Iveron Mother of God of
Montreal
Montreal,
Canada
"Rejoice, blessed Gate-keeper, who openest to the faithful the doors of paradise."
(Akathist refrain)
Tradition holds that the apostle Luke painted the original icon of the Iveron Mother of God, which has been in the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos from the year 999. It came miraculously floating on the waters of the Marmara Sea during the Byzantine Iconoclastic controversy.
In order to preserve the icon from destruction, it had been placed in the waters at Nicea, from whence it made its way to Athos. According to legend, the icon was venerated in the home of a pious widow. Soldiers of the iconoclast emperor came to the home and one struck the icon with his sword. Immediately, blood began to flow from the gashed cheek of the Virgin. The soldier who struck the blow repented, renounced the heresy, and later entered a monastery.
In Greece, the icon was taken from the waters by one of the monks of the Iveron monastery. Placed in the church,the icon removed itself several times to a place by the gate. From its preferred location, it received the name Portaitissa, or Gatekeeper. The Holy Virgin revealed to one of the monks that it was not her wish for the Icon to be protected by the monks, but that She wished to protect them. Thus, a church was built near the monastery gate where the Icon r is venerated to this day.
In 1648, an exact copy of the icon was made and taken to Russia where it soon acquired the reputation of being a miracle working image. This icon was especially revered by the Russian people until the Revolution of 1917 when the chapel was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, and the icon disappeared.
In 1982, a young Chilean convert to Orthodoxy who was living in Canada, Jose Munoz Cortes, went to Mt. Athos on pilgrimage. A talented artist himself, he taught art at the University of Montreal and had begun studying iconography. He intended to visit some of the monasteries and their sketes which specialize in the writing (painting) of icons.
He and a friend who had accompanied him had been climbing up hill on rough terrain for about eight hours, intending to visit the famous Danilov skete when,worn out by the climb, they stopped to rest at a small skete which they happened to notice. Dedicated to the Nativity of Christ, the skete is a poor one whose 14 monks keep a strict monastic rule. The abbot, Father Klimentos, greeted them and offered them hospitality. After their refreshment, the abbot showed the guests to the skete’s icon painting studio. As soon as he entered the room, Jose felt an immediate attraction to a copy of the Iveron Icon which was hanging on the wall. He asked to purchase the icon but was told that, as it was one of the first painted at the skete, it was not for sale. That night at divine service, Jose prayed fervently, asking the Mother of God to be allowed to take her icon back with him “where we have need of you.”
The following morning, as Jose and his companion were leaving, the abbot appeared and offered the icon to Jose, saying that it pleased the Mother of God to go with him to North America.
Obeying an inner compulsion, Jose took the icon to the Iveron monastery and with permission touched the icon to the original Portaitissa.
On returning to Montreal, Jose placed the icon in the icon corner of his home. He began to read a daily Akathist, or hymn of praise, before it. Early on the morning of November 24, 1982, Jose woke up to the smell of a very strong fragrance as if someone had spilled a bottle of perfume. Puzzled as to the source of the odor, he was standing before the icon corner to say his morning prayers when he noticed that the hands of the Virgin were streaked with oil. Assuming that his housemate had spilled oil on the icon from the vigil lamp hanging over it, he wiped the icon and discovered that it was the source of the beautiful fragrance.
After consulting with a local Orthodox clergyman, Jose took the icon to church and placed it on the altar. During the entire liturgy, myrrh flowed from the hands of the Christ Child. From that time, with the exception of a few days during Holy Week, the myrrh continued to flow almost continuously.
The phenomenon amazed and delighted all who saw it. His Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, asked that the icon be examined for evidence of fraud. The result was that there was no natural explanation for the myrrh, and the icon was painted on plain pine board which remained dry on the back while the myrrh streamed only from the front. His Eminence and the Holy Synod then declared the phenomenon a miracle. After some years the Roman Catholic Bishop of Montreal also recognized the supernatural character of the myrrh. Orthodox and Catholic faithful, and even some Protestants began to ask to see the wondrous icon and to venerate the Holy Mother of God.
Jose began to take the icon to many cities and parishes where it was venerated with great joy by the faithful. The icon was placed in a wooden frame about 12” by 18” with a lip at the bottom where cotton wool was placed to catch the flow of myrrh. The cotton was then distributed to the faithful as a precious sacramental.
The flow of the myrrh varied, at times in greater abundance than others. It flowed from the hands of the Mother of God, from the star on her left shoulder and occasionally from the hands of the infant Jesus. In 1985, even the frame and glass of the icon began to exude myrrh in such quantity that the cloth of the analogion on which it lay was completely saturated.
From childhood, Jose had been taught to love and venerate the holy Virgin, but he never asked for any miraculous sign. He considered himself the guardian, not the owner, of the icon which he insisted belonged to all the faithful. In the presence of the icon, people of all faiths became as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of her that at the foot of the cross became the mother of all believers. Although a number of physical cures have been claimed, the healing property of the icon seems most directed at the healing of souls. Many have testified to experiencing repentance and consolation in front of the icon.
