Icon That Streams Myrrh and Heals Hearts
Interview with Sergei Fomin, who travels with the
icon of the Theotokos “Softener of Evil Hearts.”
The myrrh-streaming icon of the Mother of God “Softener of Evil
Hearts” arrived in the U.S. from Russia. After gaining reverence in the
Motherland, the icon is now traveling across America.
The icon is a plain lithography, the present-day work of Sofrino
factory. It was kept in the Moscow apartment of Margarita Vorobyev. One
day, the icon started streaming myrrh. This happened during the
glorification of blessed Matrona of Moscow, on May 2, after the icon was placed
on righteous Matrona’s holy relics. Some time later, the icon was transformed.
Those who see it now cannot distinguish the lithography from an ancient icon.
Sergei Leonidovich Fomin, Margarita’s husband, told us that he
came to the U.S. on the invitation of Archimandrite Luke, Abbot of Holy Trinity
Monastery in Jordanville. Fr. Luke saw the icon during the session of the
Church Council of January 2009, when the new Patriarch of Russia was elected.
At that time, the icon streamed myrrh profusely. After serving a liturgy and
offering collective prayer, Fr. Luke gave his blessing for the icon to be taken
to churches and monasteries in the United States.
A military man by profession, Sergei Fomin told us that he’s been
traveling with the icon for eight years, both in Russia and abroad.
At first - Sergei says - the holy image stayed in our home, where
we read akathists and prayed… But, as the time went, the icon became
well-known, and we started taking it to Moscow churches. Also, for us it was
difficult to have visitors at home. After praying before the icon, many
received help – some gave birth, some were cured of illness. People
donated money, thus giving us the opportunity to build a chapel in honor of the
icon Softener of Evil Hearts.
Now the chapel has become a church, although small, with an iconostasis and
belfry. Our church is in the
village of Bachurino, five kilometers from Moscow. Liturgies
and molebens are served there.
This is not the only church built in honor of the icon. Churches are being
built in places that we visited with it. One of them, not far from Larnaka in
Cyprus, will be blessed soon.
In honor of the icon, churches were established in two prisons.
One is in a prison for juvenile delinquents in Ryazan Region, where girls serve
their terms for especially cruel crimes, including murder. Our benefactors
took upon themselves the responsibility of building a church there. The
girls helped them a lot; they even dug a foundation pit and wrote a song about
the icon.
In Yaroslavl,
a chapel in honor of the icon was built in a men’s prison. In the city of Barnaul, Altay, there is a chapel in an
orphanage.
Mother of God travels to jails, nursing homes and hospitals.
Even in Germany we
visited several jails and detention wards. We try to take Her to every
place where there are Russian, Serbian and Romanian Orthodox. Everywhere
people pray to Her and receive comfort.
Which cities and countries, apart from those you’ve already named, did the
icon visit?
Several times it was in Saint Petersburg, Saransk, Tcheboksary, Bryansk and Tula;
Yaroslavl
and Nizhni Novgorod Regions; Sevastopol,
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Kostroma
and many other cities and villages. It is impossible to name all.
With the icon we were in
Georgia, and a year ago – in
Greece, on Mount Athos.
We always have a very warm welcome in the Czech
Republic, where we frequently go in May.
There, not only Orthodox, but Catholics as well, come to pray before the Mother
of God. There are also examples of healing. People receive holy
baptism; Catholics convert to Orthodoxy. We, of course, travel to our former
republics – the Ukraine, Byelorussia and Moldavia.
Everywhere the icon is received with joy and hope.
Where has the icon been in the
U.S., and where else will it go?
We went to the Bishops’ Synod Cathedral of the Theotokos of the
Sign in New York, its neighboring St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Moscow
Patriarchate, the Church of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Brooklyn,
St. Seraphim Church in Sea Cliff,
Protection
Church in Nyack, St.
Seraphim Church of Novo-Diveevo Monastery and its nursing home, and St. Nicholas
Cathedral in Stratford,
Connecticut. In every place
akathists and molebens were served. Great numbers of faithful came to venerate
the holy image. People asked for healing of their physical ailments;
comfort in sorrow, grief and disharmony; softening of their own and the loved
ones’ hearts; spiritual and emotion support.
Next we will travel to Boston,
Washington, Jordanville, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Please, tell us about the most memorable instances of divine help you
witnessed.
