Two Videos of Icons of Saint Paisios the Athonite Streaming Myrrh

The first video was sent to EKKLISIA ONLINE by the Vasiliadis family (owners of a catering business) and specifically Eleni Vasiliadis from Ippokratio Politia near Athens, stating that the icon of Saint Paisios comes from a private chapel located on the borders of the estate they own, which the fire that broke out in the last few days just touched and then changed course and the church and the house were saved, while on August 11, from the morning, the icon streamed myrrh which is being wiped with cotton and kept.

How the Meryem of a Troubled Turk in Chios Became a Source of Great Veneration in Ierapetra, Crete

In 1821 Turkish troops were ordered to suppress the Revolution in Greece by any means. Among the hunted were two Greeks from Reisdere, a coastal village in Asia Minor not far from Smyrna (Izmir). They were seeking to escape Chios at the time, which had been hell on earth for the Greeks there, with a large amount of them slaughtered and the island burning with a consuming fire from one end to the other. After this, with men hard to find, despairing women wept and lamented as they too were slaughtered, abused, dragged through the streets and sold into slavery.

In such an atmosphere, the two Greeks from Reisdere took every precaution to not be noticed by a Turk and find a means by which they could cross the sea and get back home. Suddenly, a certain Turk approached them, guided somehow by the Mother of God, holding in his hands an icon of the Virgin Mary. With trembling hands he extended the icon to them and begged them to take it, saying:

"Take this Meryem." (Meryem is the Turkish pronunciation of Mariam or Mary.)

Image of Christ Appears to Weep and Open Its Shut Eyes

On April 19, 2021 a video recording of a fresco of the face of Christ in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem seems to capture a shocking image. According to eyewitnesses, Christ opens and closes his eyes and weeps, and the video appears to capture the moment. Whether this is true or some sort of an optical illusion, it is an interesting phenomenon to say the least. The image specifically is the Holy Mandylion, which is based on the tale of when Christ sent by request His miraculously imprinted image on a handkerchief to King Abgar of Edessa to heal him of his leprosy. I find this to be a bit of an oxymoron - a image of a miraculous handkerchief weeping when handkerchiefs are often used to wipe away tears. Many believe that since the Holy Mandylion was used to cure the leprosy of the king, perhaps this sign has something to do with the current pandemic.

 

First Sunday of the Great Fast - Sunday of Orthodoxy (Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos)

 By Archimandrite Epiphanios Theodoropoulos

The first Sunday of Great Lent is called the "First Sunday of the Fast" or the "Sunday of Orthodoxy". It is called the First Sunday of the Fast because it is the first Sunday of the Great Fast, namely Great Lent. It is called the Sunday of Orthodoxy because on this day we celebrate the restoration of Holy Icons and the Triumph of the Orthodox Faith against the terrible heresy of the Iconoclasts, who were heretics that did not accept ascribing honor to Holy Icons, instead calling this honor "idolatry".

The Wonderworking Icon of Saint Anna with the Theotokos from Smyrna

The icon of Saint Anna with the twelve-year-old Theotokos was originally located in Smyrna of Asia Minor. During the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922, the Turks set the city of Smyrna on fire to banish the Greeks who formed the majority population of the city, including the Cathedral of Saint Photini in the city square, in which was this icon of Saint Anna and the Theotokos. The icon was saved from the fire by a faithful Christian.

Saint Chrysostomos, Metropolitan of Smyrna at the time, who was ripped to pieces and slaughtered by the Turkish mob, would bring childless couples to this icon. He would have them fast for forty days, say prayers to Saint Anna, and at the end of the forty days to commune of the Divine Eucharist. When this was completed, the faithful couple could be sure that they would now be able to have a child. And when they did have a child, they would make a metallic offering to the icon. Because this icon was so wonderworking, it was full of vow offerings, even from childless Muslims who would come and pray before this icon and become partakers of the miraculous grace.

The Wonderworking Icon of the Venerable Laurentios in Nea Ionia

In the Chapel of the Venerable Laurentios, which is inside the Metropolitan Church of the Holy Unmercenaries in Nea Ionia, a northern suburb of Athens, is kept an old and wonderworking icon of the Venerable Laurentios, who is celebrated by the Church on March 7th. This icon was brought to Nea Ionia in September of 1914 from Asia Minor by Georgia Kallou. She had originally placed the icon in a chapel next to Omorfokklisia in Athens. There crowds of pious believers would come daily to venerate the Holy Icon, and many miracles were reported through the intercessions of the Venerable Laurentios.

