The Mother of God Saves a Man From Drowning

In the Monastery of Saint Savvas in Palestine there is an icon of the Mother of God, in which she is painted in a black garment, as nuns wear. Once someone asked the fathers of this monastery:

"Isn't it a sin to paint the Mother of God as a nun?"

Then they answered him:

"We do not paint the Mother of God as a nun, but this is how the Lady of the world appeared in the depths of the sea to the one who she saved from drowning."

"From drowning?" he asked. "Please tell me this incident, because having been here for many days looking at this icon, I sinfully judged that she should not be painted like this."

On the Consecration of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem (St. Justin Popovich)

 Consecration of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem

September 13

By St. Justin Popovich

On this day we celebrate the consecration of the most glorious and majestic temple in Jerusalem, not the one that King Solomon built on Mount Moriah, but the one that the blessed Emperor Constantine with his glorious mother Helen wonderfully built, cleaning and restoring the holy place defiled by heathen godlessness. After the voluntary suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and His resurrection and ascension to heaven, that holy place, where our salvation was accomplished, was envied and defiled by the enemies of Christ. But the impious Roman emperor Hadrian[1] especially defiled all the holy places by means of demonic idols and sacrifices. For when he on the site of the city of Jerusalem, destroyed by Titus,[2] razed the city, then he ordered that the grave of the Lord be buried with earth and many stones. On the hill where the Lord was crucified, he built a temple to the heathen goddess Aphrodite and placed there her statue, and placed a statue of the god Zeus over the Lord's grave. So there, where the Lamb of God offered himself as a sacrifice to God the Father for our sins, the heathen offered sacrifices to the gods and committed various abominations. Likewise, in Bethlehem, where the Pure One was born from the womb of the Pure One, he set up an idol of Adonis,[3] and that holy place was defiled with shameful acts. And in the place where Solomon's temple was, he erected an idolatrous idol. He named the city itself Aelia Capitolina, because his name was Aelius Hadrianus, and ordered that no one should call it Jerusalem.

The Cave-Tomb of Saint Juvenal, the First Patriarch of Jerusalem

By Fr. Elias Makos

On July 2nd, the Church honors the memory of the first Patriarch of Jerusalem, Juvenal.

The Cave-Tomb of Saint Juvenal in Jerusalem is preserved within the Monastery of Saint Onouphrios in the area of Siloam.

Gradually the Bishopric of Jerusalem, which was founded on the day of Pentecost with the Bishop James the Apostle, developed into a pan-Christian place of pilgrimage, and it became the Metropolis of the Three Palestines (beginning of the 5th century).

A First Look at the Holy Light (Holy Fire) of Jerusalem 2022

Today in Jerusalem the Holy Light, known in the West as Holy Fire, once again descended into the Tomb of Christ as Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem knelt in prayer within the Holy Sepulchre. This ceremony has taken place just about every year for hundreds of years on Holy Saturday, shortly after 2:30pm. With 33 candles in each hand he distributed the Holy Light to the many present. This year, as opposed to last year, coronovirus measures were lifted, allowing for greater participation of the people. Following the Holy Light ceremony, the flame is taken by plane to other Orthodox communities in countries such as Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Georgia and Romania. In Greece the Holy Light is usually received with the welcome of a Head of State.

 

For further reading, see: Holy Light of Jerusalem Resource Page

 

 

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Elder Justin of the Monastery of Jacob's Well Is In Danger and Is Appealing for Help from Palestinian Authorities

 By Maria Giachnakis, Journalist

Extremist criminals from Samaria (Nablus) are setting fire to the Monastery of Jacob's Well to burn the only monk who has been protecting this holy shrine for many years, Elder Justin.

Elder Justin communicates with me very often even at night and when I hear his voice I always understand that he is in danger.

So now once again his voice on the phone could be heard from the pressure and the agony but also the effort he made to speak to me to say: “Please do something, they are throwing oil on me, setting fire to the monastery and they want to burn me too.”

He was stoned a few days ago and this is not the first time he has been sent to the hospital or been abducted. He still has the marks from the attacks on his head.

The Nun Iconographer Who Received Back Her Sight From an Icon She Painted

Nun Thavoria has lived the monastic life atop Mount Tabor in the Holy Land at the Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior. She is originally from Crete. Her work at the Monastery is as an Iconographer, which are sold not only in the Holy Land but throughout Greece and Cyprus. She has painted around 270 icons for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem alone.

In 2012 Nun Thavoria came down with an eye ailment that was making her lose her sight. She couldn't see the food she was eating or the ground she was walking on. Despite this, she continued to paint icons.

Shortly before she began to lose her sight, Nun Thavoria was painting an icon the Panagia Paramythia (of Consolation). She had to stop working on it when her sight began to fade too much.

