Images of the Celestial Messenger. Part 7.

This is the seventh and last part of the series of images from the archives of Italian-American Giuseppe Maria Abbate (1886-1963), the Celestial Messenger, who claimed to be divine. For more pictures and studies, see the Celestial Messenger page.

The focus of Abbate’s Church, the New Jerusalem Church, was his claims of divine status and his role in salvation history. From the early 1910s, he was known as the Celestial Messenger. Later, his title became Padre Celeste. Still, he also referred to himself as the Universal Protector, St. Michael the Archangel rehumanated, the Prince of Peace, God’s Vicar on Earth, and the Celestial King. Thus, Abbate claimed to be something of a combination of a pope, an archangel, a prophet, a king, and God incarnate.

In his interpretation, each first letter in his full name and title, “Giuseppe Maria Abbate di Carmelo, Padre Celeste”, had a symbolic meaning in Italian, summarizing his mission on earth. In English translation, it was: Jesus, Incarnate, Made Human, Most Holy Immanuel, Eternal Prince of Peace, sent to be reincarnated in Abbate to Bless Everybody Eternally. Divinity Incarnate. Celestial Angel, King, Immanuel, the Messiah Arrived, the Ordained Angel. The Door to God. Elected Religious. Christ, Immanuel, Eternal Light, the Sound of the Seventh Trumpet.

While he believed he possessed supernatural powers already from the beginning of the 1910s, in 1923, Abbate claimed that Christ had appeared to him, showing him the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. From that moment, Abbate was convinced that he was “Jesus rehumanated.” His face was the true face of Christ in the modern era. At the same time, Abbate began to claim that he had lived on Mars before coming to Earth in 1886.