselves, but have a Maker distinct from themselves Who orders them? Or who that sees the sun rising by day and the moon shining by night, and waning and waxing without variation exactly according to the same number of days, and some of the stars running their courses and with orbits various and manifold, while others move without wandering, can fail to perceive that they certainly have a Creator to guide them?” [Against the Heathen, Bk 1, Part III, 35]

A) The Neo-Tychonian Model and the Ether

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) was a Danish astronomer who created a model of the universe in which the moon and the sun orbit the earth, and the other planets orbit the sun. This replaced the older Ptolemaic model. In modern geocentric theories, the modern-Tychonian or neo-Tychonian model are used. The modern-Tychonian system is the same as the original, except the planets orbit the sun with elliptical orbits. In the neo-Tychonian system, the further extension that the stars are centered on the sun is added.

Modified Tychonic Model


Thus, the earth remains immoveable as the center of mass of the universe, but the sun serves as the geometric center of the orbiting stars. The fabric of the universe is the ether. It carries the universe around the earth every day. Martin Selbrede writes, “This ultradense medium of geocentric physics is identified as the Biblical firmament. It has a density so great that a teaspoon of the firmament would weigh more than a trillion universes combined. The computed density is termed the Planck density, roughly 1094 g/cm3. [That means a 1 followed by 94 zeroes.]” [Rebuttal of North and Nieto, The Biblical Astronomer, Cleveland, OH, archived at http://geocentricity.com/geocentricity/nieto.html.]

Dr. Gerardus Bouw explains more: “So it seems that we are engulfed in a sea of Planck particles. The particles can be viewed as constituting a pervasive medium which acts like an ideal fluid (meaning that there is no friction).... A medium of such a high density as the firmament has some interesting properties. One would think, for example, that it would be impossible to move in such a medium, just as one could not move if encased in iron—even if one were made of solid iron! Normally this is true, but the deBroglie wavelengths of nuclear particles are so long compared to that of the Planck particles that the firmament is transparent to them. This is similar to why light can travel through a “dense” medium such as glass instead of being stopped cold on impact.” [A Geocentricity Primer, p. 127.]

Therefore, what we understand as vacuum or the vacuum of space is actually composed of a super dense ether composed of particles at the Plank scale (10-33 cm), 20 orders of magnitude smaller than an electron. Thus it is completely imperceptible by any means of measuring, although its effects can be observed (e.g., Michelson-Morley Experiment, etc.). The ether penetrates all matter, that is, the “empty space” inside of atoms.

Dr. Sungenis: “The extreme granularity of the Planck ether allows it to be extremely flexible. Objects from the size of electrons to stars can move through the Planck ether with no resistance, and they will move as all matter doesby wave motion. This phenomenon is why Quantum Mechanics finds that the proton, neutron, and electron are wave/particle dualities. The wave dimension of matter is needed to move through the dense Planck medium.... As light can move through a solid block of transparent material, analogously, solid objects can move through the Planck ether that permeates the universe.... In the laboratory, it has been shown that super-cooled helium allows motion of objects through it without any detectable friction. This substance acts so peculiarly at 0.25 degrees above absolute zero that it is understood as a ‘new phase of matter, a “super-solid” form of helium-4 with the extraordinary frictionless-flow properties of a superfluid.’” [GWW vol. 1, pp. 775, 776; Barbara Kennedy, “Strong New Evidence of a New, Supersolid Phase of Matter,” Science Journal, Penn State University, Summer 2005, p. 8.]

Thus, the ether described in ancient times has been shown to be a valid concept. Even modern science is inclining towards this explanation of the fabric of space, as Robert Sungenis mentions: “Science has made a 180 degree turn and come back to a physical ether. It is the essential ingredient in almost every current view of the cosmos, as even Quantum Mechanics and String Theory have shown.”

The Church fathers spoke about the ether:

St. Athanasius: “For by a nod and by the power of the divine Logos of the Father that governs and presides over all, the heaven revolves, the stars move, the sun shines, the moon goes her circuit, and the air receives the sun’s light and the ether his heat, and the winds blow: the mountains are reared on high, the sea is rough with waves, and the living things in it grow; the earth abides fixed....” [Against the Heathen, Bk 1, Part III, 44.]

Commenting on the sixth day of creation, when God said, “Let winged creatures fly below the firmament of the heavens [Gen. 1:20],” St. Ambrose says, “One should not be disturbed by the phrase ‘below the firmament of the heavens.’ The word ‘firmament’ is used, not in its proper, but in its derivative sense. The air which we perceive with our eyes is, in comparison with that ethereal substance, the firmament, of greater thickness and density.” [“Hom. 8,” Ch. 22(73), Hexameron, FC, 42:216, 217.]

St. Basil: “The ether also is such a subtle substance and so transparent that it needs not the space of a moment for light to pass through it.” [“Hom. II(7),” Hexaemeron]

St. Basil is exactly right according to the explanation of Dr. Sungenis: “In a Planck ether universe, the speed of gravity [and light] is practically unlimited. Since the Planck ether is so dense, it can carry longitudinal waves or compression waves over the entire universe in a split second (about 10-11 seconds [that is, 0.00000000001 seconds]).” Thus geocentrism satisfactorily solves the distant starlight problem that other creation scientists have, i.e., how the light from stars that are billions of lightyears away can reach the earth if it is only 7500 years old.

