The
Myrrh-Streaming Icon of St. Anna began to spontaneously “weep” myrrh on May 9,
2004 – Mother’s Day – in the Russian Orthodox Church of Our Lady of Joy of All
Who Sorrow in Philadelphia. Parishioners noticed that the icon appeared to be
perspiring, and upon closer inspection, Fr. Athanasy, who was the rector there
at the time, realized that the icon was producing an oily liquid that looked
like tear drops, as if the Saint were crying.
The icon
is a miracle-working icon. Many women who have had difficulty conceiving a
child, or who were told they were infertile, have conceived after praying in
the icon’s presence.
***
This interview originally appeared in audio
format at Khouria Frederica’s Ancient Faith Ministries podcast “Frederica Here
and Now” and is posted here in text format by permission.
—I’m talking with Fr. Athanasy who was
blessed to have this icon begin to weep in his church. Tell me the story of
when this happened and when it was first noticed?
—The icon
started to exude myrrh three years ago on American Mother’s Day. It just
happened to be that day and I remember it for that reason. A son of Fr. Victor
Potapov was visiting our church and he asked if I noticed that the icon was wet
around the cuffs, which I hadn’t noticed, and so we went to inspect the icon
after church, and indeed it appeared to be wet around the cuffs and around the
gold that was all around the icon. So I immediately said to our parishioners
“Don’t touch, and we’ll take pictures.” My people were very obedient that time,
so three days later when we lifted the icon up off the analoy to take the
picture the back of the icon was inundated with myrrh going up the back of it.
—So from the whole surface it was just
exuding and coming out? It wasn’t weeping at that point?
—At that
point it wasn’t. Whatever it was doing, which we didn’t know and obviously more
than just the cuffs, which we didn’t know either, the myrrh traveled. The icon
was slanted and it traveled up the back of the icon in the frame. So when we
lifted it up we were overwhelmed by that beautiful aroma.
—That fragrance was there right at the start?
—Yes. So
we took pictures and sent a report to the local bishop, to the metropolitan,
and to the deans, and we waited from May until October for the metropolitan to
visit. Metropolitan Laurus visited and venerated the icon and inspected it, and
by that time people had already been asking for us to travel. Metropolitan
Herman had asked us to visit. And so I asked permission and our metropolitan
gave his permission for her to visit wherever, which was a wonderful, wonderful
thing.
—So although you were the pastor of a ROCOR
church you were able to visit other jurisdictions? [Ed. note: The icon began to
exude myrrh a few years before the reunion between ROCOR and the Moscow
Patriarchate].
—Yes, we
visited other jurisdictions. She was indeed our ambassador of good will. We
know that St. Anna is the grandmother of Christ, and she traveled to be
everyone’s grandmother.
—She would be the best I think.
—She is
the best. The story is that when I was seven years old I fell out the window on
the second story of a building, and I had a compound fracture in my arm and the
doctors had trouble getting a pulse. I had a very gifted Japanese doctor who
told my mother that after they got the pulse he would fix it. He put it in
traction and held the bones together with pins, but then took it all out. I was
in traction from July until October, if you can believe it. Today you can go
for a heart operation and get out immediately. The arm was knitted together and
I have a small vaccination mark from where the pin came out, so there’s nothing
fake in my arm. I grew up Catholic and my mother’s name is Anna, in fact, and
someone gave her oil from St. Anna in a local parish. She made the cross on my
arm and by that time the doctors found a pulse, and it had been an hour or so.
And indeed I have this arm.
—You have the full use of that arm, so that
was miraculous.
—Yes it
was. Doctors said I would possibly have arthritis later in life and I do. I
have it everywhere but in this arm. And so not wanting to be like one of the
ten lepers I remember St. Anna every year. I would go to some church to pray to
her and thank her.
—When is her feast, by the way?
—In the
Catholic Church it’s July 26. In the Orthodox Church on the new calendar she
falls on July 25, and we are thirteen days later. I always went to a Catholic
church and prayed and lit candles. Wherever I was stationed I would find St.
Anna’s church. And I thought, “You are the priest—you could have an icon made,
and you could get blessed oil.” I was stationed in Jerusalem and I served there
for years, so I asked the sisters at the Mount of Olives to do an icon. Someone
asked me how old is the icon and I said that the icon is very young, but St.
Anna is very old. The icon is probably about twelve years old now, that’s all.
The icon
was sent to my parish and I told my story and many women were cured by blessed
oil. The first year we blessed thirty bottles, last year we blessed one
thousand, and this year we're going to bless 1,500. I call it “St. Anna’s
Gold.” These beginning miracles were particularly with women problems and
people donated silver hearts to thank her for that. After the metropolitan
blessed it to travel then we went full-steam. Then the tears came—sometimes
more, sometimes less, and finally a stream. I remember one time at the end of
choir practice they said “Father, the icon was dry, and by the end of practice
it’s full.” So we take her around and everywhere I go there are miracles of St.
Anna.
— Can you tell me one of the stories?
—A little
boy from Russia was suffering terribly from cancer and we prayed for him. I
can’t guarantee anything, I don’t know anything. You pray and your heart goes
out to people. He was cured. He came to me about three months ago and he threw
his arms around me and he said, “Father, I don’t have cancer anymore,” and I
said, “Yes, I know.”
