St. Spyridon’s Church in Corfu. Photo by Dmitry Kiryukhin Before the pandemic, we used to go to Corfu every year: we holidayed at Palaiokastritsa and almost daily travelled to Kerkyra where the saint’s relics are kept at St. Spyridon’s Church. We met some Russian vendors selling icons, oil blessed on the saint’s relics (the locals call him “Father”), incense, candles, jewelry, and souvenirs by the church.
One day we started a conversation about the saint’s help in solving the “housing problem”. Our good friend, a Russian Greek woman, was not very pleased with the topic we had chosen:
“Oh, it was all started by Andryusha[1] who attracted the attention of a wide audience to St. Spyridon by calling him ‘the main real estate agent of Moscow’ in one of his talk shows…”
However, we do hear a lot of such testimonies, and to be honest, my wife and I are absolutely sure that St. Spyridon helped us with the “housing issue” too.
In October 2014, my wife and I prayed at the shrine with the saint’s relics, asking him to help us with the move. For that we needed to sell our apartment, which had only two merits: a brick house (though very old) and a location in the city’s center. As we prayed, we decided: “Let it be as Fr. Spyridon pleases.” On returning home, we slowly began to work in this direction, and suddenly a buyer appeared almost immediately. We managed to get a loan from the bank very quickly, and other financial problems were resolved in the best way for us. We didn’t have to do much: everything went by itself. It was as if we were watching from the side. But at the same time, we understood that St. Spyridon was near and managing everything. And it was both joyful and a little scary because of such undeserved attention to us sinners from the saint. Thus, by the New Year (after only two months!) we moved into our new apartment.
But our lady friend from Kerkyra did not want to listen to us, because for her it seemed petty, self-evident and therefore not worth her attention. And she was probably right!
But I remembered that failed conversation.
At the reliquary with a slipper of St. Spyridon of Tremithus There is a cathedral in the big Siberian city we live in, and it has an icon of St. Spyridon, painted by the famous Greek iconographer Evangelos Mavronas. At the foot of the icon stands a reliquary with a slipper of St. Spyridon. The history of the appearance of this relic in the cathedral is also remarkable.
In 2012, our Hieromonk Dometian and Novice Boris (now a priest), with the blessing of the ruling hierarch and with a letter from him addressed to the local metropolitan, went to Kerkyra to purchase a particle of the relics of St. Spyridon for the diocese. The icon appeared to be very expensive, none of them had the required sum of money, but after their fervent prayers to the saint the icon was sold to them at a huge discount! And the question of the saint’s slipper was solved even more unexpectedly. Our pilgrims came to an appointment with the Greek metropolitan, who, after listening to them carefully, said, “How can you take a particle of relics from a living person? But it is possible to get the saint’s slipper, and it should be decided with the rector of the church.” After praying hard, they approached the rector, but he only spread his hands—the line for the saint’s slippers was very long, and they would have to wait a long time. But then, as the pilgrims recalled later, something incredible happened. After a prolonged pause, the rector suddenly said that they had a slipper that had been on the saint’s foot for a whole year, but one Greek church was waiting for it very much... However… if St. Spyridon was so loved in Siberia... and if the metropolitan blessed… then, as a special exception…
And the slipper was given to them!
On learning about it, the Greeks unanimously began to assert that it had been a real miracle, and that there could only be one explanation for this—St. Spyridon had himself decided to visit Siberia!
I think since 2016, after the evening service, the icon of St. Spyridon and his slipper have been brought to the middle of the church, with the priest (the same Novice Boris!) reading the akathist to the saint. And one day, shortly before the pandemic, having recalled my conversation with a Greek saleswoman, I decided to ask some parishioners of the church (whom I had known well and who would come for the akathist regularly) whether the saint had helped them in any way, expecting to hear “apartment stories” in response.
And here is what I heard:
St. Spyridon’s relics in Moscow. Photo: Priest Igor Palkin / Foto.patriarchia.ru
Anastasia, a Muscovite who happened to be passing through our city:
“My husband and I had long wanted a second child, but it hadn’t worked out. We had gone through a lot of examinations and seen many doctors, but all in vain. And in late September 2018, a reliquary with the right arm of St. Spyridon was brought to Moscow from Greece. It was placed in a specially prepared place in the middle of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior beside the saint’s icon. All of our family went to the saint, and my husband and I earnestly implored St. Spyridon to pray to the Lord for the birth of a child.
“A miracle occurred in October, and our son Matthew was born! Through the saint’s prayers, help came so swiftly, although we had not expected it at all. We had been preparing for another trip in the winter, but suddenly this happened!”
Alexander:
“My wife had an interesting well-paid job. Nothing foreshadowed trouble, but like a bolt from the blue—first, salaries began to be paid in installments, then on and off, and then payments stopped altogether. My wife continued to work, hoping that things would sort themselves somehow, but months passed, and nothing changed. More than that, the situation for the company was only getting worse.
“One day, our friends invited us to attend the reading of the akathist to St. Spyridon. Things were really bad, my wife was very worried, and we decided to go and pray. And then events started unfolding in an amazing way. A few days later, the higher-ups paid off all the salary arrears for many months at once and—what is even more astonishing—paid for a tourist trip abroad for my wife and me as compensation for moral damage. We were dumbfounded. There has not been the slightest doubt (either then or now) that St. Spyridon had answered our prayers and helped us. Since then, we have been trying not to miss a single reading of the akathist to St. Spyridon, and we have started going to Sunday services.”
Lyudmila:
“In 2017, I took a profitable (as it seemed to me at the time) job with a company and worked from home. They should have paid well. However, in the end, only a third was paid to me, and they promised to pay the rest later. But this ‘later’ dragged on for several months. I called the company weekly and each time they told me that there was no money and I should wait. Once I approached a priest at church and wondered which saint I should pray to in order finally to receive my hard-earned money. He told me to pray to St. Spyridon of Tremithus. The next morning, I read the canon and a prayer to this saint. Ten minutes later (!) I got a phone call from the company and was notified that I could come and take the money owed to me. I was really astonished! Since then, I have never stopped praying to this saint of God—my Heavenly patron.”
Marina:
“In 2017, my son’s family began to experience housing problems. Time had flown by like a flash, his children of different sexes had grown up before our eyes, and each of them naturally needed their own room. But they couldn’t afford to improve their living conditions in the near future. My son believes in God, but he is not a church-goer. One day we asked him whether he would mind our praying to God for him. If God willed, they would surely move into a bigger apartment. He agreed. We told him that we were going to Greece and, if we had a chance, we would go to Corfu and pray to St. Spyridon. We did so, and we were absolutely certain that the saint had heard our prayers. Meanwhile, my son found a suitable apartment; it was expensive, but there was no alternative. But suddenly things didn’t go the way he wanted, and all his plans were thwarted. ‘It means it’s not time yet. St. Spyridon knows well when to help you,’ we explained to him. The following year we were in Greece again, but this time we came with the purpose of praying for my son. We took Communion, venerated the saint’s shrine, and read the akathist. Two months later, my son bought an apartment. Not the one he had found earlier, but a different one in a nice apartment block. The children have their own rooms—and how happy they are now! And we know for sure that the Lord helped them through the prayers of St. Spyridon.”
Dmitry:
“Have there been any amazing events in my life through the prayers of St. Spyridon? I am convinced that they have occurred and still occur, although I cannot mention anything specific. The whole life of a Christian is a series of miraculous events.”
Glory to God for everything!
