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Each year on September 29 the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. However, in the book of Tobit when Raphael reveals his identity, the archangel says, “I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand and serve before the Glory of the Lord” (Tobit 12:15).
The passage from Tobit then begs the question, “If Michael, Gabriel and Raphael are three of the archangels, what are the names of the other four?”
This question has been taken up by various branches of Christianity, who often turn to the Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish writing that is not accepted as canonical in either in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Catholic Bible.
Enoch lists seven archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Raguel, Phanuel, and Sariel. The name Uriel also appears in 2 Esdras, another Jewish text that is not included in the official canon of scripture, but is accepted by some Orthodox Churches. Uriel is sometimes even depicted in icons or the stained glass windows of Christian churches.
The fact that some branches of Christianity accept these extra-biblical names can often lead to confusion. The Catholic Church has been very clear about this issue and states in the Directory on popular piety, “The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael, whose names are contained in Holy Scripture.”
This has been affirmed by various Church councils in the past.
Essentially, as Catholics we only know for certain three names of God’s angels. Any other name is “suspect” because it is not part of divine revelation. We do not know if the name Uriel is inspired by God, a human invention, or the name of a malevolent spirit.
This is important to remember, as there exists a popular type of “angel worship” whose adherents compose prayers to these specific angels and invite them into their lives. Various occult traditions list “names” of countless other angels. Invoking these names is an extremely dangerous pathway to open, since other spiritual beings (much less friendly than the archangels) may come instead. Keep in mind that the demons are fallen angels.
There is much in the spirit world that we do not know (such as the names of the other four archangels), and that is okay. The Church asks us to abide by what we do know, and in that way we can stay faithful to God and the message he gave us in the Bible.
Read more:
5 Things you need to know about archangels
And today we celebrate...