www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Weeping Icons And Statues

I was curious if anyone had personally witnessed a weeping icon or statue. Their seems to be quite a large number of them in just the last 20 years, AND they appear to be occuring in equal numbers among both the Orthodox and Roman Catholics. Must be related to the great falling away.

Yes, I find that interesting. I read in a book about the life of Peter the Great, that they claimed that the monks would place vials of oil on the other side of the icon, below the eyes, and with the heat of the candles, it would overflow, and thus produce "tears". One theory.

I have never seen a weeping icon in person, only in photos and video. When I was a young child, I used to be fascinated by such things and was always curious to see one.

I think that most of these weeping or bleeding icons and statues are fakes, plain and simple. I do believe there are some authentic ones out there and throughout history, but it is all too easy for copycats to take some water, oil or blood and place it on an image. They are great attention grabbers and money-makers. I am sure some people have done it for this very reason. Others have more pious intentions, such as to make people wonder and think about God's miracles. The problem is that if they are found out, there is a loss of faith for many involved. It is best for the faithful to be cautious of all such happenings and not place too much weight in them. Our faith doesn't depend on these miracles, so better to be safe than sorry if you ask me.

Dave the pious skeptic :p

Yes, back in 88 when icons wept at Camp Nazareth, I had a friend there who brought tears back. I received an icon card that had been blessed with the tears and it wept on the feast of the Dormition. The most memorable thing about it was the scent, the most remarkable sweet fragrance, like the best incense and roses rolled together.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Back in the 1980's both the icons of Christ and the Theotokos on the iconostasis at St Mark Coptic Church in Seven Hills, Ohio were weeping oil. There was quite a bit about this in the local press. I was fortunate enough to visit this church on a number of occasions, and have a small bit of cotton dabbed in the oil 'tears'.

Perhaps the icons are moved to tears by the hideous statuary?
Incognitus

I've always marveled at the tendency of people to be so caught up in these phenomena. We want to go all over the place looking for "a sign." The best part is that so many today overlook the greatest miracle that human history has ever been a witness to and we take it for granted. Beside this miracle all the rest amounts to so little.

The miracle I refer to: the change by the Holy Spirit, through the prayer of a human priest, that makes mere human bread and wine into the life-giving Body and Precious Blood of the Savior; the food by which we will live forever, never hungering or thirsting again. The fact that the Lord lives within the community in the Reserved Mystery at the same time that He reigns at the Father's Right Hand on the Throne of the Cherubim is part of this miracle.

That's the only miracle I have time to give a lot of attention to.

In Christ,

BOB

I agree with you. These "miracles" can be very distracting at best. Though I'm not so sure that I would say they are all fakes. I just don't spend time on these things because, as was said earlier on, they aren't necessary, or even important for our salvation. They seem to be part of that entire apocalyptic body of belief that is so big these days. I don't mean to discount the second coming of Our Lord. Many of us long for that sight, but we know that before it happens, things will be very bad indeed. And also, many will be deceived by so-called miracles. Another good reason to focus on real spiritual Food from heaven.

I tend to agree with Theophan and SSV, but God knows what we are like...

Did just St. Thomas require a sign? Would we celebrate this each year if we were any better?

I have been witness to two weeping icons of the Theotokos (Cicero, IL; Resaca, GA) and one Myrrh streaming Crucifix icon (LaPorte, IN).

I do not feel that any of these were hoaxes or frauds. Would my faith be less if I had not seen them? I hope it wouldn't, but God in his infinite plan allowed me to see them.

Fr Deacon Lance, did I understand you correctly? Did you say that the holy card of the weeping icon itself weeped on the feast of the Dormition? That would be pretty amazing.
My only semi-experience with such phenomena was that some dear friends moved into a rural community founded by a guy who claimed to have locutions of the Holy Virgin after he was the custodian of a small, canonically irregular Orthodox Church in Barberton Ohio which featured a weeping icon.
To make a long story short, the guy -an ex-con- ended up taking off with one of his follower's wives, and the last I heard of him he was arrested for some sort of conspiracy involving Muslim terrorists!
The whole experience did do a lot of good in the lives of my previously gullible friends...

I think it has a lot to do with how you choose to define the word "miracle." I recall a story of a weeping painting some years ago that was investigated. It was discovered that a fire sprinkler line in the ceiling of the church, some distance away from the painting, had developed a leak. This leak dripped onto just the "right" roof joist to allow the drips to flow to just the "right" knot in the wood of the joist, where they dripped down onto just the "right" area of drywall and migrated over to just the "right" nail hole... etc., etc., etc... until the drips finally emerged as though eminating from the tear duct of the painting.

Mystery solved and "miracle" exposed, right? Well, in my humble opinion, I believe that the extrordinary string of "just the right" coincidences that allowed this spectacle to occur in the first place is, in and of itself, pretty miraculous, and I choose to believe that "Someone" had a hand in guiding those drips, for whatever purpose, to their ultimate destination. Pretty miraculous, if you ask me...

Now, I know that the Church does, in fact, have a rather rigid definition of what constitutes a miracle, and certainly something like this example does not qualify. As a person of faith, hoewever, you just gotta look at those drips and coincidences and say to yourself, "Wow! How cool is THAT!"

While I have the utmost contempt for those who perpetuate hoaxes of a spiritual nature, I still believe that some of these occurences are undoubtedly true, and it cannot be denied that in some of these incidents, much good has resulted. Stories abound of people who returned to the church after many years absence, others become more devout, and in a few cases their have even been reported miraculous healings.

I have witnessed two in my lifetime.
The first was at Tarpon Springs in Florida.
(My honest opinion was that it was genuine)
The other was in Blanco Tx (although experiencing a true sense of holiness in front of the icon) I would conclude that it was fraudulent.
Stephanos I

Since it's so easy to fake a weeping icon or statue, and so few have ever proven to be true, I find it difficult to believe that God would perform that particular type of miracle anymore. I'm not saying it never happens but what would be the point if most people were (rightly) skeptical about it?

There was a priest in Virginia some years back who made several statues cry; and he also had the stigmata. However, when I first knew of him he was a seminarian with an elaborate comb-over. When he was getting a lot of attention for his "miracles" his photo was in the paper and he had an impressive head of hair. That's all the discernment I needed: if a guy's hair is faked his miracles are rendered dubious indeed.
I don't know what ever became of him...