![]() And then… and remember that this was an assault not on Greek soldiers but on unarmed civilians. The three of them ran to the monastery to warn them that Turkish soldiers were on the way. Irene was the twelve year old daughter of the village mayor Basil and his wife Maria. For a while they left the monastery alone, but then a year later it began. In 1462, the Turks invaded and conquered Lesvos. Father Raphael and Deacon Nicholas fled to Lesvos, just off the west coast of Turkey, and settled in the Monastery of the Theotokos. In 1453 the Great City Constantinople fell to the Turks, and then in 1454 so did Thrace. He was ordained to the priesthood, had served in Athens, spent time studying in France, where he met the Deacon Nicholas, a native of Thessaloniki, who followed him to the island of Thrace. Their story, briefly: Raphael had been born about 1410 on the island of Ithaca, off the west coast of Greece, baptized with the name George, the name Raphael given him when he became a monk. The final confirmation came when the graves were excavated, to reveal the three martyrs with their relics bearing the marks of their dreadful martyrdoms, just as they had described them. Saints Nicholas and Irene also began appearing to many inhabitants of Lesvos in dreams and apparently sometimes while they were awake! and told their stories in full detail. And not only his life but also of those who had been martyred with him: the Deacon Nicholas, the young girl Irene and others.īut soon the stories didn’t depend on him alone. He had been Igumen (abbot) of the little monastery there. Father Raphael not only identified himself but began to reveal the full story of his life and death. The first of many.Īnd now the even more startling part of the story began. The evening before, he wondered what name he should use as he conducted the prayers – and that night Saint Raphael made his first appearance. The priest was called to say Trisagion Prayers over the bones. One of the workmen, a non-believer, gave the sack a kick, and his leg suddenly went numb. Some accounts say that noises came from within the sack, and a sweet fragrance. Mr Rallis, thinking they might be relics of some sort, had the man in charge of the excavations, one Doukas Tsolakis, put them carefully in a sack. In the process of excavating they discovered human bones. During the Ottomann occupation, the local Turkish authorities even conducted an investigation, but finally gave it up since there seemed to be no explanation.įinally in the year 1959 a pious layman of the village, Angelos Rallis, decided to build a chapel there. Shepherds and occasionally village people, even Turks, also told of seeing a monk walking up there from time to time, and some reported the faint sound of bells and the smell of incense. There were ruins of a building there, and also vague memories of a monastery once having been there, but that was all. (In the Old World, people often hang onto old customs like this, even if they don’t understand them. For as long as anyone could remember, on Bright Tuesday the villagers had gone to a nearby hill to pray, some accounts say to celebrate a Divine Liturgy. This was the beginning of many appearances to many people, and the revelation of the full story.įirst the background. ![]() The Martyr Raphael appeared in a dream to the priest of the village of Thermi, identified himself, then began to tell him his story – how he and others had been martyred there by the Turks on Bright Tuesday, 1463, which fell that year on April 9. It began in the year 1959, on the Greek island of Lesvos (also known as Mytilene).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |