Khabarovsk (a city on the Amur river near the east coast of the Siberian Russia), September 9, 2015
Two icons of the Convent in honor of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, situated on the bank of the Petropavlovskoye lake in the Petropavlovka village of the Khabarovsk district of the Russian Federation’s Khabarovsk administrative territory, have started exuding myrrh. These icons were painted by the convent sisters for the new Church of the Holy Archangel Michael on the territory of the convent’s complex, reports the Pravostok.ru portal.
It was done for a simple reason: as it was very hot in the workshop, heat could worsen the process of desiccation of paint on the icons. Nun Alipia who watched over the “drying” of the icons, noticed abundant drops on one of them.
“I thought it was oil from an icon lamp,” relates the eyewitness of the miracle. “Having told the abbess about this, I took the icon lamp down and wiped the icon dry, even not examining these drops. Some while later I came to these icons again in order to make photographs of them and spotted similar drops already on the other icon. And it was at this very moment that I realized that these were not mere drops – it was a miracle of God.”
The two icons still keep streaming myrrh: they are being kept in the Mother Antonia’s cell. The myrrh which is trickling down is being collected by the sisters on a specially prepared little piece of cotton wool.
“This year was a difficult one for our community, a kind of a test on our endurance,” Abbess Antonia says. “And we believe this is the gratitude of the Mother of God to the sisters: for the hard work they have carried out and because they withstood all the trials and did not give up.”
It is a rhetorical question, how long the icons are going to exhale myrrh. But one thing can be said for certain: the manifestation of the Divine presence will remain a spiritual support for the convent’s community. Meanwhile, the convent is continuing its usual life concentrated on prayer, in which everybody always relies upon the will of God.
In the near future the icons, with the blessing of the ruling bishop, may be displayed at the convent church for veneration of the faithful.
