Fr. Nicholas & Gabriel Arrive and Tinos

Dear all,
writing from a little internet cafe next to the seaside on the island of Tinos. Nikos and Maria went to pick up Fr. Nicholas and his son, Gabriel, again with a middle-of-the-night arrival at 3AM. This time, I think they took the highway back home (wink). Although we were all sleeping, I heard them arrive and they sounded very excited and chipper, not burnt out and exhausted.

After some food and conversation, they went to sleep in the 2 single beds. Maria had a rollaway bed on the porch, and Nikos was out there, too. Christopher and I slept very well. Grandma and Emma had a bad problem with the mosquitoes again, and Grandma didn't sleep much. It is amazing to me that she is just as bright-eyed and busy-tailed as ever going on little sleep.

I got up early at 6AM and fixed some breakfast we had gotten earlier in the day from the supermarket. We had 3 juices: cherry, peach, and apple, some tiny little croissants filled with chocolate, absolutely delicious thick Greek yogurt and honey, and some little grilled sandwiches with good Greek cheese and prosciutto, plus some fruits from the tree outside. We had a nice repast and packed up for a trip down to the harbor.

We caught a huge ferry for the island of Tinos. I was exhausted and fell asleep on a big chest containing life jackets. Fr. Nicholas snoozed in his airplane-style chair, Emma and Gabriel talked about Redwall books, Grandma wrote in her journal, and Christopher typed on his computer. It was a pleasant journey. Coming in closer to the island of Andros, where we stopped first, it got very rough and the boat rolled quite a bit. Thankfully, I'm the only one prone to sea-sickness and was asleep. We'd brought all our leftovers and were able to avoid buying food on the ferry.

We sailed alongside the very long, dry island of Andros, which we will all visit in the next couple of days. It has the relics of my own saint, Macrina, and also a rare relic of St. Nicholas as well.

Andros and Tinos are separated by a very narrow causeway of water, maybe 1/4 mile wide. As I looked out the window I saw a largish rock sticking up out of the water, maybe the size of a large house. On the top of it perched a little church. How could one get to it?

We came into the harbor of Tinos and they had all the foot passengers walk down into the hold for cars below. We stood in a big clump as the huge back door of the ferry slowly began to drop while we were still backing into position at the dock. As we walked off, we became separated from the crowd of people. Many people were standing on the dock holding signs advertising hotels for rent. One man who spoke good English grabbed me and began extolling the virtues of his establishment, another had grabbed Fr. Nicholas and by the time we found each other we had dueling hosteliers on our hands. We finally went with the woman who had a van right there to trasport us and ended up at Hotel Aphrodite with rooms at 30E, which to us was a fabulous price, but apparently common for the non-tourist islands. The elevator here is funny: tiny, and there is no door that closes on the inside. So you see and can even touch the wall going by as you move, then when you stop you simply push open a door at the landing.

We settled in a bit and got a ride up to the big church at the top of the hill, Church of the Annunciation, which houses the Megalochari icon of the mother of God. This is apparently the most popular pilgrimage site of Greeks, receiving a million pilgrims a year. During the big feast day of the icon, so many people come to venerate it that there isn't room in the town to house them, and many sleep along the streets, in the church, and just everywhere.

This icon was buried for 800 years and a local woman had a dream in which the Theotokos appeared to her and told her it was time for this icon to be dug up. At first, she disbelieved the dream until it came to her many times and the Mother of God became stern. She finally went to the local priest who had heard the same thing from an old man in the village years before: a dream in which the Mother of God talked to him about this icon.

So the villagers began to dig. It took them quite awhile, but they finally found the icon. First one half with the angel Gabriel making his announcement to the Virgin, and then the other half with the Theotokos receiving the message. Many, many verified miracles are associated with the icon and an incredible church has been built to house and honor it.