This weekend is Greek Orthodox Easter, and thousands of Orthodox Christians are making a pilgrimage to Chicago to witness what many are calling a “miracle” and an “act of God,” as, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune , a painting of St. John the Baptist has begun to weep drops of scented oil , which parishioners believe to be myrrh. The oil is “weeping” from the saint’s halo, hands, wings, and beard, and is being collected by a cotton reservoir at the base of the painting.
The “miracle” was first spotted by Reverend Sotirios “Sam” Dimitriou of the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in Homer Glen, 25 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.
“The first thing out of my mouth was ‘What do I do?’ You don’t expect anything like this. It’s breathtaking. It’s so powerful to see such an act of God before your eyes.”
And while many are skeptical, the clergy of the Greek Orthodox church don’t particularly care if it’s an actual miracle or not; Bishop Demetrios, auxiliary bishop of Mokissos of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago, said that he’s happy to let people believe what they want to believe. Whether it’s a genuinely supernatural event, he says, is less important than whether it reaffirms someone’s faith.
“We don’t necessarily make official pronouncements on these things. We let the faithful believe it if they wish. … If it brings you closer to God that’s wonderful. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”
As per Christian Today , Rev. Dimitriou has been regularly collecting the oil from the reservoir at the base into a pitcher, soaking cotton balls in it, and handing them out to his parishioners . So far, he has handed out more than 5,000 samples, illustrating how many pilgrims have been drawn to witness the alleged miracle since the painting began to weep oil in July. He seals the cotton balls in plastic bags before distributing them, allowing parishioners to take them home and share the oil with others.
And that’s important to parishioners, who believe that the oil has miraculous healing properties. Rev. Dimitriou, who was rather ironically recently hospitalized himself, has begun hearing reports of alleged miracle cures from the oil — one parishioner claims that he went to his doctor over concerns of a blockage in an artery, but that tests revealed it had disappeared. Another claims that touching the oil left him cancer-free. And the painter himself, Panayiotis “Peter” Mihalopoulos, firmly believes that the oil is responsible for his being up and painting again two days after a hip replacement.
Panayiotis sells his work on his Facebook page, and business has, unsurprisingly, picked up significantly since July; something he’s not above taking advantage of, sharing the church’s posts that mention his weeping painting.
Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time that Chicago, and the Orthodox Church therein, has drawn crowds of pilgrims with a weeping icon. In 1986, an icon of the Virgin Mary at the St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church began “weeping” unexplained streaks of moisture, which has been repeated several times, drawing crowds each time. And in 1994, parishioners at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Cicero claimed to have seen another icon of the Virgin Mary begin weeping from her eyes.
Who knew that Chicago was the city of crying paintings?
However, James Skedros, dean of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, says that this phenomenon isn’t as uncommon as people think, claiming that similar events have taken place across America. The Orthodox Church believes that matter, such as holy imagery, can be a conveyor of sanctity.
“We have a very different understanding of matter as a vehicle of holiness so we treat icons in that matter. We put them on walls, burn candles in front of them, light incense in front of them because they’re images of what they represent — the holy person or image of Christ or the saint.”
Skedros says that while, of course, this could be explained as a rational reaction to the church’s environment, the church isn’t interested in exploring a scientific explanation of the phenomenon.
“God, through this icon, is somehow healing this parish from some serious hurt in its past.”
[Image courtesy of InSapphoWeTrust | Cropped and Resized | [ CC BY-SA 2.0 ], via Flickr ]