A small church on the north side of the city of Mytilini, Panagia Faneromeni, is still today, on New Year’s Eve, a point of revival of the custom of the “unspeakable water”.

A Mytilene custom that blended harmoniously with a corresponding custom that the Asia Minors and especially the Aivalio refugees brought with them to the island, after the Asia Minor Catastrophe.

Until 1922, the people of Mytilene took New Year’s water, a basic element of “footwear” at home or in the shop, from any public tap in the city. After the destruction and especially after the building of the small church of Panagia Faneromeni in the heart of the old Turkish mahalla, the custom began to be observed by everyone as it was done at the Consecration of Panagia Faneromeni in Ayvali in Asia Minor.

With the change of time, the taps in the center of the church begin to flow continuously with water that is considered holy.

The faithful, after worshiping the image of the Virgin holding Christ in her arms, “wash” by wetting their face and filling the container they have brought with them with water. Inside the container they place an olive or myrtle branch and return home to perform the “footwork”. Water transport requires absolute silence, as water must remain “speechless”. The “footing” is done by the head of the family or its oldest member, who fastens the olive or myrtle branch at the entrance of the house. He then breaks a pomegranate on the doorstep for good luck and throws a stone into the house along with coins. Finally, the house is sprinkled with the “unspoken” water.

All this, in the Panagia Faneromeni with the lost icon in Aivali, it is said how it depicted the Panagia with Christ in her arms playing with a place, the earth.

In 1922, the Asia Minor refugees transferred the worship of Phaneromeni to Mytilene, continuing to hold a festival as in Ayvali, on June 28. Originally in the area of ​​a canopy that covered a well that, according to tradition, was found in the second half of the 19th century wrapped in sheepskin with the image of the Virgin Mary. Hence the name of Panagia Proviadaina. They carried her and put her on a pilgrimage to the church of Agios Theodoros. No thought then of a pilgrimage there to the well among the “Turkish houses”.

The chapel of Panagia Faneromeni was built in the place of this well, where Asia Minor and above all Aivalio refugees had already settled. Poor and small at first and then bigger. The icon of the Virgin of Proviadaina was placed in a crate and a silver shirt covered it. From the church of Agioi Theodoros where it is kept, every year on June 28 it is transferred to Panagia Phaneromeni of Mytilene. There, without many people knowing, the finding of the now lost Panagia Faneromeni of Aivali is celebrated.

But why the celebration on June 28? On May 27, 1821, in the bay of Eresou, Papanikolis set fire to the Ottoman dikrot. The arson gives rise to the massacre of Mytilene Christians, known as the “Great Zulu”. According to the Code of the Metropolis of Mytilene, on Thursday, May 27, 1821, 43 Christians were slaughtered in the market of Mytilene and houses and shops were looted. Another two were killed in the Kerameia area. All of them from furious miscreants from the Asiatic coast, whom he calls “vasibouzouks,” with whom the garrison of Mytilene had been reinforced, given the Greek revolution. On the same days, in the usual place of executions outside the castle in the area of ​​Paptsouda (platform at the Children’s Station in the Settlement of Mytilene, where Dionysiou Street is today) the Friends of the city are executed by hanging by organs of the Ottoman Authority.

A few days later, on June 3-4, 1821, the city of Kydonia, the well-known Ayvali, seat of the Academy of Kydonia, the cradle of the Greek Enlightenment, was set on fire. Those of its 35,000 inhabitants who are saved from the massacre, are loaded onto ships of Aivaliotes and Psarian revolutionaries who rush to help and leave for the islands. In Mytilini, in the Cyclades, where they form the Order of Cydonians and of course for Moria where they participate in the revolution.

After 1827, the repatriation to Ayvali began, which was completed in the period 1832-1840 when, with the Sultan’s firmans, their property was returned to the repatriated Ayvali residents under conditions.

In 1852, in the “parvoli of Saliokula”, 100 meters from the coastline which in the meantime has been extended towards the sea by its filling with the use of building materials from the houses that are demolished to build new ones, the Kantili bay was found – “manifested” “- in a miraculous way the icon of the Virgin Mary. They were preceded, according to tradition, by the sleep of Evangelini (a young poor woman) and also by excavations. The revelation of this image on June 28, 1852 also activates a water source, the Sanctification of Panagia Faneromeni. The event was a reason to enliven the Roma and led to the development of the city and the economic, cultural and ultimately political miracle that took place especially at the end of the 19th century. Samples of this economic miracle are still visible today to the visitors of Aivali.

In the place where the icon was found, a place of “defense” of the Aivalio people to load the women and children on the ships, in 1890 a beautiful structure was built from the well-known red stone of the area, the famous “sarmusakopetra”, with its front part decorated with a beautiful colonnade ending in pseudo-Corinthian capitals and pediment. This structure, which was not a temple but a “Sanctuary”, renovated and can be visited today in Ayvali, succeeded a previous building, built in 1867. During the excavations during the recent renovation works, two veins of water were uncovered, and the reservoir of the “Holy One” with relief images of angels and other Christian symbols was also found. The floor and fountains of the first sanctum were also found.

And the picture? The icon of Panagia Aivaliotisa of Faneromeni which showed the Virgin Mary with Christ in her arms playing with a topi, the earth, was lost… In the so-called first persecution of 1917 the priests of Kydonia are said to have taken it with them from the church of Agios Charalambos where was located, inside the Ottoman Empire where they were displaced. They brought her with them and re-deposited her in her accommodation after 1919.

It should be noted that the icon was transferred to the Agiasma of Panagia every year on June 28, the day of commemoration of its finding when “the well was inflated with the agiasma and poured onto the road”. Every Thursday when supplication was chanted. And the period from August 15 to the “days” of Panagia, on August 23. All the rest of the time she was in Agios Charalambos, and the proceeds of the pilgrimage were used for the operation of the “Psychomeridi” (the Aivalio Charity Shops) and especially the hospital adjacent to the temple of Agios Charalambos.

In 1922 the icon is said to have been taken again by the priests of the city who were taken to the Labor Orders in the interior. None of them returned alive. Somehow, it is considered that the image was also lost. Still other sources, (testimonies from refugees) reported that Panagia Faneromeni was transferred to Mytilini in 1922 to be moved afterwards, specifically during the interwar period, to Attica. If this is true, no one knows where this picture is anymore. Two images are considered copies of it. One in the church of Zoodochos Pigi in Varia, Mytilene. It was donated to the church by the descendants of the Makaronis – Koukounartas family who brought it from Aivali in 1922. And one in the private collection of the family of the blessed, of Aivalio origin, professor of the Theological School of the University of Thessaloniki, Yannis Foundoulis.

Those who, on New Year’s Eve or at the turn of the year, arrive at the chapel of Panagia Faneromeni, remember… all these are not public relations as some people want to make them out to be, betting on ignorance. They are stories of people who were in a lot of pain. Of our grandparents who were refugees and leaned their pain on an icon of the Virgin Mary. Proviadaina revealed, what does it matter.

“Dream” New Year’s and remember them. And two drops of the unspoken water pour it on the earth, to cool their souls.