We had a
woman who was pregnant and the doctor’s said the baby was dead and they would
have to remove her baby. That was on a Friday and she was supposed to go to the
hospital on Monday. Archbishop Anthony of the Ukrainian Church counseled the
subdeacon and his wife to anoint themselves with the oil, which they did. They
were frantic. Then they went to the doctor on Monday and the doctor asked, “Did
you come here for an abortion?” And she looked and said, “What do you mean an
abortion?” And he said, “You have a perfectly healthy baby.” And the icon went
to that baby’s baptism.
There was
a matushka and priest that couldn’t have children and they adopted two. After
St. Anna’s visit they had their own. I went to Bayonne three weeks ago and some
people introduced themselves and said, “Father, we lost two babies. Last year
we were here and prayed, and after nine months this is our Anna.” There was
another man from Georgia who my heart was going out to. They couldn’t have
children and every time I went the wife came and prayed. And I thought, “My
God, what can I do?” I was there the day before my birthday and the priest came
to me and said, “Father, Mirov and his wife cannot be here today—his wife just
gave birth to a baby boy!” I said, “On my birthday!”
You know,
it’s all in God’s time and we have to learn that. In the psalm in the prayer
before eating it says, The eyes of all in hope look to You and You open Your
hand in due season and satisfy the desire of every living thing (Ps.
145:15-16). And these things are in God’s season, not ours. No matter how much
we may entreat and wonder why it doesn’t happen, God is always on time.
—That’s true; in His time.
—People
ask me, “Father, does the weeping mean something bad?” I say, “No. God doesn’t
need to give us perks from heaven. Read the newspaper, watch the TV, look in
your own family life, look in your own soul. You don’t need this type of thing
to let you know there’s trouble.”
I see
that where she goes she brings peace and love. She is the grandmother of
Christ. Russians say “Babushka,” and what Mom and Dad won't give you Baba will
give you. Remember the holidays—“Baba made this," ”Baba made that.” I went
to a monastery of wonderful nuns up in the Poconos and I asked the abbess, “Do
Greeks get the same feeling when you say ‘Yia Yia?’” and the nuns just grinned
from ear to ear, and the abbess said, “Father, we never thought of that.” And
people don’t.
This is
the grandmother of Christ. This is our grandmother. And, in due time. She did
her thing. In California the first Greek Orthodox Church has been dedicated in
honor of St. Anna, with a relic of part of her foot brought form Mt. Athos, and
other people have told me in Athens there’s a parish of St. Anna that’s just
been dedicated.
—My neighbor is protestant and I was trying
to talk to her about this concept of the saints interceding for us, and she
said “I’m going to just keep going straight to Jesus.” Do you have an answer
for that? It’s as if we’re being accused of thinking that the Lord is not
enough, or you have to twist His arm. But it’s not like that.
—It says
in Scripture that the Lord is wonderful in His saints (Ps. 67:35), doesn’t it?
And that’s what He says. The saints are God’s holy people. We are called to be
saints; we’re not called to be angels. People misunderstand that today. When
they lose a child they say, “He’s gone to be an angel.” No. They’re not angels.
The angle’s theme song is “I Ain't Got No Body.” We’ve become part of God’ holy
people. There are people that we identify with because they’ve fought the good
fight and have gone through the things that we’ve suffered, and we identify
with the Church Triumphant. The saints went marching in, and they’re not
nobodies. They're somebodies. And they’re part of the human race.
When we
read the Gospel to the Mother of God we hear Christ say, Yea blessed are they
rather who hear the word of God and keep it (Lk. 11:28). Who amongst all
humanity has kept the word of God better than the mother of God? She is
humanity’s “yes” to God. She is the new Eve. She is “Eva” spelled
backward—“Ave”—that’s what she is. She is our “yes.” Wordsworth said it well.
He said “Woman of tainted nature’s solitary boast. Woman above all women
glorified.” And she leads us. God chose her. He could have just said, “Hey,
here I am,” but He chose one of us and He used her, and she’s not to be put
aside.
When
you’re sick you don’t go to the general doctor. You go to someone who knows or
went through it—the patron of teeth, the patron of this or that. And yes, we
can always go to Jesus. And these saints heal us through Christ. We say, “Pray
for me.” In English we say, “I pray thee.” We say to these people that we know
who have gone before us, “I pray thee, speak a good word to Jesus for me.” And
they do. And the more people you have on your cause the better you are. You’re
afraid to go before men in this world unless you have someone at your back or
putting in a good word for you. Why not have more people on our side who have
fought the good fight and are trying to help us fight it too?
—I think the wrong impression is to picture
it like a bureaucracy. It seems to me that when we seek to the Lord we’re never
speaking to Him in isolation from all of creation. And all of the saints and
everyone is standing around and we can be speaking and pleading Him and then
say, “Mary, help me out here,” and get her to chime in too.
—It says
in Scripture we’re surrounded by a choir of witnesses.
—Yes, the great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews
12.
—Where
are they? Are they locked up somewhere being nobodies until the last day? No,
they are not. Listen, we are rich, because everyone that has fought the good
fight is part of us. We have a claim to their friendship if we want it, just as
we can walk with angels. All of heaven is ours because we are baptized in the
Church.
—It’s a very great gift.
—It is,
isn’t it?
—Thank you so much, Father.
Source: http://orthochristian.com/82269.html
CONVERSATION