Agia Paraskevi, Athens, Greece, March 19, 2021
Photo: johnsanidopoulos.com On March 7, Blessed Kyra-Maria Dendrinelli, the keeper of the wonderworking Panagia Oikonomissa Icon reposed in the Lord at the age of 86.
Maria was a “woman of deep faith and much reverence,” who greatly loved the Theotokos and kept the revered icon of her in her home. “God was seen as her helper and her covering and her protector, throughout her difficult life,” reads the report on her repose on Mystagogy.
She lived very poorly, receiving no salary for her work cleaning houses, but she nurtured deep love for the Lord Jesus Christ and His Most Pure Mother, and labored in fasting and unceasing prayer. Her walls were full of icons, and every evening she would burn incense and bless her house both inside and out, as well as her neighbors.
Maria also labored as a prosphoron baker, sending her loaves to churches and monasteries throughout the world. She was once personally visited in her tiny hut-apartment by His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece, who always wanted her prosphora when celebrating the Divine Liturgy.
She was also often visited by Athonite fathers, whom she loved to engage in deep spiritual conversations.
Photo: johnsanidopoulos.com She was also known to feed sick clergy and monastics in hospitals she visited, and she was known to pray for everyone, and especially for young children, poor families, the divorced, the lonely, drug addicts, the sick, widows, orphans, large families, the tormented, enemies of the Church, and for everyone and everything.
“She shined more than bishops because she loved Jesus Christ so much and became His deaconess by making prosphora for His Divine Liturgies,” Fr. Christos Ioannides writes of her, noting that hundreds spontaneously came to fill the church courtyard when she was buried.
Spiro Paps, who know Blessed Maria for 14 years, writes of her and the icon:
Many times she gave me the impression that she forgot her own problems and focused on yours! She would turn to the icon of our Panagia and say: “Yes, my Panagia! My child will be fine, won't he? I know you will help him! Make him well! I know he is a good child!” And the miracle... it just simply happened!
So unique were her prayers for all of us to her only treasure, the miraculous icon of the Panagia Oikonomissa! A family heirloom of about 800 years, which she held in her hands from Grandpa to Grandpa, coming from the depths of the East—Mylasa of Asia Minor!
A holy icon that foretold every evil, as it is written in its apolytikion! Several times Grandma Maria got a message through the icon for things that were to come, in such a way as she experienced!
In those difficult years, with the sufferings of that time, Grandmother Maria journeyed from the Island of Kos and she was transferred to Athens with her only protection, her Panagia Oikonomissa! So poor and austere was her life, but everything was taken care of and arranged by our Panagia whom Grandmother Maria served non-stop!
Following her repose, the Panagia Oikonomissa Icon, which long belonged to her family, was taken to the Skete of St. Anna on Mt. Athos.
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