Orthodox Parables and Stories: A Miracle of St. Anne

In the summer of 1969 there was a great drought in Moldavia. The people were extremely worried, because the crops were in danger of drying up. Finally, the priest of the village of Patraveni summoned the Christians to church and said to them: "Brethren, God is angry because of our sins. Tomorrow the whole village will go to pray to St.Anne. Prepare your wagons, and bring food, candles, oil, and incense, and at five o'clock tomorrow morning we will leave." The next morning, at eight o'clock, about three hundred people with their priest at their head arrived at the gates of Bistrita Monastery. First, Divine Liturgy was celebrated, and afterwards they took the Icon out to the courtyard and performed Holy Unction, while the faithful knelt and prayed silently. Some wept. After everyone had been anointed with the holy oil, there was a procession with the icon around the church, and then it was set in one place and all the people venerated it. Afterwards the faithful knelt in two rows, and the icon was passed over their heads as a blessing. When all the prayers were finished it was noon, and they sat down to eat whatever they had brought with them. Then they called their village and asked for wagons to come and pick them up. Two or three hours went by, and still they did not appear. Finally they learned that during the three hours they had been praying it had rained so hard in their village that the wagons, together with the animals pulling them, were completely unable to move. The miracle was even more wonderful, for the rain had fallen only within the boundaries of their village, and not in the adjoining one. When the inhabitants of the neighboring villages saw this, they decided to do the same. Thus for a week the faithful from seven villages came with their priests, each village on a different day, to ask for the Saint's assistance. And St.Anne, by her prayers to God, did not fail to extend the rain to the neighboring villages; however, it only rained in the villages whose inhabitants came to her asking for her prayers and help.

Monk Damascene of Grigoriou Monastery, Mt. Athos "A Pilgrimage to Orthodox Romania"