Testimony from a Prior Service of the Holy
Myrrh of Saint Demetrios
By George Giannikes, a Theologian of
Thessaloniki
The Saint
was imprisoned for around one year in a prison that was literally a cesspool!
Waste was thrown in the place where the Saint was imprisoned. Does anyone then
wonder why God granted him the grace of myrrhgushing?
Every
year, roughly a week after the feast of the Saint, the priests, during a
vespers service, open the reliquary to distribute the myrrh to the world. One
year, being an unbeliever, I went with my camera to the Church, and climbed the
women's side of the church, standing so I could see what was going on. I began
to record, and at one point, they opened the reliquary. There to my great
astonishment I saw that the priests had another plexiglass inside that
separated the holy relics [holding them in place]. But what happened? I saw
with my eyes and with my camera that the whole reliquary (the chains,
plexiglass, sidewalls) were covered with a coffee-colored liquid which filled
the whole church with a beautiful fragrance.
I took a
bit of the myrrh as a blessing which naturally, after many years (if I'm not
mistaken six), is still fragrant. And now that I write this, I just went to
smell it again. I smell that it is fragrant, though I have a cold with a
stuffed-up nose.
About the Holy Myrrh of Saint Demetrios
The myrrh
of Saint Demetrios is a miracle of God and a great blessing from the Great
Martyr to the faithful Christians who rely on his ceaseless intercessions.
Saint
Demetrios is called "Myrrhgusher" (Μυροβλύτη). This is because myrrh
gushes from his tomb, which believers collect in vials made of clay, glass or
lead, commonly called koutrouvia.
There are
many authentic testimonies concerning the myrrh of the Patron of Thessaloniki
Saint Demetrios. Below is an example:
1.
Demetrios Chrysoloras (late 14th - early 15th cent.) notes that "the myrrh
of Saint Demetrios is not water, because it is thicker than water, nor is it a
liquid emanating from the earth or a manufactured perfume, nor does it even
compare to them. It is more wondrous than both natural and compounded
fragrances."
2. John
Kameniatis, who recounted the fall of Thessaloniki to the Saracens in 904,
calls Saint Demetrios "Myrrhgusher".
3.
Constantine Akropolites (Great Logothetis, Compiler of the Lives of Saints,
Orator and Letter Writer) refers to a miracle of Saint Demetrios in 1321 in
which eyes were treated, and he calls him "Myrrhgusher".
4. Two
Archbishops of Thessaloniki, Isidore (1342-1396) and Gabriel (1397-1416), refer
to the myrrh of Saint Demetrios. The first calls him "Myrrhspouter"
(Μυρορρόα) and the second calls him "Myrrhgusher".
5. An
inscription from 1284 in the Mosque of the Old Palace (Eski Saray)*, says of
the Church of Saint Demetrios "within is the great Myrrhgusher".
6. The
liturgical tradition and life of the Orthodox Church wondrously and devoutly
refers to Saint Demetrios as the "Myrrhgusher".
The
testimonies to the myrrh of Saint Demetrios are many, but great also is the grace
which they received and the faithful continue to receive up till our days, as a
sign of the blessing of the Myrrh. The miracles which the Saint works (both in
the past and in our days) are many, and truly deep is the gratitude of the
faithful who are healed or helped in various ways.
The
Myrrhgushing and Wonderworking Saint Demetrios belongs not only to the
God-preserved city of Thessaloniki, where his all-sacred Church is preserved,
dating to the 5th century, but to the whole world, which honors and shows him
reverence with moving events now for the past seventeen centuries.
Miracles of the Holy Myrrh
Fr. Christos Kotios
Priest of the Holy Church of the Dormition of
the Theotokos
1. There lived once an ascetic on
the Mount of Solomon who, hearing of the reports of the holy myrrh [of St.
Demetrios], had doubts, saying in his mind that there were many other great
martyrs who suffered more than St. Demetrios, yet they were not honored by God
in such a manner. And one night after he saw, as if in a dream, that he was in
the Church of St. Demetrios and he met the man who had the keys to the tomb of
the Saint, and he asked him to open it that he might venerate it. When he was
kissing the shrine, he observed that it was wet with fragrant myrrh, and he
said to the keeper, "Come, help me did that we might see from whence comes
this holy myrrh." They dug, therefore, and came to a large marble slab
which they removed with great difficulty, and immediately there appeared the
body of the Saint, shining and fragrant, from which welled up abundant myrrh
coming from the openings of his holy body made by the piercings of the lances.
