8-yr-old mute girl begins to speak before miraculous icon of Mother of God

Sochos, Greece, September 19, 2017

Photo: petraxili.blogspot.ru

A new miracle of the She Who is Quick to Hear Icon of the Mother of God occurred last week at the Panagia Theoskepastos Monastery in Sohos in northeastern Greece, a podvoriye of the Athonite Dochariou Monastery where the icon is normally housed. The miracle involved an 8-year-old girl who had been mute from birth, reports vimaortodoxias.gr.

For one week every year, the miraculous She Who is Quick to Hear Icon is transported from Mt. Athos to the Sohos monastery on September 6 that those who cannot travel to Dochariou, especially women and children, can come venerate the beloved icon. Thousands from Greece, Cyprus, and other countries travel to the monastery to venerate the icon of the Panagia and to receive the blessing of abbot Elder Gregory of Dochariou Monastery.

According to a Nun Thekla of the monastery, a woman from Larissa, Greece came to the monastery with her 8-year-old daughter to venerate the Mother of God. She tearfully told the nuns that daughter was mute and that she hoped she would begin to talk with the help of the Theotokos. “I had read about the miracle of the young man from Skopje last December who spoke in front of the icon for the first time in 18 years, and I want to ask her to do the same for my daughter.”

When the young man, who had never spoken before and could only make unintelligible sounds, entered Dochariou Monastery and stood next to the Quick to Hear wonderworking icon, he suddenly cried out in his native language: “Mother Mary, give me my health.”

The nuns advised the woman to take her daughter before the icon, prostrate, and with faith to ask the Mother of God to heal her child. The nuns have experienced so many miracles occurring this way. Elder Gregory of Dochariou, who is the spiritual father of the Sohos monastery, also often tells people in need of healing, “Go to the icon of the Panagia and tell her your problem.”

As the mother and her daughter were venerating the icon, the little girl gazed at the image of the Mother of God, and for the first time called out her own name of Raphaela. Everyone was flabbergasted and her mother burst into tears. The incident began to spread rapidly by word-of-mouth, and soon it was known by family, friends, and pilgrims throughout Greece.

Raphaela and her mother returned to the monastery the next day, and the little girl ran up to Mother Thekla and continually repeated her name, saying she was doing so just because she had never been able to speak before. The mother intends to soon write a letter to Elder Gregory of Dochariou, explaining everything that happened.