The Cave Where Saint Elizabeth Hid With Saint John the Baptist and the Tomb of Saint Elizabeth

When the Lord Jesus had been born and Herod began to slaughter the children of Bethlehem, he sent men to find and kill the son of Zechariah – for Herod had heard all that had happened to Zechariah, and how John has been born. Upon seeing the soldiers coming, Elizabeth took John into her arms – he was a year and a half old at that time – fled from the house with him, and ran to a rocky and desolate place. When she saw the soldiers following her, she cried out to the mountain: “O Mountain of God, receive a mother with her child!” and the rock opened and hid the mother and child. Then Herod, enraged that the child John had not been slain, ordered Zechariah be slain before the altar. The blood of Zacharias was spilled on the marble and dried solid as stone, and remained as a witness as Herod’s evil deed. In the place where Elizabeth hid with John a cave opened, water flowed out of it, and a fruit-bearing palm grew, all by the power of God. Forty days after the death of Zechariah, the blessed Elizabeth died. The child John remained in the wilderness, fed by an angel and protected by God’s providence, until the day he appeared at the Jordan.

A Guardian of the Holy Sepulchre Testifies Against the Enemies of the Miracle of the Holy Light

In 2018, when there were many media reports out of Jerusalem and Greece with accusations that the annual miracle of the Holy Light of Jerusalem is a hoax, Monk Theodoulos, a former monk of Saint Katherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, who then became the morning guardian of the Tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulchre, gave the following interview. Here he responds to the accusations of Bishop Samuel, Abbot of the Armenian brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, who called the miracle a hoax, and started the media storm. Monk Theodoulos reveals the hoax behind the accusations of the Armenian abbot.

According to Monk Theodoulos, Bishop Samuel was trying to film an interview for television on the Holy Sepulchre, but Monk Theodoulos informed him that filming is prohibited unless he has permission from the three Patriarchates of Jerusalem - the Greek, the Armenian and the Coptic. Bishop Samuel assured him he had the permission, when in fact he did not, but Monk Theodoulos believed him and allowed the filming. Therefore, to get the permission to film the interview, the Armenian Bishop lied and deceived.

The Holy Stone - A Fragment of the Stone on Which the Angel Announced the Resurrection to the Myrrhbearers

"And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it." (Matt. 28:2)

In the Rotunda of the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem is the Aedicule or Kouvouklion. The Aedicule or Kouvouklion has two rooms – one holds the Holy Stone (Hagios Lithos), called the Chapel of the Angel, the other is the Holy Tomb of Jesus itself, or the Holy Sepulchre. In the Chapel of the Angel is a fragment of the Holy Stone which sealed the entrance into the Tomb of Christ and on which the Angel sat as he announced the good news of the Resurrection of Christ to the Myrrhbearers. 

 

A First Look at the Holy Light (Holy Fire) of Jerusalem 2021

Today in Jerusalem the Holy Light, known in the West as Holy Fire, once again descended into the Tomb of Christ as Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem knelt in prayer within the Holy Sepulchre. This ceremony has taken place just about every year for hundreds of years on Holy Saturday at noon. With 33 candles in each hand he distributed the Holy Light to the many, though fewer that usual, present, as the ceremony unfolded with measures in place due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis; vaccination was required for those who were in attendance this year, whereas last year pilgrims were not allowed to attend at all. Usually, thousands of Orthodox Christians gather at East Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the eve of Orthodox Easter, and fill it to capacity. Following the Holy Light ceremony, the flame is taken by plane to other Orthodox communities in countries such as Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Georgia and Romania. Whereas in Greece the Holy Light is usually received with the welcome of a Head of State, this year the reception will be humbled to avoid large gatherings.

 

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.

 

Monastery of Saint Symeon the God-Receiver in Katamonas of Jerusalem (which includes the location of his house and tomb)

Katamon is a Jewish neighborhood in south-central Jerusalem. The official Hebrew name, Gonen, is mainly used in municipal publications. Katamon is derived from the Greek κατὰ τῷ μοναστηρίῳ ("by the monastery"). The neighborhood is built next to an old Greek Orthodox monastery, believed from around the twelfth century to be built over the home and the tomb of Saint Symeon the God-Receiver, who lived to an old age in order to see and hold in his arms the Messiah forty days after His birth, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. 

 

The Greek Orthodox call it the "Monastery of Saint Symeon of Katamonas" or just "Katamonas Monastery" and believe that it is built over the house and tomb of Saint Symeon, with an inscription in a cave on the grounds interpreted to indicate that it was the tomb of Symeon's priestly forefathers. In 1890 the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Nikodemos I of Jerusalem built his summer house near the monastery (since the 1960s the building serves as a disabled care center).

 

The neighborhood was established in the early 1900s, shortly before World War I as a wealthy, predominantly Christian Arab neighborhood. The Greek Orthodox Christians at that time were not very church oriented and only attended church on major feast days. During the 1947–48 Civil War the monastery was used as a primary location in the battle, and the local population fled the neighborhood and it was soon repopulated by Jewish refugees.

Church of the Ten Lepers in Burqin, Palestine

 

According to Christian tradition, Burqin is the place in "the region between Samaria and Galilee" where the miracle from Luke 17:11-19 took place: Jesus was passing through on his way from Galilee to Jerusalem when he heard cries for help from ten lepers who were living isolated nearby. He encountered them and told them to present themselves to the priests, although they were not yet cured. On their way their leprosy disappeared. One of them, a Samaritan, returned to Jesus to give thanks. Jesus blamed the nine who did not recognize that their healing was God's gift, faith being the real salvation. Since this miracle, the current Church of the Ten Lepers, also known as the Monastery of Saint George, became a station for many Christian pilgrims.

