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| Church of St. Irene Chrysovalantou in Olympi, Chios |
My Saint Irene Chrysovalantou, I come after 29 years since the construction of your church here in my homeland, on the island of Chios, to tell the story of the miracle I experienced in America, where I lived and have lived for years.
Many years have passed since I built the church and this year, when I happened to meet the Nun who edits the publication of your Magazine, she told me that I had to tell the story of your miracle.
So it was a rainy day in April 1981. I came home from work on a Saturday afternoon and saw my wife who was 5 months pregnant looking upset and I said to her, "What's wrong?" and she told me that she had called the doctor and he told her to go to the hospital on Monday. The hospital wasn't far away and we were there on Monday morning.
After a while, I don't remember how long, time had stopped for me, because the doctor came and said to me: "I'm sorry, but I couldn't do anything for the child; the mother is fine."
Not long after, a nurse came, called the doctor and left for the upper floor. You understand that, the worst possible scenario, it passed through my mind. The child had died, the only one alive was my wife, why should she call him – I was saying to myself – why should she run?
After a while the doctor comes and tells me that the child is alive. And from that moment the torment begins, because two other doctors also came to the office and started to drive me crazy. That the child will be problematic, that he will have hydrocephalus, that he will be blind because he will stay in the incubator for a long time, that we cannot kill him because we must have a court decision.
I decided to transfer the baby from the Astoria Hospital to the New York Hospital. But we had to give him a name. So they called the nurse to bring the name plate from my wife’s room.
Then the nurse told us that his mother had given him a name. She went and brought the name plate and wrote the name Chrysovalantis. The doctor confessed that he saw her that she was drugged and yet she got up, wrote the name of her child and went back to sleep. Of course I didn’t know what to say, because I never discussed this with my wife.
Finally they took the child and took him to New York Hospital. I met the doctor there. For every five children there was one doctor responsible. So she told me that the first 24 hours would be difficult. I left and went to pick up my other child from school and on my way home I found a letter from my mother. She wrote to me that she had been waiting for a letter from me for a long time and that she was worried. She wrote to me that she had been praying to Saint Irene Chrysovalantou for many days and that in her sleep she saw my aunt Irene telling her: “Something will happen to Alekos, but don’t worry, I will be with him.”
The baby at New York Hospital was incubated and the doctor who was intensively monitoring him was amazed because she saw that everything in this baby, even though he was only five months old, was functioning normally and they were only giving him oxygen so that he could learn to breathe on his own, as would have happened inside his mother's womb.
So when the baby was left in the doctor's care, I went to Astoria, to the hospital where my wife was. At that time, she had just come out of the anesthesia and she asked me: "Alexander, is our child alive?" I answered her yes.
And she turned to me and said: "May our Yiannakis [Johnny] live for us."
"Who is Yiannakis, my dear," I ask her. "You declared him with the name Chrysovalantis."
"How?" she then tells me.
And I show her the sign that was hanging on her bed and she was amazed when she saw in her own writing with which she declared the child's name.
And it is worthy of astonishment and admiration that in America, where we lived, we know that immediately after the child is born, you declare his name. Yes, but not because the mother herself writes it on the sign, as happened with my own wife, who of course did not dispute and admitted that it was indeed her own handwriting without being able to give an explanation of how this happened.
"Let the name of our child then be Chrysovalantis," she told me, "since that is how I declared it, but it is something inexplicable to me."
And it was then that the most wonderful and astonishing thing happened, that which proved beyond doubt the miracle of the Great Gift-Giver Saint Irene Chrysovalantou, was when, hearing my mother tell me the dream she had, as I mentioned above, I was moved, and I told her everything that had happened with her daughter-in-law, and my mother, moved too, confirmed to me: "Yes, my child, Chrysovalantis is the name of the child, whatever it may be, her grace bestowed it upon us after such an adventure."
Many years have passed since I built the church and this year, when I happened to meet the Nun who edits the publication of your Magazine, she told me that I had to tell the story of your miracle.
So it was a rainy day in April 1981. I came home from work on a Saturday afternoon and saw my wife who was 5 months pregnant looking upset and I said to her, "What's wrong?" and she told me that she had called the doctor and he told her to go to the hospital on Monday. The hospital wasn't far away and we were there on Monday morning.
