In the 9th century, during the iconoclasm, for his zealous veneration of holy icons, the Monk John of Damascus was slandered by Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (717 - 740) before the Caliph of Damascus for treason. The caliph ordered the saint's hand to be cut off and hanged in the market. Towards evening, Saint John, having asked the caliph for a severed hand, applied it to the joint and fell prostrate before the icon of the Mother of God. The monk asked the Lady to heal the hand that was writing in defense of Orthodoxy. After a long prayer, he dozed off and saw in a dream that the Most Pure One was turning to him, promising a speedy healing. At the same time, the Mother of God commanded him to work with this hand without laziness. Waking up from sleep, the Monk John saw that his hand was unharmed. In gratitude for the healing, the saint put a hand made of silver to the icon, which is why the icon received the name “Three-Handed”. According to legend, the Monk John wrote a hymn of gratitude to the Mother of God, “Every creature rejoices in You, O Gracious One,” which is a hymn at the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great.
Saint John of Damascus accepted monasticism at the Lavra of St. Sava and handed over the miraculous icon there. The Lavra gave the “Three-Handed” icon as a blessing to Saint Sava of Serbia.
During the Turkish invasion of Serbia, Christians, wanting to preserve the icon, entrusted it to the care of the Mother of God Herself. They placed it on a donkey, which came to Athos without a driver and stopped in front of the Hilendar monastery. The monks placed the icon in the cathedral church. During the disagreement over the choice of abbot, the Mother of God deigned to accept the abbot Herself, and Her holy icon took the abbot’s place in the church. Since then, only a viceroy has been elected at the Hilendar monastery, and the monks, according to monastic custom, receive a blessing from the holy icon for all obediences.
St. John of Svyatogorets, Iveron (Athos) († 998, commemorated May 13, July 12)
St. Gabriel of Svyatogorets, Iversky (Athos) (X, commemorated May 13, July 12)
St. Euthymius the New, Svyatogorets, Iversky (Athos), son of St. John of the Holy Mountain († 1028, commemorated May 13, July 12)
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St. Nikodim Svyatogorets († 1809, commemorated July 14)
This brilliant star of the Church appeared to the world in 1749 on the island of Naxos in the Cyclades archipelago. The parents of the future saint, pious and God-fearing people, named him Nicholas at baptism and gave him to the village priest so that he could teach the boy to read. Unlike other children, Nikolai avoided wild games and instead constantly indulged in reading. The Lord gifted him not only with a lively mind, but also with an exceptional memory, which allowed him to immediately remember everything he read and accurately repeat it whenever he wanted.
At the age of 16, Nicholas was sent to Smyrna to study with didaskal Hierotheos Dendrinos. There he was loved by both the teacher and his fellow students for his kindness and noble disposition. In addition to secular sciences and various spiritual disciplines, he perfectly mastered the Greek language in all its manifestations. This allowed him to subsequently fulfill the mission prepared for him by the Lord: to make the treasures of Church Tradition accessible to the oppressed Orthodox Greeks.
After four years of study in Smyrna, when the Turks destroyed local Greeks after the war with Russia, Nikolai was forced to return to his homeland - to the island of Naxos. Here he met the monks Gregory, Nifont and Arseny, expelled from Athos due to Kollivad disputes. They awakened in him a love for monasticism and taught him the basics of asceticism and inner prayer. From them the young man learned that on the island of Hydra lived a certain man of exceptional virtues, an expert in patristic teaching - Metropolitan Macarius of Corinth (April 17). Nicholas rushed to him, like a thirsty deer to a source of water (see: Ps. 41: 1), and found a complete like-minded person in his desire to do what the Church urgently needed: publish and translate the patristic works - the basis of Church Tradition. There Nicholas also met the famous hermit Sylvester of Caesarea, who lived in a secluded cell not far from the city. The ascetic extolled the joy of solitary life so much that Nicholas decided, without delaying any longer, to lay upon himself the sweet and pleasant yoke of Christ.
Having received letters of recommendation from Saint Sylvester, he went to Athos (1775).
First, he entered the Dionysiates monastery, where he soon took monastic vows with the name Nicodemus. The young monk was appointed secretary and reader. He quickly became an example for other brothers, both in obedience, which he performed resignedly and humbly, and in diligent prayer and abstinence. Every day, forgetting what lies behind, he stretched forward (see Phil. 3:13), striving to subjugate the flesh to the spirit and thus preparing for the spiritual warfare of silent living.
Two years later, Saint Macarius of Corinth visited the Holy Mountain. He commissioned the Monk Nicodemus to edit and prepare for publication the Philokalia, an Orthodox encyclopedia of prayer and spiritual life. The young monk retired to his cell in Karea to fulfill this assignment, worthy of the most experienced teachers of hesychasm, which required the deepest knowledge of the science of the soul. He also worked on the works “Evergetin” and “On Continuous Communion,” which was written by Saint Macarius, but significantly enriched by Saint Nicodemus. Having completed this work, the saint returned to Dionysiatus.
He began to often visit the hesychast fathers, and also diligently indulge in the Jesus Prayer, and soon he had a desire to completely devote himself to silence. Nicodemus learned about the Monk Paisius Velichkovsky (November 15), who was a mentor to about a thousand monks in the holy work of bringing the mind into the heart. The Monk Nicodemus went to the Monk Paisius, but by the will of Divine Providence the storm stopped him, and he returned to Athos. Burning with the desire to devote himself to prayer and silence, the Monk Nicodemus did not return to Dionysiatus, but settled in a secluded cell not far from Kary. Then he moved to the Kapsala monastery of the Pantokrator monastery, to the kaliva, consecrated in the name of St. Athanasius. To provide himself with what he needed, he rewrote manuscripts. Both day and night he could indulge in undistracted prayer and study the works of the holy fathers, quickly ascending the steps of the spiritual ladder.
After some time, the holy elder Arsenios of the Peloponnese, whom the Monk Nicodemus had met on Naxos, returned to Athos and settled in a monastery. Then Nicodemus voluntarily gave up solitude in order to acquire the benefits bestowed by obedience, and became the elder’s disciple. They completed the construction of a new cell, but their privacy was constantly disturbed by visitors, so they decided to retire to the deserted, waterless island of Skiropoula opposite Euboea (1782). However, surviving on this island turned out to be very difficult, and the Monk Arseny went to another place, and Nicodemus was left alone.
It was there, at the request of his cousin, Bishop Hierotheos of Euripus, that the Monk Nicodemus wrote the book “Admonitory Guide.” This outstanding spiritual work is dedicated to storing feelings and thoughts and doing smart things. It became the best creation of the monk that he himself wrote. The author was only 32 years old, he did not resort to the help of books and records and had as a source only the treasury of his amazing memory and constant communication with God. In this work, the Monk Nicodemus presented in a concise form the patristic teaching on spiritual life, illustrating it with an impressive number of quotations and precise references. He writes about how to free the mind from the captivity of sensual pleasures in order to allow it to rise through inner prayer to the spiritual joy of contemplation.
During his stay on a deserted island, the Monk Nicodemus resisted the furious onslaught of demons who sought to drive him out of there. As a child, he was so timid that he was afraid to sleep with the door closed, and now, when unclean spirits whispered under his window, he raised his head from his book only to laugh at their impotent tricks.