Relics and Wonderworking Icons

The monasteries of Athos hold, and still venerate in daily use, an enormous accumulation of relics of the saints and a number of the most celebrated wonderworking icons of the Orthodox world — among them the Panagia Portaitissa at Iviron, the Axion Estin at the Protaton in Karyes, and the Tricherousa at Hilandar. This file describes these treasures and reports the traditional accounts of the icons with the attestation-pinning the repository methodology requires (§3.5): the miracle-narratives are given as what the tradition attests, named and dated to their sources, not asserted as documented history.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Athonite)

The Relics of the Mountain

Over a thousand years the Athonite monasteries have gathered relics of the saints on a scale unmatched anywhere in the Orthodox world — fragments of the True Cross, relics of apostles, martyrs, and fathers, and a great array of other holy remains, preserved in the treasuries and reliquaries of the twenty houses and brought out for veneration on the feasts (Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise, Yale, 2002, ch. 8, on the relics and treasures of the monasteries). Among the most famous is the relic venerated at Vatopedi as the Precious Belt (Timia Zoni) of the Theotokos, one of the very few relics associated with the Mother of God and an object of intense devotion, which has on occasion been carried outside the Mountain for veneration by the faithful (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 8, on the Belt of the Theotokos at Vatopedi). These relics are not museum pieces but the living furniture of Athonite worship: they are kissed, censed, and processed, and the monasteries understand themselves as their guardians on behalf of the whole Church. As with all relics and their associated wonders, this guide reports the traditions of their provenance and their miracles as the tradition attests them, naming the source, rather than certifying them as documented fact (per METHODOLOGY §3.5; see Holy Icons for the theology of the veneration of holy things).

The Wonderworking Icons: A Note on Method

The Holy Mountain, as the Garden of the Theotokos, is above all the home of her icons, and several of the most venerated wonderworking icons of the Mother of God in all of Orthodoxy are kept there (see The Garden of the Theotokos). Each of these icons carries a traditional narrative — of its origin, its miraculous arrival or preservation, and the wonders worked through it — and these narratives are an integral part of Athonite devotion. They are also, in the strict sense, hagiographical traditions: their accounts often reach their developed form in later sources, and the miracles are reported by the tradition rather than documented by contemporary record. This file therefore follows the repository’s attestation-pinning discipline (METHODOLOGY §3.5): it reports faithfully what the tradition holds, marks the accounts as tradition, and does not present the miracle-narratives as verified historical events.

The Panagia Portaitissa (Iviron)

The Panagia Portaitissa — “the Keeper of the Gate,” the Iveron icon — is the great wonderworking icon of the Theotokos at the monastery of Iviron, and one of the most celebrated in the Orthodox world. [Apocryphal: the traditional account holds that the icon, cast into the sea by a widow of Nicaea during the iconoclast persecution, was carried miraculously across the waters and appeared upright in a pillar of fire off the coast of Athos, was received by a monk of Iviron (the Georgian St. Gabriel, who walked upon the sea to reach it), and, when placed within the monastery, repeatedly moved itself to a position above the monastery gate — whence its name, “the Gate-keeper” — signifying that it wished to guard the house rather than be guarded by it. This narrative is a traditional hagiographical account, reaching its developed form in later Athonite sources, and is reported here as what the tradition holds, not as documented history (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 8, on the Portaitissa and its tradition; on the Georgian associations of Iviron see The Pan-Orthodox Mountain).] The Portaitissa is venerated as the protectress of Iviron and, by extension, of the whole Mountain; its cult spread widely, and copies of it (notably the Iveron icon of Moscow) became objects of great devotion in the Russian world (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 8; on the pan-Orthodox diffusion of Athonite icons see Speake, A History of the Athonite Commonwealth, Cambridge, 2018).

The Axion Estin (the Protaton, Karyes)

The Axion Estin — “It Is Truly Meet” — is the icon of the Mother of God kept at the Protaton, the mother-church of the whole Mountain at Karyes, and it is honoured as the Mountain’s own icon (see The Holy Community and Karyes). Its name comes from the hymn to the Theotokos “It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos.” [Apocryphal: the traditional account holds that an angel, appearing to a monk at a kellion near Karyes, taught him the opening words “It is truly meet…” as a new prelude to the existing hymn “More honourable than the Cherubim,” writing the words with his finger upon a stone slab when there was nothing else to write on; the icon before which this occurred was thereafter called the Axion Estin and brought to the Protaton. This narrative is a traditional account and is reported here as what the tradition holds, not as documented history (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 8, on the Axion Estin tradition; see The Garden of the Theotokos).] The hymn “It is truly meet” is sung throughout the Orthodox world, and the Mountain’s guardianship of the icon associated with its origin is a source of particular Athonite pride and devotion.

The Tricherousa (Hilandar)

The Panagia Tricherousa — “the Three-handed” — is the wonderworking icon of the Theotokos at the Serbian monastery of Hilandar, so called from the third hand depicted on the icon (see The Pan-Orthodox Mountain). [Apocryphal: the traditional account connects the icon with St. John of Damascus, whose hand, cut off (in the tradition) at the false accusation of the iconoclast emperor, was miraculously restored after he prayed before this icon of the Mother of God, in thanksgiving for which he attached a silver votive hand to it — hence the “three-handed” image. The icon is further said to have come to Hilandar and there to have indicated, by moving itself, that the monastery should be governed directly under the Mother of God rather than by a human abbot; and at Hilandar the Tricherousa is accordingly enthroned in the abbot’s stall as the true abbess of the house, the monks receiving their direction from her. These accounts are traditional and are reported here as what the tradition holds, not as documented history (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 8, on the Tricherousa and the Hilandar tradition).] The Tricherousa is one of the principal treasures of Serbian Orthodoxy and a focus of the pan-Orthodox devotion the Mountain fosters.

Other Icons and the Living Cult

These three are only the most famous of a large number of wonderworking icons kept and venerated on the Mountain — among them the Panagia Paramythia (“of Consolation”) and the Panagia Gerontissa (“the Eldress”) at other houses, each with its own traditional narrative (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 8, on the Athonite wonderworking icons). What matters, for the purposes of this guide, is twofold. First, these icons are not primarily objects of art history but living centres of cult: they are the concrete points at which the Mountain’s dedication to the Theotokos is exercised, and the accounts of the Tricherousa and the Portaitissa “governing” their houses express, in narrative form, the Athonite conviction that the Mother of God herself is the true abbess of the Mountain (see The Garden of the Theotokos). Second, the traditional narratives, however beloved, are hagiography and are treated as such here: reported faithfully, pinned to the tradition that carries them, and never asserted as documented historical fact (per METHODOLOGY §3.5). The theology of why such images may rightly be venerated at all — the distinction of veneration (proskynesis) from worship (latreia), settled at the Seventh Ecumenical Council — belongs to the collection on the icon (see Holy Icons and Orthodoxy: Icons and Iconoclasm).

See Also

References

  • Speake, Graham. Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. (Ch. 8 on the relics and treasures, the Belt of the Theotokos at Vatopedi, and the wonderworking icons — the Portaitissa, the Axion Estin, the Tricherousa, and others — and their traditional narratives.)
  • Speake, Graham. A History of the Athonite Commonwealth: The Spiritual and Cultural Diaspora of Mount Athos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. (The diffusion of Athonite icon-cults across the Orthodox world.)
  • METHODOLOGY.md §3.5, this repository. (The attestation-pinning discipline applied to hagiographical and miracle narratives.)