Hymns and Prayer Upon Entering the Chapel of Saint Longinus at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

 

 

In the year 1855, Patriarch Cyril of Jerusalem composed the Hymnal of Zion, which are a series of prayers and hymns to be chanted and prayed as a procession took place through all the areas of the Holy Sepulchre. The following is to be chanted and said at the fourth stop when entering the chapel dedicated to Longinus the Centurion, who confessed Christ as the Son of God at the Crucifixion.

Entering into the Chapel of Saint Longinus, chant the following Troparia, in Plagal of the 2nd tone, to "More Honorable Than the Cherubim".

The Cave Where Saint Joachim, the Father of the Theotokos, Prayed for Forty Days and Nights

The cave where Saint Joachim, the father of the Theotokos, spent forty days and nights in prayer and fasting, as recorded in the Protoevangelion of James, is located above the Monastery of Chozeba in the Holy Land, which is dedicated to the Theotokos. Weeping here for forty days and nights, with fasting and praying over the infertility of Saint Anna his wife, who was doing the same as her husband within the confines of their home, because they were considered outcasts for being childless, Joachim said: "I shall not descend even for a drink until my Lord and my God visits me." He was visited by an Angel at this time who proclaimed to him the good news of the conception of the Panagia, through whom the salvation of humanity was accomplished. This cave had also previously been visited by the Prophet Elijah, when he fled the wrath of Queen Jezebel, and he went on from here to eventually settle for a time at Mount Sinai.

The Miracle of the Holy Cloud of Mount Tabor: Testimony of the Abbot of the Monastery on Tabor

The miracle of the descent of the Holy Cloud on Mount Tabor during the vigil of the feast of the Transfiguration of Christ on August 6/19 is one of the three annual miracles of the Holy Land witnessed by thousands of people, together with the Holy Light that emerges from the tomb of Christ on Easter and the reversal of the Jordan River on the feast of Theophany. The Holy Cloud descends over the Monastery of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor spreading a beautiful aroma like incense, to the joy of all the faithful. Sometimes the cloud is so thick that you cannot see six feet in front of you.

One of the Best Video Confirmations of the Miracle of the Holy Light (Holy Fire) of Jerusalem

Today there are many skeptics of the miraculous nature of the Holy Light of Jerusalem, known as Holy Fire in the West. Because it takes place behind closed doors with only the Patriarch of Jerusalem witnessing the initial appearance of the Holy Light from within the Holy Sepulchre, there is a lot of speculation as to what really takes place behind those closed doors to produce the fire. Some people refuse to accept that it could really happen by a miracle.

Assuming the skeptics are right and there is indeed deception by the Patriarchs Of Jerusalem over the course of many centuries, this still would not explain a naturalistic origin for the Holy Light. In fact, it only explains one aspect of it. There are many more things the skeptic would need to explain to dispel the supernatural element of this event. For example, one aspect of the miracle no skeptic has ever given an adequate explanation for is the fact that on numerous occasions there are reports of candles being held by people within the church and even outside the church being lit up on their own before the Holy Light is distributed to the people. There is video evidence of this, but due to the large and packed crowds the person shooting the video is never able to catch up to the people for whom this miracle took place.

The Miraculous Wax Holy Seal of the Holy Sepulchre

Father Panteleimon belongs to the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and for the past 34 years he has been in charge of making the wax seal that seals shut the door leading into the All-Holy Sepulchre of the Lord on Holy Saturday, after it has been thoroughly inspected and prior to the Patriarch of Jerusalem entering. Regarding this, he explains:

"The Holy Seal is made of pure beeswax. Those who used to do it before my time only sealed the doors, but I began to make the pies. We began with 3,000 and now we prepare 10,000. These pies work many miracles, to the point where sterile women have children. Of course they must have faith.

A First Look at the Holy Light (Holy Fire) of Jerusalem 2020

Today in Jerusalem the Holy Light, known in the West as Holy Fire, once again descended into the Tomb of Christ as Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem knelt in prayer within the Holy Sepulchre. With 33 candles in each hand he distributed the Holy Light to the few present, many of whom wore face masks, as the ceremony unfolded without pilgrims due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Usually, thousands of Orthodox Christians gather at East Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the eve of Orthodox Easter. Following the Holy Light ceremony, the flame is taken by plane, which this year will be empty of passengers, to other Orthodox communities in countries such as Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Georgia and Romania.

The First Location Where the Head of Saint John the Baptist Was Found

About 200 meters west of the traditional location on the Mount of Olives where Jesus ascended into heaven at the Dome of the Ascension, is a chapel which has been in the hands of the Russians since 1907 that marks the spot where the head of Saint John the Baptist was buried and discovered by two Syrian monks in the fourth century. Over this spot is the Chapel of the First and Second Finding of the Head of Saint John the Baptist, which celebrates its feast day on February 24th.