Priest’s 2nd ‘Miracle’; $800Gs From ‘Crying’ N.Y. Icon Stolen
This isn’t the first time an icon has wept for the priest of East York’s miracle church, The Sunday Sun has learned.
In 1990, an icon of a 9th century nun, St. Irene, began crying at St. Irene Chrysovalantou Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Queens, New York, where the embattled priest Ieronimos Katseas first preached.
The tiny painting, regarded as having miraculous healing powers, drew hundreds of thousands of Christians of many denominations and smaller numbers of Muslims, Jews and the curious after it began sobbing on Oct. 17.
Visitors came from as far away as France, Japan, India, one church official in Astoria, New York told The Sun, adding “the church was deluged with up to 500 phone calls a day.”
But more than a year later, the icon – decorated with $800,000 in gems – was reportedly stolen at gunpoint by three men and a woman who entered the church on Christmas Day 1991 and ordered the priest and Katseas, then a deacon, to open the case holding the portrait.
According to police reports there, when Katseas refused to produce the key, one of the men hit him on the head with a pistol.
The bandits then broke the lock and scooped out the icon, enclosed in a glass frame bedecked with precious stones and gold bracelets.
TEARS FOR PERSIAN GULF
At the time, the church’s Bishop Vikentios of Avlon, the first Bishop to ordain Katseas, believed the icon of St. Irene – whose name means “peace” in Greek – was weeping for the Persian Gulf.
“Something will happen and we have sent a message of peace to Mikhail Gorbachev, the secretary general of the United Nations and President George Bush,” he said at the time.
But John Kekkas, a former church official at East York’s Mother Portaitissa, St. Raphael, Nikolaos and Irene Church said Katseas was never a suspect in the heist “because his story flew with the cops.”
“Police didn’t have enough evidence to charge him,” he said.
Miraculously, the painted icon was returned to the church, via mail, almost a month later.
The same could not be said for the $ 800,000 in booty.
Contacted last night at the Glebemount Ave. church, where visitors continue to line up and marvel at the 750 A.D. replica of a Virgin Mary icon, a worshipper said Katseas was “resting” and unavailable for comment.
WEEPING MADONNA
By last night, a reported 35,000 people had witnessed the weeping Madonna since it began to drip last Sunday, with donations reaching a reported $ 300,000 in cash, cheques and other gems.
Meanwhile, Archimandrite Gregory, the head of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece (GOC) and the Diaspora flew into Metro from Colorado Friday night on orders from the Archbishop of Athens, Chrysostom II, “to investigate and verify the composition of the liquid flowing from the weeping icon.”
Katseas, 46, a father of two, has become the centre of controversy after ecclesiastical records revealed he was ex-communicated in 1993 because he once worked in an Athens brothel.
And court documents obtained by The Sun also show Katseas and church brass in Athens have been fighting for control of the tiny church since last fall.
Katseas, who says he believes the phenomenon is a holy prophecy, blames the dispute on a power struggle within the parish.
In a letter to Metro Police Chief David Boothby urging him to investigate the matter, Gregory said he was suspicious about the icon because Katseas refuses to give a sample of its “tears” for examination.
Despite police saying they’ve yet to get an official complaint, Gregory said that Metro’s fraud squad have put the weeping icon phenomenon on the bottom of their priority list.