Letter from Father Nectarios…

Dear beloved in Christ,

In humility and with extreme trepidation, I will attempt to relate to you what actually occurred before rumors spread, evolve, and eventually become untruths. Many have asked me to explain the events that have taken place in recent weeks regarding the two myrrh-streaming icons at the Holy Theotokos of Iveron Russian Orthodox Church in Honolulu, Hawaii. It has been hard to put into words the recent events that have taken over my life. I can’t imagine how others would have reacted if they were in my shoes, God only knows. I pray God will guide me, and my family, to do and say things that are not contrary to His Will. I will attempt to tell the story of how these humble icons came into my life and how they changed it. Everything I write here is true.

The icons in question are two:

(1) One is a mounted-print made, I believe, at the Sofrino Church factory near Moscow. It is an exact copy of the Montreal Myrrh-streaming Iveron Icon of the Holy Theotokos; this was the icon cared for by Blessed Martyr Brother José Muñoz. It is a small icon, roughly 7 x 9 inches and approximately one inch thick. My parish priest, Fr. Anatole Lyovin, gifted it to me for my Name’s Day [in 1997]. He said he purchased it at a church bookstore in Toronto when the parish in which he had grown up celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its founding. The icons from Sofrino have a distinctive style with a beautiful silk-screen riza (or oklad in Russian, Pokamiso in Greek) built into the icon. This is done so that those who cannot afford beautiful and very expensive icons can have something equally beautiful from Sofrino for less.

(2) The second icon is a hand-painted icon in the shape of a Cross, with the image of Our Lord’s crucifixion in the traditional Byzantine style of iconography. A Greek monk from the Holy Mountain Athos painted it. It is roughly 8 x 11 inches and approximately 1 1/2 inches thick. I purchased a set of two near identical Cross icons and gave one to my father as a gift; I kept the other.

Before I relate to you the full story of the icons, let me say how it all began …

Over three months ago, sometime around May, June or July of 2007, my wife and I noticed a hint of the scent of roses in the area surrounding our icon corner in our home chapel. Something made us look at our Cross icon of Christ (located behind our family reliquary), we noticed a small bead of liquid around the side wound on the image of the Christ, where the “soldier pierced His side with a lance”. The liquid smelled very sweet, like myrrh. My experience with myrrh is quite limited, my only contact being a cotton ball soaked with myrrh from the Montreal Myrrh-streaming Iveron Icon and several cotton balls of myrrh from the Myrrh-streaming St. Nicholas Icon. We told no one of this and proceeded to “keep an eye” on the icon for any new developments or any possible continuation of the “streaming”. The bead of myrrh eventually dried out and we eventually forgot about it.

Now on to the most recent developments in my story …

During the last week of September I began to notice an unbelievably strong smell of myrrh, at home, in my car, even at work. I couldn’t explain it. Was it all in my head? I asked my wife and she said she didn’t smell anything. I spoke with several other people who visited our home, and they too said they didn’t smell anything. (One of these people was our Serbian Orthodox kuma – she, too, couldn’t smell anything.) I was convinced it was all in my imagination. This was on September 27th, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

Then in the first week of October, my wife and I were extremely ill and missed Vespers that night. We don’t miss too many of the church’s divine services, so we did take notice of the date, October 6th (Feast day of the Conception of St. John the Baptist). Around 10:30 p. m. that night, I was working in my office, which also doubles as our home chapel where our icon corner is located. My cat walked into the office and began to sniff around as if he smelled something. I did not smell anything. He proceeded to walk toward the area were our family reliquaries are kept. I thought this was strange since he would never go near the reliquaries; amazingly something always stopped him, and he’s a nosy cat. Yet this time he stood on his hind legs and sniffed around, I assume in order to figure out what the smell was. I still didn’t smell anything. I proceeded to pick him up and then I noticed the scent. It was so strong, even overwhelming. Never have I smelled anything like that in my life. I couldn’t explain why I hadn’t smelled it before. It was like a thousand roses had fallen into the room. I crossed myself and guarded myself with the Jesus Prayer. I put the cat down and proceeded to look at the icons. I admit I was afraid to look at the icons near the reliquaries. I finally came to the icon of the Cross and noticed that the bead of myrrh by the side-wound of Christ was still dry, for a split second I regained some composure, even as the smell of roses was getting stronger. I then looked down and my hand was wet — it was myrrh. How did it get there? The icon was dry? Or was it? I then noticed that the left knee of the image of Our Lord was forming a bead of myrrh right before my eyes. I then called out to my wife. She came running, and when I asked her if she had spilled anything on the icons, she said no. She hadn’t gone near them. I showed her the icon. She was in shock. I told her the smell is too strong. Help me look at the other icons. So she did. In my office I have two bookshelves, at the top of them are icons. We have many icons, maybe too many. I stood on my toes to reach for the icons at the top of my bookshelves. My wife did the same. Finally I grabbed the icon of Iveron given to me by Fr. Anatole. It was completely wet. And then the smell got even stronger. Even my wife could smell it. For those of you who don’t know my wife, her sense of smell is very limited; she is only capable of smelling citrus scents. We were afraid. We asked one another if we cleaned or anointed the icons recently, and both of us said ‘no’. ‘What is going on?’ I asked. I put the icons back where they were; we took a few pictures with our digital camera. Then I said an Akathist to the Mother of God in honor of her Iveron Icon and went to bed, or at least tried to. 

Excerpt from Holy Theotokos of Iveron Orthodox Church website.  See links below to full article, the official website of the Orthodox Hawaiian Iveron Icon Association, where to purchase a copy of the icon and various videos…