A holy Icon found floating upright on the sea

During the time of the iconoclastic heresy, a pious widow of Nicaea entrusted a miracle-working icon of the Mother of God to the sea, to save it from destruction. Many years later, in the 11^th century, the monks of the Monastery of Iviron on Mount Athos, Greece, saw for several days a huge column of fire rising from the sea to the sky, right above the icon which was floating on the waves. They went to retrieve it, but each time they approached it, the icon moved away.

At that time there was at Iviron a holy Georgian monk named Gabriel. The Mother of God appeared to him and ordered him to go to the shore to retrieve her icon. The astonished community of monks looked on as Brother Gabriel confidently walked on the waves, collected the icon, and brought it back to shore.

The holy image was deposited in the main church of the monastery. But the next day, the sacristan found that it had disappeared. After a long search, it was spotted above the door of the monastery!

Finally, the Mother of God appeared to Gabriel again to say that she did not want to be guarded and protected by the monks, but that instead she had come to save them from all dangers, according to the favor she had obtained from her Son when she had asked him to give her that Holy Mountain to become her "garden."

Since then the "Portaitissa" (Guardian of the Gate) has been venerated in a chapel built especially for the entrance of the monastery. This icon has accomplished so many miracles that it is rightly considered the greatest icon of the Merciful Mother of God.

Adapted from Communion Marie Porte du Ciel