“In the Planck ether medium of geocentrism,” Dr. Sungenis continues, “the speed of a transverse wave, such as light, depends on the tension between the Planck particles. The greater the centrifugal force, the greater the tension and thus the greater the speed of light. The inertial force of a rotating universe increases as the distance from the center of mass increases. Consequently, the farther from Earth a star is in a rotating universe, the faster its light can travel toward Earth, the center of the universe. By the time the light reaches the environs of Earth, however, it will be traveling at the minimum speed of 3✕108 m/sec since the surface of the Earth is at or near the neutral point of the centrifugal force created in a rotating universe. Outside of this locale, light can travel at much greater speeds than 3✕108 m/sec. Since that is the case, we may be looking at the explosion of supernovae precisely when they occur in deep space.” [GWW vol. 1, p. 281.]

Consider the supernova that was seen in the year 1054 when the Roman Patriarchate fell away from the Church. Is it not more reasonable to think that this stellar explosion was seen at the very moment it occurred far away? What kind of sign from God would that have been if in reality, the supernova had occurred thousands of years prior to its light reaching the earth in 1054?

But is this centrifugal gravitational force described above reasonable? Max Born said in his famous book, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity: “Thus we may return to Ptolemy’s point of view of a ‘motionless earth.’... One has to show that the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein’s field equations, by distant rotating masses. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from Einstein’s point of view, Ptolemy and Copernicus are equally right.” [Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Dover Publications, 1962, pp. 344, 345.]

Malcolm Bowden further states, “Barbour and Bertotti (Il Nuovo Cimento 32B(1):1-27, 11 March 1977) proved that a hollow sphere (the universe) rotating around a solid sphere inside (the earth) produced exactly the same results of Coriolis forces, dragging of Foucault pendulums, etc.” [The Basic Scientific Arguments for Geocentricity, 1999.]

Dr. Gerardus Bouw: “Nevertheless, what Hans Thirring (1918) discovered was that the gravitational field inside the shell was not zero, as expected in Newton’s gravitational model, but that there arose certain forces inside the shell away from the center. These forces are analogous to the centrifugal and Coriolis forces. Now here is a telling distinction: in classical, heliocentric, relativistic physics, the centrifugal and Coriolis forces are technically not forces at all but are termed “fictitious forces” or “effects”; but what Thirring demonstrated was that in a geocentric system, these are no longer “fictitious forces” but real forces. Even more specifically, in a geocentric framework the centrifugal and Coriolis forces are identifiable as gravitational forces. This means that the so-called proofs for the rotation of the earth, the Foucault pendulum, the earth’s equatorial bulge, the stationary satellite, and so on are not proofs at all, being equally explained by Thirring’s geocentric analysis. In fact, since the geocentric model encompasses the entire universe and has no fictitious forces, one could say that the alleged proofs for heliocentrism actually prove geocentricity instead.” [A Geocentricity Primer, pp. 113, 114.] After all, Relativity requires us to believe that length contracts, time dilates, and mass increases for no physical reason. So which system is really more simple?

B) More about the Speed of Light

There is other evidence that light can go faster than it does on earth. Dr. Philip Stott points to the Pioneer probe anomaly: “Radio ranging signals of distant spacecraft suggest that the craft are closer to us than they should be. Radio signals appear to take less time than expected to return to earth. It has been proposed that the craft could be decelerating due to a force directed towards us. No satisfactory force has been found.... Biblical cosmology might offer the explanation that reduction in radio wave travel time would be observed if the speed of light increased at increasing distance from us. This could be a consequence of the stretching out process.” [Towards a Biblical Cosmology, http://www.reformation.edu/scripture-science-stott/stott-intro.htm.]

Dr. Stott also writes about gamma ray bursts. “There appear to be daily bursts of high energy gamma radiation. They are interpreted in the standard model as coming from explosions extremely far away. These explosions have the power of a whole galaxy [billions of stars] exploding. Such a daily destruction of so much material strains credibility. Biblical cosmology could suggest other possibilities. When a particle at high velocity is injected into a medium in which the speed of light is less than its own speed, it is decelerated to the medium’s light velocity and the excess energy is given off as radiation (Cherenkov radiation). It would be expected that cosmic particles approaching the earth with a speed greater than the near-earth light speed would experience a similar braking effect and give off excess energy as radiation.” [Towards a Biblical Cosmology .]

Dr. Bouw addresses a common objection to geocentrism: “A...misconception is that the speed of light cannot be exceeded. This argument means that if the stars and planets are further away than Saturn, they would be moving faster than the speed of light in their daily motion about the earth. There are two problems with this statement. First, the daily motion is one of rotation, and relativity (which dictates that the speed of light is a speed limit) is said not to apply to rotation. This is claimed because relativity cannot account for the Sagnac effect, an effect which violates relativity’s postulate that the speed of light cannot be exceeded. More practically, though, relativists maintain that in a spinning universe the gravitational field increases as one goes further and further from the axis of rotation. Relativity allows that it is the gravitational field which dictates the speed of light in any part of the universe. Thus the further one goes from earth, the faster the speed of light in a rotating universe.” [A Geocentricity Primer, p. 132.]

Even Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (which contradicts Special Relativity) allows for light to go faster than it does on earth. “If gravitational fields are present, the velocities of either material bodies or of light can assume any numerical value depending on the strength of the gravitational field. If one considers the rotating roundabout [the earth] as being at rest, the centrifugal gravitational field assumes enormous values at large distances, and it is consistent with the theory of General Relativity for the velocities of distant bodies to exceed 3✕108 m/sec under these conditions.” [An Introduction to the Theory of Relativity, William Geraint Vaughan Rosser, 1964, p. 460.]

Moreover, Dr. Bouw clarifies how the stars in the universe move around the earth: “It is generally believed, without evidence, that in the geocentric model the sun, moon, planets, and distant stars all orbit the earth once per day. There is no orbiting involved. What is happening is that the firmament is rotating....The sun, moon, and stars do not gravitationally orbit the earth daily any more than that a molecule in a top gravitationally orbits the center of the top. In the case of the spinning top it is the fibers and material of the top which carry the molecules around the axis of the top. By the same token, in the geocentric model it is the fabric of the firmament which carries the universe about it.” [A Geocentricity Primer, p. 131.] St. Basil uses the same analogy: “Like tops, which after the first impulse, continue their revolutions, turning upon themselves when once fixed in their center; thus nature, receiving the impulse of this first command, follows without interruption the course of ages, until the consummation of all things.” [“Hom. V(10),” Hexaemeron]

Dr. Sungenis states, “Geocentrism says only that the universe rotates around the Earth once per day, and in that rotation it carries the stars with it. Thus, compared to the universe within which they are contained, the stars are not moving at all, save for their minuscule independent movements.” [GWW vol. 1, p. 230.]

B) Daily and Annual Movements

Dr. Gerardus Bouw: “The sun’s period is exactly 24 hours. The stars’ daily motion nearly matches the sun’s period, being about 3 minutes 56 seconds less than the sun’s period. Over the course of one year this amounts to one extra revolution.” [A Geocentricity Primer, p. 63.] This explains the yearly cycle of the constellations of the zodiac.

The earth is not tilted, as Psalm 103:6 confirms. Rather, the sun’s orbit around the earth is tilted at a maximum angle of 23.5 degrees. In addition to orbiting the earth every day, the sun oscillates yearly between 23.5 degrees below our equator and 23.5 degrees above the equator. This is what gives the earth its seasons.

Annual Movement of the Sun Around the Earth


St. Basil: “Besides, we see that the great wisdom of Him who governs all, makes the sun travel from one region to another, for fear that, if it remained always in the same place, its excessive heat would destroy the order of the universe. Now it passes into southern regions about the time of the winter solstice, now it returns to the sign of the equinox; from thence it betakes itself to northern regions during the summer solstice, and keeps up by this imperceptible passage a pleasant temperature throughout all the world.” [“Hom. III(7),” Hexaemeron]

Therefore, in the geocentric model, all of the relative distances and observed movements of the sun, planets, and stars are the same as in the heliocentric model.

The Scriptures and the Church Fathers

Let the whole earth fear before Him; let the earth be established, and not be moved (1 Chr. 16:30).

The Church fathers unanimously teach a geocentric universe with an immovable earth. Here are some examples.

St. Gregory the Wonder-worker (213-270): “And the life of men weareth away, as day by day, and in the periods of hours and years, and the determinate courses of the sun, some are ever coming, and others passing away. And the matter is like the transit of torrents as they fall into the measureless deep of the sea with a mighty noise. And all things that have been constituted by God for the sake of men abide the same: as, for instance, that man is born of earth, and departs to earth again; that the earth itself continues stable; that the sun accomplishes its circuit about it perfectly, and rolls round to the same mark again; and that the winds in like manner, and the mighty rivers which flow into the sea, and the breezes that beat upon it, all act without forcing it to pass beyond its limits, and without themselves also violating their appointed laws.” [On Ecclesiastes, Ch 1]

St. Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335-ca. 395): “The vault of heaven prolongs itself so uninterruptedly that it encircles all things with itself, and that the earth and its surroundings are poised in the middle, and that the motion of all the revolving bodies is round this fixed and solid center…” [On the Soul and Resurrection]

St. Athenagoras (ca. 133-ca. 190): “The Framer and Father of this universe does not need blood, nor the odor of burnt-offerings,...but the noblest sacrifice to Him is for us to know Who stretched out and vaulted the heavens, and fixed the earth in its place like a center.” [A Plea for the Christians, Ch. XIII, “Why the Christians do not Offer Sacrifices”]

St. Chrysostom (ca. 347-407): “For He not only made [creation], but provided also that when it was made, it should carry on its operations; not permitting it to be all immoveable, nor commanding it to be all in a state of motion. The heaven, for instance, hath remained immovable, according as the prophet says, ‘He placed the heaven as a vault, and stretched it out as a tent over the earth.’ But, on the other hand, the sun with the rest of the stars, runs on his course through every day. And again, the earth is fixed, but the waters are continually in motion; and not the waters only, but the clouds, and the frequent and successive showers, which return at their proper season.” [Homilies on the Statues, “Homily XII”]

The Church fathers always say that the sun goes around the earth, and not the other way around. They were aware of the heliocentric system, which had been around since the ancient Greek Aristarchus (3rd C. B.C.), but none of them adopted this model.

