The Tearing Icon

The Tearing Icon

    The icon of the Virgin Mary with the Christ child that is in the church of transfiguration was hand painted in l992 by a local orthodox iconographer Mr. Gabriel Gaylmantian. Many icons in the church were glassed up by lay people and framed in order to preserve and better protect them. On the morning of June 17, l998, Fr. Nicola Aqel went into the church to light candles as usual. He found the glass of the framed icon broken on the floor. The priest was a bit scared and left quickly to report the incident to Archimandrite Dr. Meletios Bassal, the superior at the Transfiguration convent right next to the church since l997. Both Fr. Nicola and Fr. Meletios thought the glass had possibly fallen because strong wind blowing from an open window pushed the oil lamp to break the glass. But, right next to the icon, the lamp was still lit from the previous day so this was an indication that it could not have been the wind. Both priests were a bit nervous that the glass broke so they left the church for the local parish priest at that time Fr. JeriesMarzouka to see it.

    Fr. Jeries who is originally from the Bethlehem area returned about five or six hours later to the church after a visit to relatives. He was asked to clean up the glass on the floor that had fallen from the frame of the icon but cut his hand while touching the glass. He screamed for help so Fr. Meletios came running inside the church and saw his hand bleeding. The archimandrite ran quickly to the convent to get a piece of cotton and alcohol to clean the wound. When he returned, He found Fr. Jeries kneeling and praying and his hand had stopped bleeding and the cut closed up with no traces of blood. When they observed the icon more carefully they noticed the icon had many streaks of oil. The icon appeared to be in tears represented by oil.

The shedding of oil tears continued and the oil was collected over the years to heal many people.