Articles on the Pochaiv Mother of God Icon visit to Canada
At the time of the visit of the Wonderworking Pochayiv Icon of the Mother of God to Toronto an 11-year old boy got healed.
Below we present the text of the note handed by the boy's mother to the priests, who accompanied the Icon.
Toronto, September 26-27. Melnik Vladimir, 11 years old. Our elder son came from school with his knee bound up. Playing with his friends during the break, he had a bad fall and got wounded. The wound was deep and large (3 inches in diameter). Obviously, some dirt that had not been cleaned at school got into the wound. In spite of the consequent treatment of the wound with antibiotic ointment, the wound started festering, becoming blue-grey in colour.
On Saturday, in about a week after the incident, the Pochayiv icon of the Mother of God was brought to Toronto. At the Vesper service our son prayed unto the icon down on his knees though it ached badly.
When we removed the dressing for treatment of the wound at home, we noticed that it stopped festering and the symptoms of healing process appeared.
On Sunday, after the Liturgy, the wound was fully clean and covered with crust. The healing happened right under our very eyes!
Thanks God for all!
Thank Pochayiv Icon for healing our son!
By Igumen Alexander:
Dear Brothers in Christ:
On Tuesday late evening the Pochaiv Icon of Mother of God landed in Pearson Airport, as we were waiting at the customs exit, the flight attendant saw us clergy and with great excitement stated that the Mother of God travelled with them, and what a blessing,. she was able to venerate the icon on route.
The two monks from Pochaiv along with Protodeacon Nazari and myself travelled with the icon to Montreal on route, not planned, we stopped at St. Gregory of Nyssa mission in Kingston and somehow immediately Fr. Pierre stopped at the church and Fr. Luke was also in town and came to venerate the icon along with 2 other parish people, These monks live in the Skete in Westport 60 km away and are seldom in Kingston accept for services.
Arriving at STS Peter and Paul Cathedral in Montreal served a Vespers and Akathist and 450 came that evening.
In the morning Liturgy was served by our Bishop elect Archimandrite Irenee along with 7 clerics. A stream of people coming all day to venerate this Miracle Icon. One lady told me that she had come to Canada 20 years ago and this was the first time she had entered a church and how she was called by the Mother of God to be there. Second women told me that she just arrived to visit family here, being from Russia and overwhelmed that she could venerate this icon in Canada, something that would be next in impossible where she lives.
May the Pochaiv Mother of God Icon as she travels to all our deaneries bless us and our faithful and bring to lost to her SON.
Wonderworking Pochaiv Mother of God Icon visits Churches in Canada
(ORTHODOX FAITH №25 • October 2009)
The Orthodox icon is a special kind of selfrevelation of the Church; it is a spiritual field within a physical space, a crossing point of the radiuses of the Orthodox canons, of mystics, of soteriology.
The Orthodox icon expresses the concept of beauty as something holy and sacred. Beauty is an ontological rather than an esthetic category, a guiding light in the search for the absolute truth.
The icon is evidence that the God’s Son became Son of Man, that God’s word became flesh and the Divine Hypostasis became a being of both Divine and human nature — unique and real. God accepted human nature in perpetuity so as to show people a path leading to His perfection, to let man, the peak of His creation, participate in the freedom and consummation of the Absolute Being. The Orthodox icon reflects the greatest truths of the faith in Jesus Christ the Savior — it is at once a sermon and a prayer, and a means for spiritual transformation. The icon is not a picture containing solely religious information, it is something more than a simple representation. After an icon has been consecrated it becomes a vehicle of the blissful presence of the invisible God, Who became visible through Jesus Christ. That is why St. Simeon of Thessaloniki said: «What is represented in paints is truth in a painting, as is what is written in a book, and God’s grace lives forever in it, because that which is represented is holy».
According to the definitions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787 AD) «the praise for the image is transferred to the original image».
We should distinguish between an icon and an idol. The idol is an image of false and imaginary deities, while the icon is a sacred representation of the one, true God and His holy angels and saints. The Orthodox icon is much more than a visual aid that makes up for the written word for the illiterate. Its role is not passive; the icon is an active mediator that allows the presence of the original image and conveys God’s grace to the worshippers.