When the miracle of the myrrh-streaming first occurred, Jose vowed that he would never seek worldly gain from the Icon. When collections were taken up during church services at which the Icon was present, the money was sent to the poorest monasteries and sketes on Mt. Athos or given to help those persecuted for their faith in the Soviet Union.
Jose began to receive so many requests to bring the icon to other cities that a group of lay women formed to aid him. His travels caused him to take much time off from his teaching and icon painting which were his only sources of income. Known as the Icon’s House, the women gathered the funds necessary for his travels, as he steadfastly refused to take any financial remuneration. He personally lived in monastic poverty, giving what little he had to those in need, or using small sums to purchase art materials. He was faithful in saying the prayers requested of him by those he encountered on his travels. For fifteen years he accompanied the miraculous image of the Theotokos throughout the world.
Where there are visible signs of grace, there is also tribulation. The repentance and love called forth by the holy icon must have been an extreme irritant to the ancient enemy of the Church of Christ.
In the summer of 1996, Jose traveled to Mt. Athos to say farewell to the dying Fathe abbot Klimentos, who in 1982 had entrusted the miraculous icon to him. The abbot predicted that 1997 would be a fateful year for the curator of the icon and that awful events would take place and that Jose would be the subject of a terrible slander.
In a magazine article, Jose wrote about death. He said, “Believers must be ready to die for the truth, and not to forget that in acquiring enemies here we acquire the Heavenly Kingdom.” It seemed as if he had a presentiment of his coming death.
The day before his death, Brother Jose visited the monastery of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on the Island of Andros. As he entered the monastery, an ancient fresco of the Mother of God painted on the wall began to weep. The monks say that the fresco weeps only on tragic occasions. Archimandrite Dorotheus, the leader of the monastery, said that the fresco also wept on the first day of the trial of Jose’s accused murderer.
Jose was tortured and murdered in a hotel room in Athens Greece on the night of October 30 or 31st, 1997, possibly by a group of Romanian Satanists. He had planned to return to Canada the following day to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the appearance of the miraculous myrrh on the icon.
As predicted by abbot Klimentos, there was at first a swell of sensational and scandalous reports in the press. These were totally contradicted by the police report. According to the official reports, Brother Jose was found with his hands and feet tied, his mouth stuffed and taped, wearing his pants but no shirt, death being caused by suffocation. There were signs of torture on the body.
Jose’s body was shipped back to Montreal for identification and then taken to Holy Trinity monastery in Jordanville, New York. It was initially intended to keep the coffin sealed for fear of the odor of corruption, since it had been almost two weeks since his death and the body had not been embalmed. A trial opening of the coffin revealed no such odor, and the coffin remained open throughout the funeral service, revealing the marks of torture on the body of the young martyr.
Several hundred people gathered at Holy Trinity for the funeral on November 12, 1997. Many came from far away to see Jose laid to rest. Eighteen priests assisted Archbishop Laurus at the funeral, at which Bishop Mitrofan was also present.
A 20-year-old Romanian man was tried for the murder in 1998, but was acquitted for lack of evidence and deported back to Romania. There was suspicion of a conspiracy and the blood and D.N.A. of another Romanian was found in the room where Jose was killed. Although he was investigated, he was never brought to trial, and the murder remains unsolved.
Brother Jose had taken the icon with him to Greece, but kept the fact silent so as not to attract the usual crowds and to be able to rest for a few days. After the murder, the icon was not found among his effects, and its whereabouts remain unknown.
In March of 2002, Archpriest Victor Potapov of St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, D.C., accompanied by his wife and other clergy of the Church Abroad, visited with the monks at the Optina Hermitage, 250 Klm from Moscow. Here they met a Father Michael who told them that an exact copy of the Montreal icon had been written on one of the two boards which had belonged to Brother Jose and which had been given to the monks of Optina after his death. He told them that in his cell the copy had been streaming myrrh for three months and brought it out so the American visitors could venerate it. After an hour while they visited other parts of the monastery, Father Michael came toward them holding the icon. Father Michael signed Father Potapov with the icon and handed it to the startled priest, saying “While reading the Psalter, I got the sensation that the icon must return with you to Washington.” After making a prostration, he quickly returned to the skete. The Potapovs brought the icon back to the cathedral where it is installed next to the reliquaries along the wall of the left kliros. Although the icon is no longer streaming myrrh, signs of the previous phenomenon are visible on the surface of it and it exudes a sweet aroma. Devout members of all faiths are welcome at the cathedral to venerate the holy Mother of God who wishes to remain with her American people.
Many miracles have been wrought through the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, not only of people’s bodies, but first and foremost, their souls. Wherever Jose Munoz would bring it - whether to America or Europe, to Mt. Athos or to the Holy Land - everywhere it inspired the faithful to confess, to receive Holy Communion, to be reconciled with one another and to weep over their sins. It is a fountain of such things, of a mystical and peace-endowing grace, causing people to forget their burdens and all of their secular concerns. It is a grace which brings something akin to the joy of
Pascha, the holy resurrection of Christ.
- Rev.Victor Potapov –
Archpriest Victor Potapov is the rector of St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
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