Saint Appearance
of the Iveron Icon of the Theotokos on Mount Athos.

In Nicea (now the Turkish city of Isnik), a rich, virtuous widow lived with her young son. The widow was praying in front of the icon in her house chapel one night when the iconoclasts came to abuse the holy image. One of the soldiers struck the icon with a sword. The blow fell into the image on the right cheek of the Most Pure Mother of God and immediately blood poured out of the wound. The frightened executioners hurried away, responding to the widow's pleas by agreeing to wait until the morning and promising the unthinkable amount of ransom for the icon.

The Nicéan widow also handed her precious image of the Theotokos to the will of God. After the departure of the soldiers, she and her son went to the seashore and, with many prayers, parted with her icon by lowering it into the water. The young man, heeding his mother's pleas, fled that night to Mount Athos where he remained there and later accepted monasticism.

On Mount Athos, during the abbotship of St. Ephemios in the Georgian monastery of Iveron on Tuesday of Bright Week in the year 999, the monks were struck by a terrible and, at the same time awe inspiring phenomenon - on the surface of the sea they saw a pillar of fire emanating from an icon. Great excitement engulfed the monastery and with prayers many tried to take the icon by boat, but every time they drew near, it was moved further away.

This continued for several days, until they learned from Elder Gabriel the Georgian, who was struggling in a cave high above Iveron Monastery, that at night the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to him in a dream. Her will was revealed - the Mother of God wants to give Her image for protection and help to the monastery, and he must, without fear, walk through the waters and receive the icon. That night, to the chanting of monks standing on the shore, Elder Gabriel walked through the water and took the Holy Icon.

While the monks were celebrating a Service of thanksgiving, a cold, sweet spring miraculously gushed forth from the ground where the Icon was standing. Afterward, they took it into the church and placed in the sanctuary with great reverence. The next morning one of the monks went to light the lamps in church and discovered that the Icon was no longer where they had put it; now it was on the wall near the entry gate. The monks took it down and returned it to the sanctuary, but the next day the Icon was found once again at the Monastery gate.

After this, the icon was permanently installed in a small Chapel next to the Gates where it remains to this day. Because of this, the icon came to be called Portaitissa or "Gate-Keeper". In 1648, Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, while he was still Archimandrite of Novospassky Monastery, commissioned an exact copy of the Iviron icon to be made and sent to Russia. Almost immediately upon its arrival on October 13, the icon was "glorified" with numerous miracles attributed to it by the faithful.

Several of the copies themselves have been known to be wonderworking, one of the most famous of which is the myrrh-streaming icon from Montreal in Canada. For fifteen years (1982–1997), as myrrh continued to flow from the Icon, Brother José Muñoz Cortés devoted himself to its care, accompanying it on numerous trips to parishes all over the United States and Canada, to South America, Australia, and Europe. Since June of 2008, the Iveron Icon has been to over 1000 churches in North America of all (canonical) jurisdictions, and has been venerated by millions of people throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and the world.

The Iveron Icon—One of Christendom's Most Revered Images

The Panagia Portaitissa, also known as the Iviron Theotokos or Iverskaya in Russian, is an Eastern Orthodox icon of the Virgin Mary in the Georgian Iviron monastery on Mount Athos in Greece, where it is believed to have been since the year 999. According to the sacred tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church it was painted by Luke the Evangelist.

The icon belongs to a family of images of the Theotokos known as Hodegetria (Greek: Όδηγήτρια, "she who leads the way") after the prototype from Constantinople. The icon is referred to as "Wonderworking" meaning that numerous miracles have been attributed to the intercession of the Theotokos (Mother of God) by persons praying before it.

Origins During the Iconoclastic Period

Originally housed in Nicaea, the icon was owned by a devout widow. The reign of Emperor Theophilus (829-842), a staunch iconoclast, saw a renewed surge in the destruction of icons. One of the soldiers struck the icon with a sword. The blow fell into the image on the right cheek of the Most Pure Mother of God and immediately blood poured out of the wound.

After the departure of the soldiers, she and her son went to the seashore and, with many prayers, parted with her icon by lowering it into the water. As if responding to the loyalty of a courageous woman, the icon did not sink to the bottom, but becoming vertical and facing the shore, began to quickly move west until it disappeared from sight.

The Miraculous Recovery at Mount Athos

On Mount Athos, during the abbotship of St. Ephemios in the Georgian monastery of Iveron on Tuesday of Bright Week in the year 999, the monks were struck by a terrible and, at the same time awe inspiring phenomenon - on the surf the monks of Ivḗron Monastery on Mount Athos noticed a pillar of light, shining upon the sea like the sun.

Much later (c. 1004) the icon was recovered from the sea by a Georgian monk named Gabriel the Iberian (later canonized a saint in the Orthodox Church), who was laboring at the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos. Gabriel walked out upon the water as though upon dry land, took the icon in his arms, and obediently carried it back to shore.

The Icon's Appointed Place at the Gate

The tradition goes on to say that the following day, when the monks entered the church they could not find the icon. After searching they discovered the icon hanging on the gates of the monastery. This occurrence was repeated several times, until St. Gabriel reported that he had seen a vision of the Theotokos, wherein she revealed that she did not want her icon to be guarded by the monks, but rather she intended to be their Protectress. The icon forever remained at the gates, where the monks later built a temple in the name of the Most Holy Theotokos - "Chapel of the Gatekeeper". Since then, the Iveron icon is called "Portaitissa", that is, the Gatekeeper of Mount Athos.