The Wonder Working Icon of the Theotokos of Tikhvin and I

As I have mentioned, I came into the Church from Eastern Orthodoxy. Whilst I was Chrismated in the Serbian Orthodox Church, I had actually begun my journey to Rome by attending a Russian Orthodox Parish of the Orthodox Church in America, Holy Trinity on Strawberry Hill, Kansas City, KS..

Holy Trinity Church

It was an old Parish of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America. I was told that Tsar Nikolai II had donated 5,000 gold rubles to its construction and adornment. I often joked that it looked like God had reached down to a village in Siberia, picked the Church up, and transported it to the highest point in Wyandotte County Kansas.

The Pastor whilst I was attending Holy Trinity was a Hieromonk. When he had arrived at his new posting, he flew into the old downtown airport in Kansas City, MO. He called a cab to take him to the Church. When he gave the cabbie the address, the driver indicated that he wasn't familiar with where it was. Batyushka pointed across the Missouri River at the Church, and said, 'Well, I don't know how to get there from here, but there it is!'
He said that, for once, the Russians had got the best site for their Church!

At any rate, I was attending Holy Trinity when my oldest daughter was born. She was about six weeks premature, and I panicked! I called Batyushka, but he had no car, so he couldn't come to the hospital. He told me later that he had baptised dozens of preemies and only one hadn't made it, so he had not been worried. I told him that that was information that I would have appreciated earlier!

As a result of her premature birth, she was kept in the neonatal ICU for over a week, whilst her mother was released after two or three days.

At the same time, her great grandmother was dying in another hospital. About 10 days after the new one's birth, she was finally ready to come home. As her mother and I prepared to go and pick her up, we received a phone call, informing us that if we wanted her to 'meet' her great grandmother, we'd better hurry since grandma was in a coma and not expected to live for more than hour or two.

Theotokos of Tikhvin

A friend was with us, helping us get the nursery ready, so when I remembered that Archbishop John (Garklavs), Russian Eparch of Chicago, had brought the Wonder Working Icon of the Theotokos
of Tikhvin to Holy Trinity, I asked our friend to take Mum to pick up the baby whilst I went to the Church to venerate the icon.

I kissed the icon and knelt in front of it, beseeching the Virgin that grandma would live long enough that we would be able to tell our daughter that she had met her great grandmother.

The result? I don't know if it's technically a 'miracle', but grandma lived for ten days more, came out of her coma, and was able to hold and cuddle her first great grandchild.

An aside about Archbishop John. Vladika spoke several languages fluently, but we used to joke that, unfortunately, English wasn't one of them!

Here is a link to the article about the icon, from the website of the Orthodox Church in America, Appearance of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God