St. Aphrahat (ca. 270-ca. 345): “For the sun in twelve hours circles round, from the east unto the west; and when he has accomplished his course, his light is hidden in the night-time, and the night is not disturbed by his power. And in the hours of the night the sun turns round in his rapid course, and turning round, begins to run in his accustomed path.” [Demonstrations, 24]

St. Clement of Rome (35-101): “The sun and moon, with the companies of the stars, roll on in harmony according to His command, within their prescribed limits, and without any deviation.” [First Epistle to the Corinthians, Ch XX]

St. Hippolytus (170-235): “For what richer beauty can there be than that of the circle of heaven? And what form of more blooming fairness than that of earth’s surface? And what is there swifter in the course than the chariot of the sun? And what more graceful car than the lunar orb? And what work more wonderful than the compact mosaic of the stars? And what more productive of supplies than the seasonable winds? And what more spotless mirror than the light of day? And what creature more excellent than man?” [Discourse on the Holy Theophany, 1]

This tradition of geocentrism was preserved by the Church even up to the time of St. Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) and St. Kosmas of Aitolia (1714-1779). In his writings, St. Gregory states: “With the immovable earth as a center-point, He arranged the ever-moving heaven in a circle in the uttermost heights and bound the two together with great wisdom through the middle regions. And so, the same world continues to be both stationary and mobile at the same time. For since the bodies in very rapid and perpetual motion have been arranged all in a circle, the immovable body necessarily had to occupy the middle region as its portion, counterbalancing the motion with its stability, so that the pancosmic sphere would not change position as a cylinder does.” [One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, 22]

St. Kosmas of Aitolia: “It is 7,288 years from the time that the world was created. This world is like an egg. And just as the yolk is in the center of the egg, so is the earth made by God to stand without touching any other place. And just as the egg white surrounds the yolk, so does the air the earth. And just as the shell encloses everything, so does the sky the earth, The sun, the moon, and the stars are attached to the sky. The earth is round and wherever the sun goes it becomes day; night is the shadow of the earth.” [First Teaching, “The Eggs of Pascha”]

A) Creation

The holy fathers also interpret the Scriptures, starting with Genesis Ch. 1, in a geocentric way. In examining their writings, we also glean additional details about the structure of the cosmos.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

St. Anastasios: “‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth [Gen. 1:1].’ Do not let the natural philosophers respond that God began to make the origin of heaven from the earth, as from a center. For they say the center is the beginning of every sphere.... That which fails for men, succeeds for God. Therefore, so that you might learn that God does not follow the laws of nature, but creates in a way beyond nature and technology, Moses says here, ‘God created the heaven’— which is the sphere—‘and then the earth’—which is the center.” [Hexaemeron, “Book 1,” § VI.2, p. 21]

But the earth was invisible (unsightly) and unfurnished, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God moved over the water.

St. Basil (ca. 330-379): “‘The earth was invisible.’ Why? Because the ‘deep’ was spread over its surface. What is ‘the deep’? A mass of water of extreme depth.” [“Hom. II(4),” Hexaemeron]

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good, and God divided between the light and the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night, and there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Saint Bede (ca. 673-735): “‘And there was evening and morning, one day.’ At this point one day was completed—without a doubt a day of twenty-four hours.... Hence, it is also preferred to say that there was evening and morning rather than night and day, in order to reveal that what was then done by the circuit of that first and most excellent light is now known to be performed day and night by the circuit of the sun.” [On Genesis, Book One [1:5], 48:74]

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it be a division between water and water, and it was so. And God made the firmament, and God divided between the water which was under the firmament and the water which was above the firmament. And God called the firmament Heaven, and God saw that it was good, and there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

St. John of Damascus (ca. 675-ca. 749): “‘And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters [Gen. 1:2].’ For the deep is nothing else than a huge quantity of water whose limit man cannot comprehend. In the beginning, indeed, the water lay all over the surface of the earth. And first God created the firmament to divide the water above the firmament from the water below the firmament. For in the midst of the sea of waters the firmament was established at the Master’s decree. And out of it God bade the firmament arise, and it arose.” [“Concerning the Waters,” An Exact Exposition, Bk. II, Ch. IX]

St. Basil: “‘Let it be dividing between water and water [Gen. 1:6].’ The mass of waters, which from all directions flowed over the earth, and was suspended in the air, was infinite, so that there was no proportion between it and the other elements. Thus, as it has been already said, the abyss covered the earth. Therefore, the prodigious mass of waters was spread around the earth; not in proportion with it and infinitely larger, thanks to the foresight of the supreme Artificer, Who, from the beginning, foresaw what was to come, and at the first provided all for the future needs of the world.” [“Hom. III(5),” Hexaemeron]

So we see that St. Basil called “the deep” a “mass of water of extreme depth,” “infinite” and “prodigious,” “infinitely larger” than the earth, which was like a small seed in the middle of the deep. St. John of Damascus also said, “The deep is nothing else than a huge quantity of water whose limit man cannot comprehend.” The Apostle Peter wrote, “By the word of God were there heavens of old, and an earth having stood together out of water and in water (2 Pet. 3:5).” So St. Peter says that the earth was “in water,” matching this description of “the deep.”

Day 1


And God made the firmament, and God divided between the water which was under the firmament and the water which was above the firmament. When the firmament was created, this huge sphere of water was separated from the proto-earth and stretched out to the very edge of today’s universe. The “waters above” are the boundary and limit of our universe, possibly a thin shell and possibly of ice due to the low temperature of space. The firmament is the ether, the medium in which the stars and other celestial bodies were placed on day four.

St. Bede: “It is certain that this firmament is in the midst of the waters, for we ourselves see the waters that were placed beneath it and in the air and lands, and we are informed about those that were placed above it, not only by the authority of this Scriptural passage, but also by the words of the prophet, who says, ‘Stretching out the heaven like a leathern curtain; the One covering His upper chambers in waters [Ps. 103:3].’... But if it puzzles anyone, how the waters, whose nature it is always to flow and to sink to the lowest point, can settle above heaven, whose shape seems to be round, he should remember holy Scripture saying about God, ‘He bindeth water in His clouds, and the cloud is not rent under it [cf. Job 26:8].’...Although He willed to fix the liquid waters there, is this any greater miracle than that, as Scripture says, ‘He upon nothing hangeth the earth [Job 26:7; cf. Is. 40:12].’” [On Genesis, Book One [1:6-8], 48:76, 77]

Day 2


St. Basil: “Now we must say something about the nature of the firmament, and why it received the order to hold the middle place between the waters. Scripture constantly makes use of the word firmament to express extraordinary strength.... ‘I made firm her pillars [Ps. 75:3].’ ‘Praise ye Him in the firmament of His power [Ps. 150:1].’ It is the custom of Scripture to call firmament all that is strong and unyielding. It even uses the word to denote the condensation of the air. God says, ‘For, behold, I am He that strengthens the thunder [Amos 4:13].’... Here then, according to me, is a firm substance, capable of retaining the fluid and unstable element water; and as, according to the common acceptation, it appears that the firmament owes its origin to water, we must not believe that [the firmament] resembles frozen water or any other matter produced by the filtration of water. For I am taught by Scripture not to allow my imagination to wander too far afield.” [“Hom. III(4),” Hexaemeron]

St. Ambrose (ca. 339-397): “He Who commanded the waters to be separated by the interposition of the firmament lying between them provided also the matter of their remaining in position, once they were divided and separated. The word of God gives nature its power and an enduring quality to its matter, as long as He Who established it wishes it to be so, as it is written: ‘He established them unto the age, and unto the age of the age; He Himself set an ordinance, and it shall not pass away [Ps. 148:6].’ He said this concerning these waters which you say cannot exist in the higher parts of the heavens; for listen to the words which precede: ‘Praise ye Him, the heavens of the heavens—and thou water, the one above the heavens [Ps. 148:4].’” [“Hom. 3,” Ch. 3(10), Hexameron, FC, 42:53, 54]

Since the Scriptures use the word “heaven” to denote different things, St. John of Damascus clarifies: “The heaven of heaven, then, is the first heaven which is above the firmament. So here we have two heavens, for God called the firmament also heaven. And it is customary in the divine Scripture to speak of the air also as heavens, because we see it above us.... So here we have three heavens, as the divine apostle said (2 Cor. 12:2)” [Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk II, Ch 6]. Thus, according to St. John, the “third heaven” to which the Apostle Paul was carried off is the spiritual realm above the firmament and the waters above, which mark the boundary of the physical universe.

St. Basil further describes the properties of the firmament: “Therefore we read: ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it be dividing between water and water [Gen. 1:6].’ I have said what the word firmament in Scripture means. It is not in reality a firm and solid substance which has weight and resistance; this name would otherwise have better suited the earth. But, as the substance of superincumbent bodies is light, without consistency, and cannot be grasped by any one of our senses, it is in comparison with these pure and imperceptible substances that the firmament has received its name.” [“Hom. III(7),” Hexaemeron]

Thus, St. Basil describes the firmament as “strong and unyielding” but also “imperceptible.” This is in accord with the Planck ether described earlier.

