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August 5, 2020

The Panagia Guides Two Lost Women in Tinos in 1971


Styliani Marabotou, a resident of Tinos, was standing at the door of her house on the eve of the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, on the 14th of August 1971. The island was flooded with people and accommodation for pilgrims no longer existed. Two women with a small child came up to her and asked for a room, just to put the child to sleep for a while. She replied that she had no room, but told them to "come and rest where we will be."

The women then headed to the Church of the Panagia Evangelistria and stayed for the vigil until three in the morning. Because the child started crying, they took him to go to the lady who would host them. When they left the church and went down Megalocharis Avenue, they could not remember where the house was. They had not asked for a name and were standing awkwardly in the middle of the street. At that moment a woman approached them and told them that she would lead them. They did not think how she could possibly know who they were.

When they arrived and knocked on the door, the housewife, seeing three instead of two, said: "I have no place for you and now more of you came?" Then the stranger asked: "Is there no place for me?" and she disappeared. The two women then recovered their senses and began to ask: "How did she know us?" "What was it?" "How did she know the house?"

The unknown woman had accompanied them through the narrow alleys of the island to this house that in 1823, on the first night it was found, on January 30th, her newly-discovered Icon passed through the same door to be kept in the house of Stamatelos Kangadis. Stamatelos Kangadis, who headed up the excavations in 1822-1823 and who first held the wonderworking Icon of the Panagia Evangelistria when it emerged from the soil, had formerly owned the home in which the two women with their small child were being hosted.