Xyniada, Phthiotis, Greece, June 22, 2023
Photo: Romfea
Several hierarchs of the Church of Greece came together yesterday at the Monastery of Panagia Faneromenis in Xyniada, Phthiotis, to celebrate the 61st anniversary of the finding of the monastery’s wonderworking icon of the Theotokos.
The Liturgy was celebrated by Metropolitan Timotheos of Thessaliotidos, Metropolitan Theoklitos of Stagon, and the local hierarch Metropolitan Symeon of Phthiotis, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.
In his homily, Met. Timotheos spoke of the Church’s teaching on the mystery of the Theotokos in the life of the Church:
The Panagia becomes the center of the community of Jerusalem, a community of relationships built in the name of Jesus Christ, a community of relationships from then until today. The Church needs it and we must all build this relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Triune God and with the Panagia Mother, with the saints of our faith, but mainly among ourselves, in order to truly maintain all these gifts and the Mystery of the Panagia in our lives, to be Panagia-covered so that the Lady Theotokos can also appear to us, directing our lives and reaffirming the mystery of the salvation of mankind, in the person of Jesus Christ, by sharing her gifts as the Mother of God but also as the mother of the whole world. Having become the mother of the Creator of the world, she becomes the mother of all creatures of the Creator God, that is, all of us who run to her holy icons, to her appearances, to her glory, to her greatness, to her boundless love, and we must learn to follow these footsteps in our lives.
The Holy Spirit restored the Theotokos as the second Eve, the Metropolitan noted, so that she could grant many gifts and healings by her prayers. While the saints await the Second Coming of Christ, the Mother of God is already living this eschatological reality, he said.
“We must learn how to be spiritually alive in our lives, because we receive the Grace of the Holy Spirit from Holy Baptism and from Holy Chrismation when we are placed into the spiritual womb of the Church, which is the baptismal font and are born again of water and the Spirit and are granted to the Church of God and move forward because God provides us with paths for our salvation,” he exhorted.
She lived a life above nature, but this “is the real life in Christ, which we are all called to live in our daily lives,” the Metropolitan said.
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The holy monastery was built in Xyniada in 1962 after the inhabitants of the village received a vision from the Most Holy Theotokos, who instructed them where to find her buried Eleousa Icon, writes the Metropolis of Phthiotis.
It is believed that the icon is from the time of iconoclasm, well preserved despite its age.
A small church was initially erected at the site of the discovery, but a larger church had to be built in 1965-1966 to accommodate the constant flow of pilgrims. The site was inaugurated as a monastery in 1972.
The recently canonized St. Gerasimos (Migragiannanitis) composed the hymns for the feast of the finding of the icon, celebrated on June 21.
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