Mexico's church warns of fake priests
Church officials in nine of Mexico's archdioceses told Reuters that unauthorized “priests” are performing funerals, baptisms and weddings, and that the problem has grown since the pandemic. The archdiocese of Mexico City estimates hundreds are operating. Officials blame a shortage of clergy, about one priest for every 7,000 Catholics. Read at Reuters via Yahoo News →
Alexander, the false prophet of Abonoteichus
What happened then
In the small Black Sea town of Abonoteichus, a man named Alexander set up an oracle of a new snake god, Glycon, which he presented as a new form of the healing god Asclepius. Pilgrims paid for answers to sealed questions, and even a prominent Roman senator, Rutilianus, became a believer and married Alexander's daughter.
What caused it
Our main source, the satirist Lucian, says Alexander showed a large tame snake fitted with a false, human-like head and opened sealed questions in secret. It was an anxious age, struck by the Antonine Plague from about 165, and people wanted healing and certainty. Lucian says Alexander even sold a protective verse against the plague.
How it was resolved
Nobody shut him down. Lucian writes that Alexander barred Christians and Epicureans, the two groups that mocked the oracle, from his rites, and that Lucian himself barely escaped when Alexander tried to have him drowned. Alexander died in old age, and Lucian published his exposé afterward.
How it turned out
Alexander got the town renamed Ionopolis, today's İnebolu, and Glycon was worshipped for generations, as coins and statues show. Lucian's account still stands as the classic portrait of religious fraud feeding on people's real spiritual needs.
Sources: Lucian, Alexander the Oracle-monger (tr. Fowler) · Wikipedia: Glycon
Further reading: Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox