Monthly Archives: Μάιος 2020

In the gilded, wood-carved shrine at the left column of the central nave of the new cathedral is the miraculous icon of Panagia Hodigitria (‘The Virgin Mary, the Guide’), dated to the 14th century. This icon had been in the Vatopedios Monastery until 1730, when ‘despite locked doors’, the icon miraculously ‘left’ and went to the cathedral of the Xenofontos Monastery. The icon was retrieved by the Vatopedion fathers and secured in their Monastery, but the same miracle was repeated two more times; the fathers of both monasteries agreed that the Virgin Mary had in effect offered her icon to the Xenofontos Monastery.
The wondrous arrival of the icon is celebrated with a festival on the first Sunday of October, and the protection of the Virgin is made evident by the the fragrance of myrrh which it miraculously emits periodically, and by the many miracles attributed to it.

On the right column in front of the icon screen of the new cathedral is the miraculous icon of St Georgios. According to the Monastery tradition, the icon had been thrown into a fire by the iconoclasts but was not damaged. Since it had managed in a miraculous way to remain unharmed, a soldier struck the icon with his sword, ‘wounding’ the jaw of the Saint, from which spot blood began to flow. This blood is still preserved today.
To protect it from the iconoclasts,, the faithful subsequently threw the icon into the sea; it later washed ashore at the beach of the (then) small monastery of St Dimitrios, to whom the Monastery had originally been dedicated. At the spot on the beach where the holy icon had rested, a spring of mineral water began to flow. This particular type of mineral water was known to cure dysuoria, resulting in the designation of the saint as ‘Dysuritis’. The fathers of the Monastery brought the icon to the Monastery, and dedicated the new cathedral to the memory of St Georgios.

Stefanos, the eminent Athenian and the great ruler of Vigla, was tonsured a monk and became the Abbot of the Monastery. He managed to successfully act as an arbitrator on behalf of the Emperor Nikiforos Votaneiatos with the rebel Vasilaki in Thessaloniki, resulting in a very beneficial outcome for the Monastery. Among the important manuscripts and artefacts donated to the Monastery were the two portable mosaic icons of St Georgios and St Dimitrios, a fact supported by evidence and accepted today. The mosaics are the largest of their kind in the world, and are safeguarded in the sacristy of the Monastery.

The frescoes in the old cathedral, dated to the 16th and 17th centuries, are mainly works of the artist Antonios and the monk Theofanis, while the dome and triangular spheres were painted in the 19th century. Furthermore, a small section of the original painting of the central nave dated to about 1280 has survived, while an important place on the north side is occupied by the fresco of St Georgios, with his rare designation as ‘Dysuritis’. According to Monastery tradition, this attribution is connected with his relationship (described below) with the therapy for that condition.