On the Blood-Flowing Icon of Saint Theodore in Karsatas (St. Anastasios of Sinai)

Commemoration of the Miracle of the Blood-Flowing Icon of
Saint Theodore in Karsatas (Feast Day - June 8)

By St. Anastasios of Sinai

About four miles from Damascus, there is a village called Karsatas, in which village there is a church dedicated to Saint Theodore. Saracens came into this church, and lived there, causing every kind of filth and uncleanness from women and children and animals. One day many of them were sitting together and one of them shot an arrow at the icon of Saint Theodore and hit it on his right shoulder, and immediately there came out blood, which flowed to the bottom of the icon, while they all had looked at the sign that had taken place and the arrow sticking in the shoulder of the Saint and the blood flowing. And even though such a sign had taken place, those who saw it were not moved to a sense of sin. Neither did he who shot the arrow repent, nor were any of them troubled in themselves, nor did they leave the church, nor did they cease defiling it. Nevertheless vengeance came upon them.

Commemoration of the Miracle of the Icon of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Beirut

At the fourth session of the Seventh Ecumenical Synod in 787, Saint Peter, Bishop of Nicomedia, in defending the necessity of icon veneration, presented an account attributed to Saint Athanasius the Great about a miracle which occurred in the city of Beirut (Berytus) of Phoenicia.

In this city, near the Jewish synagogue, lived a certain Christian. When he moved to another place, he left behind an icon of our Lord Jesus Christ. A Jew, who moved into the house, paid no attention to the icon. Once, his friend noticed the image of Jesus Christ on the wall, and said to the homeowner, “Why do you, a Jew, have an icon in your house?” He then went to the synagogue and reported this transgression of Jewish law.

Large Crowds Gathering to Venerate a Bleeding Icon of Saint Nektarios in Rhodes

Hellas News published the following news report online on August 5th (see video below), which speaks about an icon of Saint Nektarios on the island of Rhodes that "bleeds", particularly from the hands, and has been doing so continuously for many months, bringing large crowds from all over the island to venerate it and become partakers of its wonderworking grace.

Narration Concerning the Icon of Our Lord Made Without Hands and Maria the Patrician

Fourth Acheiropoieton Image of the Lord (Feast Day - August 11)

Verses

A strange wonder gushes forth numerous wonders,

Indeed the divine form of the wonderworking Logos.

During the reign of the pious Emperor Tiberius (574-582), in the year 576, a great and amazing miracle took place. A woman named Maria, who was from a senatorial family and who loved Christ, and was a patrician according to office, as well as a widow, suffered with a difficult and incurable disease. Despairing therefore of all human help, she dedicated herself to our Lord Jesus Christ, who placed within her heart the following good reasoning: This woman decided to have the Priests that minister to the holy despotic icon of the Lord made without hands called,* pleading for them to come to her. When they arrived, the woman fell at their feet, saying: "I beg you, my masters, because God has forgiven me to be chastised for my many sins, and by this dreadful suffering and incurable disease, for this reason I the miserable one would love, although I am unworthy, to receive into my frugal home through your holy prayers, the despotic and made without hands image of our Lord for forty days, so that perhaps it would incline the Lord's mercy towards me." Knowing the good life and spiritual state of the woman, the Priests brought the holy image to her home, and as soon as they opened the case in which it was contained, the woman fell down and venerated it. She then took a thin fabric of cotton and measured the holy icon, and then placed the fabric over the holy icon, putting it in a clean chest which she fettered, and placed it in the chapel which was in her home. Lighting a bright lamp before the icon, she ministered to it for forty days.

Icon of St. Nilus the Myrrhgusher Gushes Myrrh in his Native Village

On the Saturday of Renewal Week, 7 May 2016, the feast of Saint Nilus the Myrrhgusher was celebrated brilliantly in his hometown of Agios Petros in Kynouria. He was born there in 1601.

Following the Divine Liturgy, a procession with his wonderworking icon and sacred relic took place around the village, in the exact place where the young Saint Nilus walked his initial steps as a child.

Cross in a Church in West Ukraine Starts Bleeding (photos)

April 22, 2016

Interfax

A wooden altar cross started bleeding in St. Yekaterina Orthodox Church in the town of Zdolbunov in the Rovno Region of Ukraine.