God reveals His power and grace in a peculiar way in some icons, places and objects that possess extraordinary powers. The most essential quality of these icons, places and objects is not inherent to them — it is to be found in God’s grace and love and in His generosity to send His power through whoever and whatever He chooses and wherever He chooses. The devout Christians need to show firm and perform good and holy deeds in order to receive God’s grace.
Icons of Mary holding her Son Jesus have been popular since the Council of Ephesus which in 431 solemnly declared Mary to be the Theotokos or Mother of God.
St. Luke was the first one who painted the «Theotokos», «Mother of God», while she was still alive. He is credited with three icons of the «Panagia», in one case using the wooden table where Mary and St. John ate their meals.
Throughout history, many Icons of the Most Holy Mother of God have had miracles attributed to them.
The Wonderworking Pochaiv Icon of the Mother of God is visiting OCA parishes throughout Canada until October 11, 2009. The icon began its trip to Canada on Tuesday, September 22, where it was at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in Montreal, QC. On Saturday, September 26, the icon traveled to Toronto, where it was resting at Christ the Saviour Cathedral. On Tuesday, September 29, the Pochaiv Mother of God icon was at Holy Annunciation Cathedral for the consecration of Archimandrite Irénée (Rochon) as Bishop of Quebec City and Auxiliary to His Eminence, Archbishop Seraphim. Other cities in Canada scheduled for the tour include Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina and Winnipeg.
Before returning to Ukraine, the Pochaiv icon will again be at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Toronto on Sunday, October 11. The Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God is among the most venerable sacred items of the Orthodox Church.
Located at the Dormition Cathedral, Pochaev, Ukraine, the icon is renowned throughout the Slavic world and is venerated by Orthodox Christians throughout the world. Christians of other confessions also come to venerate the wonderworking image of the Most Holy Theotokos, together with the Orthodox.
The wonderworking icon has been kept at the Pochaev Lavra, an ancient bastion of Orthodoxy, for about 400 years. (The account of the transfer of the icon to the Pochaev monastery is found under September 8). The miracles which issued forth from the holy icon are numerous and are testified to in the monastery books with the signatures of the faithful who have been delivered from unclean spirits, liberated from captivity, and sinners brought to their senses.
In the year 1721, Pochaev was occupied by Uniates. Even in this difficult time for the Lavra, the monastery chronicle notes 539 miracles from the glorified Orthodox icon. During the time of the Uniate rule in the second half of the eighteenth century, for example, the Uniate nobleman Count Nicholas Pototski became a benefactor of the Pochaev Lavra through the following miraculous circumstance. Having accused his coachman of overturning the carriage with frenzied horses, the count took out a pistol to shoot him. The coachman, turning towards Pochaev Hill, reached his hands upwards and cried out: «Mother of God, manifest in the Pochaev Icon, save me!» Pototski several times tried to shoot the pistol, which had never let him down, but the weapon misfired. The coachman remained alive. Pototski then immediately went to the wonderworking icon and decided to devote himself and all his property to the building-up of the monastery. From his wealth the Dormition cathedral was built, as well as buildings for the brethren.
The return of Pochaev into the bosom of Orthodoxy in 1832 was marked by the miraculous healing of the blind maiden Anna Akimchukova, who had come on pilgrimage to the holy things together with her seventy-year-old grandmother from Kremenets-Podolsk, 200 versts away. In memory of this event, the Volhynia archbishop and Lavra archimandrite Innocent (1832-1840) established the reading of the Akathist on Saturdays before the wonderworking icon. During the time of Archimandrite Agathangelus, Archbishop of Volhynia (1866-1876), a separate chapel was constructed in the galleries of the Holy Trinity church in memory of the victory over the Tatars, which was dedicated on July 23, 1875.
Archimandrite Irenee (Rochon) Consecrated Bishop of Quebec City (ORTHODOX FAITH №25 • October 2009)
Ten bishops participated in the episcopal consecration of Archimandrite Irénée [Rochon] as Bishop of Quebec City and Auxiliary to His Eminence, Archbishop Seraphim of Ottawa and Canada, at Annunciation Cathedral here on Thursday, October 1, 2009.
