Miracle at Chonae - Archangel Michael & St. Archippus

September 6th
Troparion (Tone 4)
Michael Prince of the armies of heaven, thou didst over-shadow the Church like a cloud raining waters of immortality. Thou didst preserve it as another ark and turn rivers aside with thy spear, to the glory of the Faith and the rejoicing of the faithful.

There was a miraculous spring near Hierapolis in Phrygia. It had come forth after a prophecy at that place by St. John the Theologian and St. Philip the Apostle that a healing spring would be there and that Archangel Michael would appear there. Soon after the spring gushed forth. many came to be healed. A wealthy pagan in Laodicea had a mute daughter. Michael urged him in a dream to take his daughter to this spring. When he arrived there, he found a large gathering of Christian people. He asked how she should be healed. They told him: "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, you must beg the Archangel Michael." He did this and dipped his daughter in the water and she was healed. They were both baptized and discipled in the Faith, along with his whole household. He had St. Michael's Church built over the spring. Later, Archippus settled there, as a young man. The pagans in the region did not like such power from a Christian holy place and the pilgrims it attracted. They constructed a dike to alter the course of a river to flood the church and the spring. But Archippus prayed. The Archangel Michael appeared and opened a fissure in the rock a the end of the church. The river plunged through that rock and the church & spring were saved. That is how the place got its name; Chonae means plunging. St. Archippus lived peacably in asceticism there until the age of 70 and reposed in the Lord.

This Icon is 12th Century. It is from St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai.

Order # pds-09

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