There are many couples now that, for medical reasons, cannot have children.
Often, after such couples pray before the icon, they are able to have a baby.
Usually people tell us their stories of healing when we come to a city or
church for the second time. I remember how in
Yalta
a paralyzed teen was brought to the icon. By the evening he was walking.
He could not speak, though. When we came there for the second time, his
grandmother asked for a drop of myrrh. She said she would put it on the
boy’s tongue, and, maybe, he will be able to talk.
A similar case took place in Barnaul. On the feast of the Dormition
of the Theotokos, a four-year-old girl was brought to the icon. She was
paralyzed from birth. Next day, for the first time in her life, the child
tried to walk. When we came to Barnaul the following year, the girl’s
mother, in gratitude, gave the Mother of God her golden chain and cross.
Just before our departure to the United States, we were told the
following story. An eighteen- month-old girl developed herpes of the
mouth. The doctor, whom the baby’s mother asked for help, misdiagnosed
her. Subsequently, the treatment given to the girl was wrong, and the baby
started suffocating. Then, the mother asked for myrrh, and, on her
friend’s advice, put the myrrh in the girl’s mouth. That same day, for the
first time in many months, the baby went to sleep peacefully. By morning, her
mouth was clean, and the remaining few tiny wounds healed quickly.
We cannot read all these stories, described in detail by different people,
without tears of gratitude for the Holy Virgin’s gracious help.
We were told about the icon’s assistance in ordinary life as well. In
Yaroslavl, a young woman was a member of the “New Generation” sect and did not
accept Orthodoxy. At that time, we brought the icon to the Tolga Convent.
The woman’s mother came to the icon and prayed that her daughter would come to
the icon, too. In the evening they came together to kiss the icon, and the
next morning the daughter said she wanted to be baptized. She left the
sect and became a churchgoer. Relations between mother and daughter improved.
A moleben was served before the icon in the administrative
building of the Chelyabinsk regional government. The mayor of Chelyabinsk received holy baptism at the time
of our visit.
Did the Theotokos help you personally when you prayed before Her
icon?
The most obvious case of assistance was in Sakhalin,
when I prayed to Her very hard. We go to
Sakhalin every January. It takes 10 hours
by plane to get there. Once, when we got up early upon arrival, there was
a blizzard, and all the drivers refused to take us across the hills. To
make the things worse, while leaving the house, I fell, twisted my ankle and was
in no condition to walk. We were supposed to go to the church of the
neighboring city of Aleksandrovsk.
My companions picked me up and placed me on the seat of an all-terrain
vehicle that was to take us to the church. The priest, who was with us,
remarked that, if we were city government officials, we would have gotten the
best transportation. But, he said, the Mother of God does not mind
traveling in a truck.
As we were driving, I worried a lot that I would not be able to
go with the icon any further. I prayed that my ankle would heal soon.
In the city my friends took me to the hospital. My ankle swelled and
looked like one big bruise. The doctor bandaged it, and by evening I was
able to walk; by next morning I even ran. When I returned to Moscow, it
hurt only a little and soon healed completely.
I will say more. A good friend of mine, a former commander of “Alpha,”
the special forces of the Federal Security Service, always anointed his soldiers
with oil from the icon before they went on a mission to “hot spots” – for
hostage rescue and other special operations. No bullet ever touched any of
them.
Sergei, where will the icon go in the near future?
First of all, we have our own church now. People come there
for services so they can pray to the icon. They don’t want it to leave the
church for long periods of time.
But so many people know about the icon; they love it and wait for
it. The icon comes not only to large cathedrals, but also to distant
villages, country priests and their small parishes – where no sacred thing was
ever brought before.
Our upcoming trip is to France and Belgium.
We will also try to bring the icon to the church blessing festivities in Cyprus.
* * *
…As Sergei and I talked, more and more people were coming, and the akathist
was being served in an already overfilled church.
In comparison with churchgoers in
Russia, Russians living abroad are more
reserved, collected, and, in my opinion, less emotional. In silence,
people approached the holy image, prayed for awhile, and carefully pressed their
small copies of the icon on the original. And then, they stayed a little
longer, taking in the heavenly aroma that flowed from the sacred image.
Interview by Tatiana Vesyolkina
Translated by Marina Fry