His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, presided at the consecration. In addition to His Eminence, Archbishop Seraphim, other concelebrating members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America participating in the consecration were His Eminence, Archbishop Nathaniel of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate; His Grace, Bishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West; His Grace, Bishop Tikhon of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania; and His Grace, Bishop Melchisedek of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania.
The consecration took on a genuinely pan-Orthodox character withthe participation of a number of guest concelebrating hierarchs, including His Eminence, Metropolitan Sotirios of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto; His Grace, Bishop Iov of Kashira, Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in Canada and Acting Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA; His Grace, Bishop Alexander of the Antiochian Orthodox Diocese of Ottawa, Eastern Canada and Upstate New York; and His Grace, Bishop Meleti of Khotyn, Auxiliary Bishop of the Church of Ukraine’s Diocese of Chernivtsi.
On Wednesday evening, September 30, the Rite of Nomination, Proclamation, and Acceptance by Archimandrite Irénée took place at the cathedral immediately before Vigil for the Feast of the Protection of the Mother of God.
The wonder-working Pochaiv Icon of the Mother of God was present in the cathedral for the consecration of Bishop Irénée. The icon will be visiting major Canadian cities through October 11.
Thursday, October 1, 2009, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah and the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America consecrated Archimandrite Irénée (Rochon) Bishop of Quebec City and Auxiliary to His Eminence, Archbishop Seraphim of Ottawa and Canada.
The Rite of Consecration took place at a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy at Annunciation Cathedral, Ottawa.
Archimandrite Irénée was born into a large French Canadian Roman Catholic family on December 25, 1948, in Montréal, QC.
In 1961 he had his first contact with the Orthodox Church in Rawdon, QC, at the summer church of Saint Seraphim of Sarov, under the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Montréal.
On January 20, 1967, he was received into the Orthdoox Church by His Eminence, Archbishop Vitaly of the Russian orthdoox Church Outside of Russia [ROCOR], and until 1971, he participated in the parish life at Saint Nicholas Cathedral [ROCOR] in Montréal. During this time, he also took part in the activities of the McGill University Orthodox Christian Fellowship.
In 1971, he completed his B.A. in Slavic Studies at the University of Ottawa, and then joined Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.
In March 1974, after three years of study at Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Seminary, he was tonsured a rassophore monk. A year later, in March 1975, he was tonsured a stavrophore monk, and received the name of the Hieromartyr Irénée of Lyons.
In February 1978, he was blessed by Bishop Laurus, then Abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery, to serve in France, in the French-speaking parishes there. He was ordained Hierodeacon on May 19, 1978, in Brussels, Belgium and Hieromonk on August 20 of the same year in Geneva, Switzerland by His Eminence, Archbishop Antony of Geneva.
After serving for four years in Lyons, Father Irénée returned to Montréal to serve the French Mission there.
After the election in 1986, of Bishop Seraphim as Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Canada, Hieromonk Irénée, Hierodeacon Marc (Pierre), and members of the French Mission in Montreal petitioned to be received into the OCA’s Archdiocese of Canada.
Father Irénée was elevated to the rank of Igumen in 1992, to care for the French speaking monastics in Québec.
In 1993, he was assigned priestincharge of the Saint Benoît Frenchspeaking parish in Montréal. He served also as supply priest in many parishes in Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Québec City.
In 1996, Father Irénée was assigned as Administrator of the Russian Cemetery and Saint Seraphim parish, Rawdon, QC, an obedience which he fulfilled until 2007.
In addition to his pastoral duties in parishes of the Orthodox Church in America, he worked full-time in a local Montréal hospital until December 2008.
On April 2, 2009, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, elevated Igumen Irénée to the rank of Archimandrite, and elected him Auxiliary Bishop for His Eminence, Archbishop Seraphim of Ottawa and Canada, with the title of Bishop of Québec City.
The Archdiocese of Canada has announced that, in conjunction with the consecration of Archmandritre Irénée, the wonder-working Pochaiv Mother of God icon was visiting Ottawa as part of a Canada-wide tour.