Dr. Robert Sungenis observes, “2 Peter 3:6 indicates that the original water surrounding the Earth was later employed in the Great Flood (Genesis 7-9). This does not necessarily mean that the ‘waters above the firmament’ were called down;...rather, the water left behind in the cosmos after the expansion of the firmament could have been accumulated and dispersed on the Earth at the proper time, and its source is thus appropriately called the ‘windows of the heavens (Genesis 7:11; 8:2).’ Since, as noted above, astronomers have discovered huge water clouds in space that stretch in length by as much as 27 times the distance from the sun to Pluto and could thus fill our oceans a billion times over, it is certainly reasonable to surmise that such massive deposits of water in space could have been used in the Great Flood.” [GWW vol. 2, pp. 462, 463.]

Furthermore, Dr. Stott speculates that the Cosmic Microwave Background that we observe in all directions in the universe may be the low-energy radiation coming from the waters above the firmament. The CMB has a temperature of 2.7 degrees Kelvin (-270 degrees Celsius), very cold.

So how do we know that the firmament is not just the atmosphere around the earth, and the “waters above” are not clouds? Because on day four, God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, to divide between day and night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. And let them be for light in the firmament of the heaven, so as to shine upon the earth, and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light for regulating the day and the lesser light for regulating the night, the stars also. And God placed them in the firmament of the heaven, so as to shine upon the earth. (Gen. 1:14-17)

So God “placed” the sun, moon, and stars “in the firmament of the heaven,” and we certainly know where these celestial bodies are. As we quoted from St. Basil earlier, “The sun and moon and stars are in the firmament.”

St. Athanasius: “The firmament is to divide between waters and waters, and to be a place to set the stars in.” [Discourse Against the Arians, No. 2, Ch 16; 17] The stars are not in our atmosphere.

Also, as was quoted earlier, St. Bede contrasts the waters below which we can see with the waters above which “we are informed about” from the holy Scriptures. The waters above are not visible to us like the clouds are, so the firmament is not just our atmosphere. Rather, the firmament includes both the realm of the stars and our atmosphere, since God said on the fifth day, “Let the waters bring forth reptiles having life, and winged creatures flying above the earth in the firmament of heaven, and it was so (Gen. 1:20).” The same phrase, “the firmament of heaven,” describes both the atmosphere and the realm of the stars.

Geocentrist Malcolm Bowden makes a pertinent observation about the fourth day of creation. “The sun was created on day four. How then did the earth rotate around a non-existent sun for three days? And when the sun was created on day four, did God give the earth a jolt and send it on its circular route around the sun? Surely the most obvious explanation is that the earth was created first of all the universe as the Bible says and the universe rotated around it, with all the planets created later on day four.” [The Basic Scientific Arguments for Geocentricity, 1999.]

We are cautioned by St. Methodius (250-311) that “it is a dangerous thing wholly to despise the literal meaning, as has been said, and especially of Genesis, where the unchangeable decrees of God for the constitution of the universe are set forth, in agreement with which, even until now, the world is perfectly ordered, most beautifully in accordance with a perfect rule.” [Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse III, Ch 2]

B) Joshua’s Long Day

One of the strongest passages that supports geocentrism is found in the book of Jesus (Joshua) of Navee, the successor of Moses, who led the Israelites into the promised land.

Then Jesus (Joshua) spoke to the Lord, in the day in which the Lord delivered the Amorite into the power of Israel, when he destroyed them in Gabaon, and they were destroyed from before the children of Israel: and Jesus said, “Let the sun stand over against Gabaon, and the moon over against the valley of Ælon.” And the sun and the moon stood still, until God executed vengeance on their enemies; and the sun stood still in the midst of heaven; it did not proceed to set till the end of one day. And there was not such a day either before or after, so that God should hearken to a man, because the Lord fought on the side of Israel. (Joshua 10:12-14)

The Church fathers interpret this event in a straightforward, literal way.

St. Justin Martyr (ca. 100-ca. 165) says to Trypho the Jew: “The former, after he had been named Jesus, and after he had received strength from His Spirit, caused the sun to stand still.” [Dialogue with Trypho, Ch CXIII]

St. Anastasios: “Jesus, son of Navee, was a prototype of Jesus Christ. He made the sun stand still at Gibeon, and then the moon above the deep valley [Josh. 10:12, 13], the two opposite one another, as it was in the beginning. When these two lights were brought together and fixed, standing firm, as a type of the beings Christ and the Church, the enemies were slaughtered by them [Josh. 10:16-27].” [Hexaemeron, “Book 4,” § XI.2, p. 145]

St. Jerome (347-420): “In Exodus we read that the battle was fought against Amalek while Moses prayed, and the whole people fasted until the evening. Joshua, the son of Nun, bade sun and moon stand still, and the victorious army prolonged its fast for more than a day.” [Against Jovinianus, Bk 2]

St. John Chrysostom: “Therefore it was, that Jesus, the son of Navee, said, ‘Let the sun stand still in Gibeon, and the moon over against the valley of Ajalon.’ And again the prophet Isaias made the sun to retrace his steps, under the reign of Hezekiah; and Moses gave orders to the air, and the sea, the earth, and the rocks. Elisaios changed the nature of the waters; the Three Children triumphed over the fire. Thou seest how God hath provided for us on either hand; leading us by the beauty of the elements to the knowledge of His divinity; and, by their feebleness, not permitting us to lapse into the worship of them.” [Homilies on the Statues, “Homily X”]

In another place, St. Chrysostom states, “The friend of God (Joshua) commanded the creatures of his Friend, or rather he besought his Friend, and the servants yielded, and he below gave command to those above.” [Homilies on Hebrews, “Homily VIII”]

This historical event is confirmed elsewhere in the Scriptures, as in Sirach 46:4: “Did not the sun go back by his means? and was not one day as long as two?”

