Orthodox Parables and Stories: "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