ABOUT EPISCOPACY
As per His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah the episcopacy presents the ultimate ascetic and spiritual challenge: the challenge of complete conversion to Christ, the transformation of mind and heart by repentance, in order that one elected to be a bishop may say with St Paul, «I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the Son of God» (Gal 2:20). To die to self, to empty oneself, to humble oneself even unto death—this is the calling of the bishop, because his calling is to manifest Christ wholly and completely, by identifying with Him and actualizing His Presence. Though there are many tasks and jobs associated with the episcopacy, administrative, pastoral and liturgical, it is not so much about the «job» as it is about the person; and that person is not the bishop, but rather, Christ.
The bishop is not only high priest, but hierarch: the source of sanctification, as all ministries are established by the ordination of the bishop. This defines the nature of Episcopal leadership.
Leadership in the Orthodox Church is not about organizational ability, political acumen and all the interpersonal tools of communication.
These are important; but they are not of the essence. Real leadership in the Church is first and foremost spiritual leadership: attaining, imparting and actualizing the Vision and experience of the Kingdom. Only by first attaining this vision ourselves, the divine theoria of the Kingdom of God, can we attain the discernment necessary to «rightly divide the word of Truth,» to rightly distribute the gifts of grace, and to discern those worthy to bear such ministries, and have the ability to fulfill them. Only by ascetic self-denial can we exercise true discernment—the vision of the will of God, and how to fulfill it—free from any selfish or self-serving agendas.
Then our leadership will be true: we will able to lead people to Christ and the Kingdom, and to manifest the Kingdom in our midst, by constantly renewing that vision of the Kingdom, through our prayer and worship and through our works of charity and outreach.
Real Episcopal leadership must be manifest in action: the care for the clergy and faithful, most especially the poor and needy, those trapped in the poverty of loneliness and isolation.
The bishop is called to establish churches and monasteries, not simply as liturgical centers, but as the means by which the Church reaches out to the world, to spread the Gospel of repentance and forgiveness, and thus to heal and reconcile those broken and fallen, lonely and despairing, to God. The bishop is called to preach and teach, to evangelize and bring Christ to the world, and to bring those outside the Church to Christ.
The bishop is called to form men and women for the service of the Church, as clergy, monastics, lay leaders, and all as disciples. He must lead them in the spiritual quest for the virtues through self-denial, by his life first, and then by his teaching. He must discern the gifts God has given each person, and equip and bless each person to fulfill their ministry, thereby fulfilling their personhood in the communion of persons, which is the Body of Christ.
The bishop cannot do any of this in isolation; the episcopate exists only in relation to the whole community. The bishop’s ultimate ministry is to bring together the whole community of the Church, so that with a common vision and common activity the whole body works together in synergy with the will of God. Thus, the bishop recapitulates the whole church entrusted to him, not only in a mystical sacramental sense, but in common action, held together in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of Peace.
According to the program of stay of the Wonderworking Pochayiv Icon of the Mother of God in Canada on October 5 the shrine arrived to St. German's Cathedral of Edmonton, where it was met by the church rector, hegumen Alexander Pigach with the clergy and faithful. The same day in the evening the akathist service was performed, praying at which were the numerous believers and clergymen, the representatives of all the orthodox jurisdictions of Edmonton.
On October 6 in the church mentioned the Divine Liturgy was celebrated following which the co-workers of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC archpriest Mykolai Danilevych conferred church awards on some local clergymen of the Diocese of Ottawa and Canada, on the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine and on the occasion of the visit of the wonderworking image in Canada.
The same day the akathist was read in Ukrainian and English to the Icon of the Mother of God of Pochayiv by the hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada (Patriarchate of Constantinople), Bishop Hilarion (Rudnyk) of Edmonton together with the clergy and numerous parishioners. It should be noted that Edmonton is considered to be one of the main centers of residence of the Ukrainian diaspora in this country.
The same day in the evening more than a hundred local Ukrainian Greek Catholics arrived to the Cathedral of the venerable Herman of Alaska, led by Bishop David (Motiuk), who raised prayers to the Icon of the Most Holy Virgin, having no possibility to conduct worship services.
October 7 the Wonderworking Pochayiv Icon of the Theotokos left for Calgary, Canada.