March 18, 2022 - Reported [here]. Rough translation from Turkish. ‘ Virgin Mary Miracle ’: Antakya's Icon House. Again, I was there where I felt most of myself. Old Antakya streets... I can pass without getting bored every day. Every house I pass in front of me reminds me of a memory, a told story, albeit a small one.

This time I will visit, home number 7 in Affan Neighborhood's Fuzzy Deadlock. It is the House of Bedro Uncles that I have heard of his miraculous story since childhood, but then I have not visited in some way even though we sit very close. I would like to talk about the residents of the house before I tell you the story of this house. Bedro Katremığil, who is no longer alive, is one of the readers of the Antakya Greek Orthodox Church “msaltic”. Unfortunately I could not access the chance to listen to the story from him. What Uncle AmaBedro is telling that I listened to the son of Elijah and his bride, who currently live in the same house, by drinking the bitter Antakya coffee of Hülya. Today we are going on a journey to Antioch as old as our memory can go, so that we do not even realize how fast time flows.

Since İlyas Abi Antakya and his wife Hülya Abla are also Samandagli, we started our conversation in the first place by praising the abundant Samandag. Samandag is a place where people feel more rural, more comfortable and more free than Antakya. It is a town with the peace of the village, as everyone has a land that will surely mow, albeit tiny. Maybe we'll talk longer about it, because today is the memories of the house where the icon of the Virgin Mary, the guest of our word, is located.

While drinking our coffee and continuing to the conversation, the subject came to the streets of Antioch, which changed and transformed. According to Hülya Abla, Christian and Jewish families always lived in the courtyard houses near their own homes. There were mutual doors with the opposite neighbor, then these turned into windows. The Eid alley ends in the neighborhood, the ghorse begins; it ends, Egg Day begins. There was constant enthusiasm on the street. Neighborhoods differ with the migration that started over time. Nowadays, another boutique hotel, cafe or tavern is being restored to those who are still sitting in those houses.

I came to the Virgin Mary as a maid. As Hülya Abla started to tell her arrival as a bride in the courtyard house where she is currently sitting, I came to this house as a maid to the Virgin Mary “ and pulled me into the story. Yes, this house where I knocked on the door was the house where an oil leaked “ Holy Virgin icon ” was believed to be healing for years. Elijah Abi and Hülya Abla are the third generation residents of this house. İlyas Abi also says that the house where they live has a history of 200 -250 years, and a huge note falls into history.

The handcrafted wooden Virgin Mary icon has been in House 7 of the Fuzzy Dead End since Uncle Bedro's childhood. Gifted by a acquaintance from Syria. In 1979, Uncle Bedro and his wife decided to move here, even going from the city and looking at the house. “City ” says Elijah Abi, because the Affan Neighborhood, where they now live, remained like a village according to many districts of Antakya. When Uncle Bedro and his wife landed in the hall on the morning of the day they decided to move, they realized the source of the oil puddle, which had been discussing for several weeks. The source of the material oil was this handcrafted wooden Virgin Mary icon.

Households cannot understand what happened at first. Ultimately, they thought that this stream might be something leaking from the wall, not from the icon standing in a wooden closet, and told the priests. Then the news quickly spread from priests to mufti, from there to the municipality. Finally, people who started to doubt the household and wanted to dig the wall thinking that they were doing number one. Uncle Bedro scraping the wall that came to prevent gossip spreading around. In the testimony of the household, priests and mufti, they scraped the wall and found nothing about where this liquid, which looks like olive oil, came from. When the flowing liquid was examined, it turned out to be vegetable-sacrific and a hayli low-acid oil. Essential and yellow oil flowing from the icon. It leaked from the wooden cabinet between the stone walls and immediately began to accumulate on the threshold of the side room. Uncle Bedro, who was also a reader in the Orthodox Church and owned it as a miracle, and his family tried to prevent the oil from flowing to the ground and pressing on top of this oil, where the oil was accumulated.

Over time, blessing this situation has not only been a Christian situation, and people of different faith have also come to Uncle Bedro's house to find healing. The name of the house is now “ The house of the Virgin Mary ”. The current residents of the house, Elijah and Hülya, have been dragged into this house from every religion and sect since 1979 ’ and hundreds of people have visited here, they describe that he lit candles and prayed here and that he found healing by taking a pinch of cotton pieces.

This house is not limited to those seeking miracles in Antakya or Turkey. Hülya Abla explains: “15 years ago a guest came from the USA, I asked for oil, I gave it. He distributed it to his wife and put the rest in his drawer, after a while he realized that the oil had increased when he opened the drawer and looked. ” Of course, this is not a treatment advice, it's all about “inance ”. Indeed, the household believed that this oil healed many patients and was good for the wounds, as they adopted the icon of the Virgin Mary as a miracle.

The priests of the churches in Antioch and its vicinity have adopted this miracle of the Virgin Mary since 1979. Due to their devotion to the Virgin Mary, they used to pray and light candles to the Virgin Mary in this house on August 15 in the Virgin Mary's Court. Today, this miracle is adopted but not accepted. According to Elijah Abi and Hülya Abla, recently clergymen have not made these visits.

Though the church accepts and owns it requires this place to turn into a chapel, a decision that clergymen at the level of metropolitis responsible for the region should make.

How would Uncle Bedro tell the story of this Virgin Mary icon in his house? What emotions did he experience when he saw the oil flowing, what did he think? All these questions will remain unanswered, so we will be content with what İlyas Abi and Hülya Abla have told. But we know that even though it is missing, the story of this Virgin Mary icon will continue to reach other people. Anyone who wants and believes in the words of Hülya Abla can go to House 7 of the Juicy Dead End, because the doors of that house are open in summer winter.

Handan Demiralp, who had the opportunity to speak to Uncle Bedro years ago, is this part of the story [blog]. He conveys that the oil was noticed in the morning of the day when Uncle Bedro's wife died.