10/06/2025
My Tara got me this beautiful Icon of St Irene Chrysovalantou 🍎 I was named after this saint ✝️
It is said that one night Irene heard a voice telling her to welcome a sailor who would bring fruit to her that day. Nuns found the sailor outside the gate, and brought him to the Abbess. He told her he was from the Island of Patmos (where according to legend John the Evangelist had lived in a cave). He and his shipmates were sailing past the far end of the island when they heard an old man shouting for them to stop. But the coast was rocky, so the sailors made to continue on. But the old man — who was John the Apostle and Evangelist — shouted again, and the ship stopped still in the water. The old fellow walked across the waves to the ship, and took three apples out of his garments. He told the sailors the apples were from Paradise, and that they were to give them to the Patriarch Methodios. Then he took out three more very large and fragrant apples from Paradise, and asked the sailors to give them to Abbess Irene at the Chrysovalantou Monastery. Then John disappeared and the ship moved forward in the water again.
It is said that Irene ate a piece of one of the apples every day for forty days, and no other food or water. And when she ate a piece, her mouth became so fragrant that all the nuns in the monastery could smell it. She gave the second apple to the nuns for them to divide and eat, and they too became fragrant and very happy. The third apple she kept uneaten until finally she consumed it shortly before her death.
