It is difficult to objectively assess the reality of intercessions. Islam and Hinduism, to mention only two major religions, have lengthy lists of miracles and intercessions which have (allegedly) taken place as a result of prayers to their various saints and gods.
Well, there is alwaya the incorruptible relics of St. Spyridon, which are always found to be 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and whose shoes become worn out in the course of a year…
Then there is the Romanian village where in 2009 St. Nektarios of Pentapolis showed up and baptized several children, heard confessions and served the Eucharist. Due to a shortage of priests, there had not been a baptism or divine liturgy for several years. Interestingly St. Panteleimon reposed in the 1920s; the villagers did not know who he was but described him accurately, and his signature in the parish register was determined to be authentic through forensic examination.
We also have the myrhh streaming relics of St. Nicholas of Myra, which are now located in Bari after having been stolen from the Orthodox, but they continue to produce myrhh (fortunately the Catholics of late have been returning many of the relics the Venetians and other Western European powers stole from us, such as the head of St. Mark).
Also, John Calvin did once make an error which would doubtless have embarassed him had he lived an extra 400 years. He claimed there were enough relics of the Holy Cross to make a Galleon, but when, in the 19th century, a French scientist calculated the mass of all known relics of the Holy Cross, he came up with only 1/3rd of the total mass. To my knowledge this was before it became known the Ethiopian Orthodox have an entire wing of the cross. Which they deserve to have, given their indefatigable faith in the face of immense suffering at the hands of fascists, communists and Islamist terrorists. And who else prays in church for six hours on a Sunday, abstains from alcohol except for one cup of mild beer on a couple of church feasts, and also from marijuana (the prohibition of which is the main stumbling block for prospective converts from Rastafarianism, but nonetheless the Ethiopian Orthodox are growing in the West Indies despite their prohibition of marijuana), and also abstain from meat for more than half of the year, like their Eastern Orthodox brethren?
I could go on concerning miracles but I suggest instead you seek to experience some for yourself.
Also, your argument is fallacious - by the logic you employed
@bbbbbbb we might as well not believe in God. Christianity is not defined by excluding every doctrine believed in by false religions. Indeed, we know, from Scripture, that our adversary the devil seeks to make the heathen religions as close to the true faith as possible, in order to draw us away from Christ our true God. Islam is proof of this.
And also, I would hope you are aware of the fact that the veneration of the saints in Christianity predated Islam by several centuries. It began chiefly as veneration of the Apostles, the Theotokos and the Martyrs. Indeed in early Christian writings we find that the Eucharist was celebrated on the tombs of martyrs, and the churches later built on these locations were called
martyria. Islam copied a great deal from Christianity, to the point that St. John of Damascus in writing about it in the eighth century treated it as yet another heretical sect, like the Manicheans, Valentinians, Arians, Marcionites, Ebionites, Ophites, Nestorians and other heretics.
