Orthodox Church: Miracle myrrh in Monaco

The Bishop holding the icon outside the chapel © Orthodox Church of Monaco - Parish of St. Elena/Thierry Beauvilain-Ouvrard

The Orthodox parish of Saint Elena organised a service and the veneration of the so-called “Hawaiian” icon recently at the Annonciade chapel. Myrrh ‘flows miraculously and continuously’ from the icon, which belongs to the Orthodox parish of Hawaii.

The chapel proved too small to accommodate some 150 Christians of around thirty nationalities from Monaco and the surrounding area, who gathered to pray and touch the relic. The second ‘miraculous icon’ to come to the parish of Monaco, after the Kursk icon two years ago, arrived from Menton Orthodox parish earlier in the day.

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Crowds gathered outside the chapel in the hope of touching the icon © Orthodox Church of Monaco – Parish of St. Elena/Thierry Beauvilain-Ouvrard

A well-travelled relic

In June 2008, the ‘Hawaiian’ myrrh-streaming Iveron icon was officially recognised by the Russian Orthodox Church as ‘miraculous and worthy of veneration’, and given the blessing and encouragement to travel to the different Orthodox churches and monasteries.
A 2022 update by the Orthodox Church in Hawaii states that the Iveron Icon has travelled extensively and has been venerated by millions around the world, ‘helping to establish and heal relationships amongst the Orthodox faithful, and also strengthening and fostering ties between the sister parishes’. Over a million venerated the ‘Panagia of Hawaii’ during a requested visit to the Republic of Georgia in 2014.

Numerous miracles have been attributed to this ‘humble little Icon’, with physical and spiritual healings of afflictions such as blindness, cancer, demonic possession, paralysis, kidney disease and chronic pain. Some report an ‘abundance of love and joy’ in its presence.