By Spyros Symeon
On the mountain where the ancient acropolis of Thestia is located in the region of Aitoloakarnania, just a few kilometers from Agrinio, is the Monastery of Panagia Vlochaitissa with its miraculous icon.
The icon shows the Panagia enthroned and holding Christ in her arms, flanked by four prophets and two angels who place a precious crown on her head.
In this icon of the Panagia we see something very rare: the Panagia is smiling!
Numerous are the miracles she has performed for the sick, those in pain, and everyone who hastens with supplications before her icon and begs her to intercede with our Lord and God.
Women who could not bear children finally through her intercessions succeeded, those sick even with incurable diseases made doctors confess to her miraculous intervention.
It is an icon full of grace and blessing, an inexhaustible source of healing.
Today, June 5th, is a day of commemoration of her wondrous and salvific intervention among the residents of the area who love her dearly and who in every difficulty turn to her.
On this day, in the year 1893, after days and weeks of drought that hit the region of Aetolia, residents and priests of the area of the town of Kainourgio, having prepared many days with fasting and confession, decided to turn to their beloved Mother and patroness Panagia Vlochaitissa as she is known (or otherwise as Panagia Oraiotati) and ascended to her monastery.
They performed a Divine Liturgy and received Divine Communion of the Immaculate Mysteries, and all were present.
They took the icon of the Panagia on their shoulders and descended on foot to the town of Kainourgio.
There in the square they started to supplicate in the open-air and with tears in their eyes they asked for her intercession so that the drought would end which had plagued them so much and for so long so that their crops were affected and their wells dried up.
Then suddenly - O the strange miracle! - a cloud suddenly appeared over the monastery on the mountain and the rain began.
It was a salvific rain since the residents awaited it and longed for it. The most strange? How the cloud and the rain covered only the borders of the community of Kainourgio and it rained, as all its inhabitants reported, exactly as much as was needed.
The elderly even today remember the stories of their ancestors who experienced the miracle with tears in their eyes and many of them also have a personal miracle to tell. A Divine intervention from their beloved Mother the Vlochaitissa.
They decided to celebrate this miracle annually on this day and go every year to the Monastery of the Panagia, celebrating the Divine Liturgy, thanking the Vlochaitissa who, as then, every day and night, intercedes for them and covers them through her monastery that has stood proudly for centuries, up there on the mountain.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
On this day, in the year 1893, after days and weeks of drought that hit the region of Aetolia, residents and priests of the area of the town of Kainourgio, having prepared many days with fasting and confession, decided to turn to their beloved Mother and patroness Panagia Vlochaitissa as she is known (or otherwise as Panagia Oraiotati) and ascended to her monastery.
They performed a Divine Liturgy and received Divine Communion of the Immaculate Mysteries, and all were present.
They took the icon of the Panagia on their shoulders and descended on foot to the town of Kainourgio.
There in the square they started to supplicate in the open-air and with tears in their eyes they asked for her intercession so that the drought would end which had plagued them so much and for so long so that their crops were affected and their wells dried up.
Then suddenly - O the strange miracle! - a cloud suddenly appeared over the monastery on the mountain and the rain began.
It was a salvific rain since the residents awaited it and longed for it. The most strange? How the cloud and the rain covered only the borders of the community of Kainourgio and it rained, as all its inhabitants reported, exactly as much as was needed.
The elderly even today remember the stories of their ancestors who experienced the miracle with tears in their eyes and many of them also have a personal miracle to tell. A Divine intervention from their beloved Mother the Vlochaitissa.
They decided to celebrate this miracle annually on this day and go every year to the Monastery of the Panagia, celebrating the Divine Liturgy, thanking the Vlochaitissa who, as then, every day and night, intercedes for them and covers them through her monastery that has stood proudly for centuries, up there on the mountain.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.