After a while, I don't remember how long, time had stopped for me, because the doctor came and said to me: "I'm sorry, but I couldn't do anything for the child; the mother is fine."
Not long after, a nurse came, called the doctor and left for the upper floor. You understand that, the worst possible scenario, it passed through my mind. The child had died, the only one alive was my wife, why should she call him – I was saying to myself – why should she run?
After a while the doctor comes and tells me that the child is alive. And from that moment the torment begins, because two other doctors also came to the office and started to drive me crazy. That the child will be problematic, that he will have hydrocephalus, that he will be blind because he will stay in the incubator for a long time, that we cannot kill him because we must have a court decision.
I decided to transfer the baby from the Astoria Hospital to the New York Hospital. But we had to give him a name. So they called the nurse to bring the name plate from my wife’s room.
Then the nurse told us that his mother had given him a name. She went and brought the name plate and wrote the name Chrysovalantis. The doctor confessed that he saw her that she was drugged and yet she got up, wrote the name of her child and went back to sleep. Of course I didn’t know what to say, because I never discussed this with my wife.
Finally they took the child and took him to New York Hospital. I met the doctor there. For every five children there was one doctor responsible. So she told me that the first 24 hours would be difficult. I left and went to pick up my other child from school and on my way home I found a letter from my mother. She wrote to me that she had been waiting for a letter from me for a long time and that she was worried. She wrote to me that she had been praying to Saint Irene Chrysovalantou for many days and that in her sleep she saw my aunt Irene telling her: “Something will happen to Alekos, but don’t worry, I will be with him.”
The baby at New York Hospital was incubated and the doctor who was intensively monitoring him was amazed because she saw that everything in this baby, even though he was only five months old, was functioning normally and they were only giving him oxygen so that he could learn to breathe on his own, as would have happened inside his mother's womb.
So when the baby was left in the doctor's care, I went to Astoria, to the hospital where my wife was. At that time, she had just come out of the anesthesia and she asked me: "Alexander, is our child alive?" I answered her yes.
And she turned to me and said: "May our Yiannakis [Johnny] live for us."
"Who is Yiannakis, my dear," I ask her. "You declared him with the name Chrysovalantis."
"How?" she then tells me.
And I show her the sign that was hanging on her bed and she was amazed when she saw in her own writing with which she declared the child's name.
And it is worthy of astonishment and admiration that in America, where we lived, we know that immediately after the child is born, you declare his name. Yes, but not because the mother herself writes it on the sign, as happened with my own wife, who of course did not dispute and admitted that it was indeed her own handwriting without being able to give an explanation of how this happened.
"Let the name of our child then be Chrysovalantis," she told me, "since that is how I declared it, but it is something inexplicable to me."
And it was then that the most wonderful and astonishing thing happened, that which proved beyond doubt the miracle of the Great Gift-Giver Saint Irene Chrysovalantou, was when, hearing my mother tell me the dream she had, as I mentioned above, I was moved, and I told her everything that had happened with her daughter-in-law, and my mother, moved too, confirmed to me: "Yes, my child, Chrysovalantis is the name of the child, whatever it may be, her grace bestowed it upon us after such an adventure."
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| Chrysovalantis Gailas with his wife Georgia and their children Alexander and Constantine |
So my wife left the hospital and I continued to take her to the hospital every day where our child was in the incubator and then I went to work.
There she learned from a nurse, who helped her in the birth, that the doctor (he was an Arab) had put the child aside with the idea that he was dead and she felt a force pushing her to go and look where they had thrown him and saw him moving and crying and she notified the doctors and they went and took the baby.
He stayed three and a half months in the New York Hospital. The only problem was how to get him to grow, being was the size of a palm, he was only 800 grams, but from the first day I received my mother's letter I believed that everything would be fine and that Saint Irene Chrysovalantou had performed her miracle and saved my little child, since my wife, while drugged, declared it with the name Chrysovalantis, even though we had not even discussed it, as I mentioned before.