"After the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, when I took a cross for proclaiming the closing prayer, a dark spot was discovered near the left eye of Christ the Savior, its color looked like human blood. Looking closer, we saw a flow of blood. To examine the blood we made several enlarged photographs. When we looked at them, we saw two, not one, flows running from the eyes of the Savior," the priest Fr. Alexander was quoted as saying by the press service of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

A Historic Athonite Icon of Saint Haralambos in the Hut of Saint Akakios

By Monk Patapios of Kavsokalyva

One of the sacred treasures of the Hut of Saint Akakios, which belongs to the Skete of the Holy Trinity of Kavsokalyva, is the historic portable icon which bears the inscription "Saint Haralambos the Rapid Helper", the work of an Athonite factory from the mid-18th century.

The Wonderworking Icon of Saint Xenophontos in Mazotos, Cyprus

The Wonderworking Icon of Sts. Xenophon, Maria, Arcadius and John

Mazotos is a village 22 km away from Larnaca in Cyprus, close to the sea. The community today numbers about 1,200 predominantly Greek speaking Cypriots but with about 350 expatriates who are there on a permanent basis as retirees.

At a distance of half a kilometer from the heart of the village of Mazotos, in the northeast, there is the Chapel of Saint Xenophontos the Xorinos which dates to 1821. The icon of the Saint that also depicts his wife Maria and sons Arkadios and John is also dated to 1821, according to an inscription on the icon. It was returned to the village by Hadji-Demetrios, a camel man from Voukolida of Karpasia, who came to and was married at Mazotos.

It was a summer night, in the middle of the century before last, when Saint Xenophontos appeared to him and said:

"Wake up to go and bring me to Mazotos, and the village will see good things from me."

New Venerable Martyr Nektarios the Agiannanites (+ 1922)

Nektarios came from Vourla of Smyrna. He first lived as a monk in the Hut of the Nativity of Christ at the Skete of Saint Anna on the Holy Mountain. Then he went to the Hut of the Archangels, where he took care of Elder Anthony from Kythera and his brother Chrysanthos, who from his constant standing his feet withered. He was then invited by Elder Azariah (†1947) to the Hut of the Honorable Forerunner. Also, he was a good iconographer. One of his works is the wonderworking icon of Saint Irene Chrysovalantou in Lykovrysi Attica.

The Miraculous Discovery of the Icon of St. Paraskevi in Ierochori, Kastoria

The Church of St. Paraskevi in Ieropigi

Saint Paraskevi, according to her biography, was born in 117 A.D. in Rome from Greek parents. At 20 years old she left her homeland and came to Macedonia, where she preached Christianity, and lived in asceticism in various places, and having worked various wonders she was martyred for her faith in an unknown city, near Thessaloniki.

Some researchers have hypothesized that this city of the martyrdom of Saint Paraskevi was in the region of Kastoria. This view is supported by the fact that the residents of Orestida especially honor Saint Pareskevi, over many centuries, and they have many sacred churches dedicated to her venerable name.

The Wonderworking Icon of the Holy Trinity in Rodopolis

The persecution against holy icons from the time of iconoclasm is well known. During the Turkish occupation there was another persecution against holy icons by the unbelieving Turks. This is what happened to the holy icon of the Holy Trinity, which a Turk struck with an ax in Smyrna, but after seeing that it could not be damaged, he threw it in the sea and it was taken by the waves.

After an unknown number of years there was a sailor out at sea who was shipwrecked. In danger of drowning by the waves, he supplicated God to save him and, O the miracle, the wooden icon of the Holy Trinity appeared before him, upside down, and for this reason he merely considered it a plank of wood, on which he was able to support himself until he got to dry land.

The Panagia is Making Her Presence Known in Rhodes

On Wednesday, 20 August 2014, Orthodox faithful in the Sacred Church of Panagia Katholiki in Kremasti, Rhodes were speaking of a miracle they all witnessed.

More specifically and according to what has so far become known, a tall woman dressed in the black of an employee at a security company entered the church on Wednesday night. She went to the central oil lamp hanging before the icon of the Panagia and gave it a swing, then she left the church and disappeared without being noticed by those in attendance.

The Church Burned, But the Icon Shines

In August 2012, in the mountain village of Pertouli within the province of Trikala in Greece, the stone Church of Saint Kyriaki entirely burned from the inside out. Though the flames protruded outside the front door and engulfed the area, the icon of St. Kyriaki remained unharmed and shined in the sunlight despite the devastation and burning of its frame.

Wondrous Discovery of an Icon of St. Irene Chrysovalantou in Kefallonia

John Papadatos

June 21, 2014

InKefalonia.gr

The apple tree "spoke" and showed the secret it hid in its roots for years! A truly beautiful story was revealed a few days ago outside the church of Valsamata (Pammegiston Taxiarchon = All-Great Ruling Order of Archangels).