Sunday of Cross Pilgrimage: The Synagogue of Panagia Tsampika in Rhodes

Panagia Tsampika in Rhodes celebrates the Pilgrimage to the Cross and the Nativity of the Virgin Mary on September 8.

The icon of Panagia Tsampika was originally located in the Monastery of Panagia Kykkos (Cyprus). From Cyprus, in a miraculous way, the icon left and went to the Zambyki mountain of the Archangel of Rhodes. The loss of the image caused disturbance to the monks of Kykkos who made every effort to locate it.

At the mountain Zambyki the Virgin Mary hiding from the eyes of the Christians in a cypress tree. But very humbly and simply it manifests itself in a shepherd who lives in the opposite area of ​​the fountain of Aimachus (Yemachi). The shepherd saw the light of the Virgin but at first he did not pay any attention. He saw it the next night as well. But when he saw it for the third time, he decided to climb the opposite mountain, to see with his own eyes what this light was.

When he reached the hill the shepherd marveled at the sight he saw displayed before him. He saw her image Virgin Mary to be lit by a dormant candle in the "airy cypress" (so called the tree where the Mediatrix of men had stationed herself). The image and its name came from this event, since the word "tsamba" in the local dialect of Rhodes means spark, fire.

This cypress tree survives to this day and at its root there is a hole that at very regular intervals lets out hot and cold air.

Eventually the Kykkotes located the icon on her island Rhodes and carried her back to Cyprus. But the image again returned to its mountain. When the Cypriots brought it back to be sure that it is their image, they burned it a little from behind to have some mark that would make it easier to recognize it. But for the third time the icon comes to its new residence (the sign is preserved very clearly to this day).

The image has never left her since Rose. When she was asked to be transferred for a pilgrimage to other parts of Greece, she returned back again. When in 2002 AD a chapel was built in her honor Panagia Tsambika in Pera Chorio in Cyprus and the residents requested that it be inaugurated on July 24, the Metropolitan of Rhodes, Mr. Cyril, accompanied by three clerics, brought the icon to Cyprus, inaugurated the church and the icon for the first time left its place for three days.

Her Monastery Panagia Tsambikas, celebrates it Nativity of the Virgin on September 8 and XNUMXrd Sunday of Lent (Adoration of the Cross).

One of her earlier miracles Panagia Tsambikas is also the one connected to the large estates around the Monastery. These estates belonged to a Turkish Pasha, whose wife was childless. She, learning about the Virgin Mary, prayed and ate the wick that was burning in the candelabrum of her icon. The miracle happened and she became pregnant. The Turk could not believe that the child was his. He didn't think it was a miracle either. But when the baby was born, he held the wick of the candle in his small hand. Thus, Turkos Pasha donated to the church all these estates located around the temple.

Source: Orthodox Synaxarist