Some people argue that this passage in the book of Joshua is only using the “language of appearances,” and what really happened was that the earth stopped rotating, so the sun appeared to stop in the sky. Dr. Gerardus Bouw comments: “Until about the middle of this century, most critics of Joshua’s long day had the earth suddenly stopping its rotation. Such a catastrophic change, unless it were supernaturally controlled, would have to occur very slowly or else the earth would be torn to pieces and the oceans would have left their basins and washed over the continents.” [A Geocentricity Primer, pp. 43, 44.]

Also, the fact that the moon as well as the sun stopped moving is an important detail. If, in fact, it was only the earth that stopped rotating, the moon would have continued to move across the sky. Therefore, heliocentrists would be forced to conclude that God miraculously stopped the moon, but not the sun. This is a contradiction, that is, to say that when Jesus commanded the sun and moon to stand still, only the moon literally stopped moving.

C) King Hezekiah

And the word of the Lord came to Esaias, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah (Ezekias), Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, and seen thy tears: behold, I will add to thy time fifteen years. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians: and I will defend this city. And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord, that God will do this thing; behold, I will turn back the shadow of the degrees of the dial by which ten degrees on the house of thy father the sun has gone down—I will turn back the sun the ten degrees; so the sun went back the ten degrees by which the shadow had gone down. (Isaias 38:4-8)

St. John Cassian (360-435) discusses this miracle for King Hezekiah: “He was a man who, after the close of his life had been decreed and the day of his death determined by the Lord’s sentence, prevailed by a single prayer to extend the limits set to his life by fifteen years, the sun returning by ten steps, on which it had already shone in its course towards its setting, and by its return dispersing those lines which the shadow that followed its course had already marked, and by this giving two days in one to the whole world, by a stupendous miracle contrary to the fixed laws of nature.” [Twelve Books on the Institutes, Bk XI, Ch X]

St. Hippolytus of Rome: “We find in the commentaries, written by our predecessors, that day had thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course, and reached the tenth hour, and the shadow had gone down by the ten degrees in the house of the temple, the sun turned back again by the ten degrees, according to the word of the Lord, and there were thus twenty hours. And again, the sun accomplished its own proper course, according to the common law, and reached its setting. And thus there were thirty-two hours [of daylight].” [Fragments, III, Discourse on Hezekiah]

St. Kyril of Jerusalem (ca. 315-386): “And he, who could not hope to live because of the prophetic sentence, had fifteen years added to his life, and for the sign the sun ran backward in his course. Well then, for Hezekiah’s sake the sun turned back, but for Christ the sun was eclipsed, not retracing his steps, but suffering eclipse, and therefore shewing the difference between them, I mean between Hezekiah and Jesus.” [Catechetical Lectures, II, 15]

Again, St. Hippolytus speaks of this miracle as well as that of Jesus of Navee: “For when the sun had run its course to the tenth hour, it returned again. And again, when Joshua the son of Nun was fighting against the Amorites, when the sun was now inclining to its setting, and the battle was being pressed closely, Joshua, being anxious lest the heathen host should escape on the descent of night, cried out, saying, ‘Sun, stand thou still in Gibeon; and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon,’ until I vanquish this people. And the sun stood still, and the moon, in their places, so that day was one of twenty-four hours. And in the time of Hezekiah the moon also turned back along with the sun, that there might be no collision between the two elemental bodies, by their bearing against each other in defiance of law. And Merodach the Chaldean, king of Babylon, being struck with amazement at that time—for he studied the science of astrology, and measured the courses of these bodies carefully—on learning the cause, sent a letter and gifts to Hezekiah, just as also the wise men from the East did to Christ.” [Fragments, I, Discourse on Hezekiah]

D) The Psalms

Psalm 118:90: Thy truth is to generation and generation; the earth didst Thou found firmly, and it abideth.

Ps. 92:1: The Lord reigneth as King, He clothed Himself with majesty; the Lord clothed Himself with power and He girded Himself; for He firmly established the inhabited world which shall not be shaken (or “moved” in other translations).

Thus, the earth is so secure in its fixed position that not only is it prohibited from revolving or rotating, but it cannot even be shaken or slightly perturbed from its place because it was “firmly established.” But if the world “shall not be shaken,” why does the psalmist say elsewhere, “The earth was shaken because of the presence of the Lord, because of the presence of the God of Jacob (Ps. 113:7)”?

