Day of the Assumption of the Mother of God in Greece (15/08)

In Greece, August 15 is celebrated as The Falling Asleep of the Virgin, not as a sad fact, but in order to idolize and appreciate the Mother of Christ, who is a symbol of hope and peace of human pain, the mother of all living things.

This day is a national holiday in the country. Many people fast for two weeks until August 15th. All churches and monasteries of the Blessed Mother of God host magnificent celebrations. The most famous of these places — are Panagia yew Tinu in the Cyclades and the monastery of Panagia Sumela in Vermion. These places are visited by thousands of people, even Greeks from remote Australia, America, Canada, in order to worship Our Lady.

The Monastery of Panagia Sumela is located in the high mountain village of Matsuka, 42 kilometers from Trebizond.

The ancient Orthodox monastery was created by the Athenian monks Barnabas and Sophronikos in the period from 375 to 395. Panagia Sumela (translated from Pontic «Panagia on Mount Mela») is a symbol of Orthodoxy and the preservation of faith by the Pontic Greeks, who have inhabited the southern coast of the Black Sea for centuries.

After the Asia Minor catastrophe (1912—1922), when thousands of Greeks left Turkish territory to escape death, one of the Pontic Greeks, a famous politician, Greek deputy Leonidas Jasonidis, was able to come to an agreement with the Turkish authorities and transport the miraculous icon of Panagia to Greece.

According to legend, this icon was painted by the Apostle Luke himself in Athens, and it was she who indicated in a dream to the Greek monks where to build the monastery. In Greece, the icon was kept in the treasuries of the Athens Historical Museum for more than thirty years, but in 1992 it was transferred to a new monastery named «Panagia Sumela», built with funds raised by Greek Pontians — refugees from Pontos, in 1953 in the mountains near the city of Veria. Today, thousands of pilgrims from all over the country and abroad come here to bow to her and ask her for mercy.

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