There flowed so much myrrh that both the keeper and the ascetic were drenched,
and fearing to be drowned, the monk cried out, "Saint Demetrios,
help!" Whereupon, he awoke from this vision and found himself to be
drenched with the holy myrrh.
2. It was 10:00pm on the 26th of
October 1987. Thessaloniki had celebrated the memory of the martyrdom of their
protector, Saint Demetrios, along with her liberation from around five hundred
years of occupation by the Ottomans (1430-1912). The Church of Saint Demetrios
with open doors received night time pilgrims who knelt before the silver
reliquary with the holy relics of the Myrrhgusher. That hour there must not
have been more than thirty or forty people in the church. A band of about ten
women, before the reliquary, chanted the Paraklesis of the Saint. The only
cleric who was there was a young, newly-ordained deacon of the holy church with
his diakonissa wife. The then Proistamenos [head priest] of the church was the
current Metropolitan of Boeria, Naousa and Kampania Panteleimon, who had
ordered him to stay there and wait.
While the
women were chanting the Paraklesis, they began to shout! The deacon ran to
them, and with mixed emotions they showed him the reliquary. It was literally
bathed in an oily residue of myrrh (I saw myrrh because the fragrance was
indescribable). It was as if someone had emptied at least two “buckets” of
aromatic liquid (I use the word “buckets” so that you understand the quantity
of the myrrh which poured down the sides of the silver reliquary with its
relief icons of the Saint).
The
deacon was baffled at that instant: The Saint was flowing myrrh! Without at all
doubting the miracle, and being found in a state of joy, astonishment and
enthusiasm, he ran to bring cotton from the holy altar. He returned running,
and began to soak up the myrrh with the cotton from the side walls of the
reliquary to give portions to the pilgrims. Though he soaked up the myrrh, it
didn't stop, but continued to pour forth mystically, without a source being
seen. He was particularly struck by the following fact: with a large piece of
cotton he soaked up the myrrh from a smooth area of the reliquary, which then
appeared polished clean. A woman had touched the part that he had just cleaned,
and he saw that her hand became soaked with the oily yellowish-green myrrh!
In the
mean time, the fragrance had filled the whole church, and poured forth from the
open doors towards the road Agiou Demetriou, inviting passers-by to hasten to
see what was happening, and where this fragrance was coming from. All those
approached the reliquary where the relics of Saint Demetrios were placed (they
were not yet placed in the large reliquary that they are in today).
These
blessings, though astonishing, did not stop there! The pilgrims experienced
that all of the icons of the church, wherever they were (either on veneration
stands or the iconostasis) poured forth myrrh. In fact, the deacon saw pilgrims
take out handkerchiefs to wipe the frames that protected the icons of the icon
screen, and the handkerchiefs turned a yellow hue from the myrrh that ran from
the two sides of the frame, the inner and outer. The magnitude of the miracle
was so great that it left no one in doubt. We did not understand what we were
experiencing, it was like a dream amidst fog, but we lived it! We touched it
with our hands and saw it with our eyes, and sensed the fragrance in our
nostrils!
In a
short while a line of people formed, with tears in their eyes, to venerate the
reliquary of the Myrrhgusher and they realized how he received this title.
In the
mean time, the Proistamenos and other priests reached the church. They unlocked
the reliquary and opened the lid to reveal the holy relics of the Patron of
Thessaloniki. They were fragrant, but the fragrance of the myrrh was different
and characteristic.
The
blessed Metropolitan of Thessaloniki Panteleimon II Chrysaphakes ascribed the
miracle of this myrrhgushing of Saint Demetrios to the following event: That
evening in the festive celebration of the University for the liberation of
Thessaloniki, the keynote speaker totally omitted the Saint, and didn't mention
him at all. Saint Demetrios, however, showed through his myrrhgushing that he
would never abandon the city of Thessaloniki, neither now nor ever, and that it
was he who saved it from slavery and from earthquakes. Some, however, showed
themselves ungrateful and distanced from Christ and His Saints.
Twenty
four years have passed since them. I was then the deacon of the church, now a
priest in Thessaloniki, and I write you what I experienced as I remember. That
time was as if I was living a mystery. I can't relate what I was feeling! Joy,
astonishment, being moved, enthusiasm... I can't describe it fully. In any
case, these are events that strengthen faith and fill us with joy, hope and the
feeling of the presence of Christ and His Saints. Our faith is “alive”.
Source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2014/11/the-service-of-holy-myrrh-of-saint.html
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