We can see that many times the Scriptures speak of the earth moving or being shaken in reference to God’s judgment or the end of the world, as in Psalm 17:8: “And the earth was shaken, and trembling was produced, and the foundations of the mountains were troubled and were shaken, for God was angry with them.” Again, Psalm 45:6 says, “The Most High gave forth His voice, the earth was shaken.” St. Chrysostom, in the same way, interprets a similar passage from the prophecy of Isaias (13:13)which says that the earth shakesas a reference to the Last Judgment [Letters to Theodore, “Letter I,” 12]. We could also understand some of the references to the earth being shaken as referring to earthquakes.

Otherwise, how could we possibly understand the following passage: “Take up sacrifices, and be ye entering into His courts; make obeisance to the Lord in His holy court; let all the earth be shaken because of His presence. Say among the nations that ‘the Lord reigneth as King, for also He set right the inhabited world which shall not be shaken (Ps. 95:8, 9).’” So verse 8 says, “let the earth be shaken,” but then, in the very next verse, it says that the world “shall not be shaken.” How are we to understand this? Clearly the eighth verse is referring to a figurative shaking of the earth, since it says “because of His presence.” The ninth verse, on the other hand, refers to the earth’s immovable position in the universe. After all, if the world “shall not be shaken,” could that apply to the earth’s political powers or kingdoms? Certainly not; kingdoms rise and fall. In addition, since the earth is shaken during an earthquake, and since the earth is figuratively shaken when the Scriptures speak of the judgment or presence of God, the only option left is that the world “shall not be shaken” with respect to its physical location in the universe.

If heliocentrists want to interpret the words “shall not be shaken” as referring to the earth having a stable and unchanging orbit around the sun, this is also wrong according to modern scientists, who say that the earth wobbles in its axis of rotation as well as in the shape of its orbit.

Another passage of interest is Psalm 103:6: “The One founding firmly the earth for her security; she shall not be tilted unto the age of the age.” As was mentioned earlier, the earth is not tilted. This also precludes the earth’s supposed axis of rotation from wobbling and varying over time.

In the Scriptures, the sun always moves around the earth. St. Gregory the Theologian (329-389) comments on Psalm 18:5-6, which says, “In the sun did He set for Himself His tabernacle; and he (the sun) is like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber. He will rejoice exceedingly like a giant to run his course. From the farthest point of the heaven is his going forth, and his goal is the farthest end of the heaven; and there is not one who shall hide from his heat.” St. Gregory says, “The sun is extolled by David for its beauty, its greatness, its swift course, and its power, splendid as a bridegroom, majestic as a giant; while, from the extent of its circuit, it has such power that it equally sheds its light from one end of heaven to the other, and the heat thereof is in no wise lessened by distance.” [Funeral Orations for St. Basil, 66]

St. John Chrysostom: “And again, David saith of the sun, that ‘he is like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course.’ Seest thou how he places before thee the beauty of this star, and its greatness? For even as a bridegroom when he appears from some stately chamber, so the sun sends forth his rays under the East; and adorning the heaven as it were with a saffron-colored veil, and making the clouds like roses, and running unimpeded all the day; he meets no obstacle to interrupt his course. Beholdest thou, then, his beauty?” [Homilies on the Statues, “Homily X”]

E) Other Scriptures

Ecclesiastes 1:5: “And the sun arises, and the sun goes down and draws toward its place.”

Isaias 66:1: “Thus saith the Lord, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” A footstool is not a footstool if it moves.

1 Esdras 4:34: “Great is the earth, high is the heaven, swift is the sun in his course, for he compasseth the heavens round about, and fetcheth his course again to his own place in one day.”

Job 26:7: “He hangs the earth upon nothing.” And why should the Bible say this if in fact the earth is not hanging on nothing, but whirling around at a hundred thousand kilometers per hour on the end of a gravitational cord from the sun?

Conclusion

It is true that sometimes the Church fathers made errors when they spoke about scientific topics. However, when it comes to geocentrism, they unanimously agree. There is a clear “consensus of the fathers.” After all, have the Church fathers ever been unanimously wrong about anything?

Our interpretation of the book of Genesis and the position of humanity in the universe are foundational to our Faith. Our earth is special. It was the first thing God created. Everything else in the cosmos was made for our sake. On this very earth, the Son of God incarnate walked among us and accomplished our salvation. Now contrast this worldview to the prevailing secular model: Our universe made itself out of nothing and exploded in a Big Bang. Our planet (Gk. wanderer), sun, and galaxy are lost in a desolate sea of space, in a forgotten corner of the universe. We evolved by chance from a pool of chemicals, and there is nothing special about us, or even our universe, since there are probably an infinite number of universes that are continually popping into existence out of nothing.

Clearly, proof that the earth is the center of the whole universe would completely overthrow such a worldview, which is why the scientific establishment rejects the evidence for geocentrism with such vehemence. We, on the other hand, as Orthodox Christians are not bound to bow before the idol of modern “science.” We are already a minority anyway if we believe that God created the world in six literal days 7500 years ago.

So let us be encouraged by the words that St. Paul wrote to his disciple: “O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to thy care, turning thyself away from the profane and vain utterances and oppositions of that falsely-named knowledge [1 Tim. 6:20].”


Archbishop Gregory
Dormition Skete
P.O. Box 3177
Buena Vista, CO 81211-3177
USA
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