So Chrysovalantis was declared, Chrysovalantis was baptized, our child was baptized and chrismated and given into the arms of his patron Saint, because not only did he not have hydrocephalus or blindness that the obstetrician had feared and so many other things that an infant who comes into the world with a five-month pregnancy faces, but our Chrysovalantis is the one for whose birth God made me worthy and I erected a church in the name of Saint Irene Chrysovalantos in the village of Olympi in Chios.
There she learned from a nurse, who helped her in the birth, that the doctor (he was an Arab) had put the child aside with the idea that he was dead and she felt a force pushing her to go and look where they had thrown him and saw him moving and crying and she notified the doctors and they went and took the baby.
He stayed three and a half months in the New York Hospital. The only problem was how to get him to grow, being was the size of a palm, he was only 800 grams, but from the first day I received my mother's letter I believed that everything would be fine and that Saint Irene Chrysovalantou had performed her miracle and saved my little child, since my wife, while drugged, declared it with the name Chrysovalantis, even though we had not even discussed it, as I mentioned before.
So Chrysovalantis was declared, Chrysovalantis was baptized, our child was baptized and chrismated and given into the arms of his patron Saint, because not only did he not have hydrocephalus or blindness that the obstetrician had feared and so many other things that an infant who comes into the world with a five-month pregnancy faces, but our Chrysovalantis is the one for whose birth God made me worthy and I erected a church in the name of Saint Irene Chrysovalantos in the village of Olympi in Chios.
Listen to another miraculous event.
When I was thinking about where exactly and on which of the properties I had to build her church and I could not find a solution, I observed that my car broke down three times and stopped each time, but always at the same point. Discussing this with my father, he said to me: "My son, don’t you know that at that point where your car stops each time, that hill you see, is your mother’s property? So take it and proceed to fulfill your vow."
And so, in 1991, the church was built on that hill in the name of Saint Irene Chrysovalantou, to bear witness to the miracle that happened to my child.
And I think this meeting with Nun Paisia was not accidental, but again because the Saint would have wanted her miracle to be heard and published in her Magazine.
I met Nun Paisia in Chios together with a Chian lady, Mrs. Maria Heila, a teacher, and she was outside this church in the Olympi of Chios. However, because the church is located a little far from the village on a ring road, it was closed and we wondered who had the key so that they could ask for it to open the church for them to venerate.
And the Saint again showed her intervention here. I had come from America, where I was living, to Chios for a vacation. And when they started to leave, seeing the church closed, then my wife and I went up to the church and this meeting with the Nun took place, who, when she learned that I was the father of the child, asked me to tell her about the miracle and to write it down so that she could publish it in the Magazine that the Monastery publishes for the glory of God, because "God is wondrous in His Saints.”
Today, my Chrysovalantis is 39 years old, a Biology Professor and in return for what I did, now that he is married, he has given me grandchildren, two beautiful boys.
So I warmly thank her grace and my wife for her gift of our Chrysovalantis, who this year, when he also came from America and paid homage to her grace at her Holy Monastery, in Lykovrysi, the meeting with the Nun took place, who happened to be at that time in Olympi of Chios and outside the church of the Saint.
With much respect and gratitude,
Alexandros Gailas
Chios
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
When I was thinking about where exactly and on which of the properties I had to build her church and I could not find a solution, I observed that my car broke down three times and stopped each time, but always at the same point. Discussing this with my father, he said to me: "My son, don’t you know that at that point where your car stops each time, that hill you see, is your mother’s property? So take it and proceed to fulfill your vow."
And so, in 1991, the church was built on that hill in the name of Saint Irene Chrysovalantou, to bear witness to the miracle that happened to my child.
And I think this meeting with Nun Paisia was not accidental, but again because the Saint would have wanted her miracle to be heard and published in her Magazine.
I met Nun Paisia in Chios together with a Chian lady, Mrs. Maria Heila, a teacher, and she was outside this church in the Olympi of Chios. However, because the church is located a little far from the village on a ring road, it was closed and we wondered who had the key so that they could ask for it to open the church for them to venerate.
And the Saint again showed her intervention here. I had come from America, where I was living, to Chios for a vacation. And when they started to leave, seeing the church closed, then my wife and I went up to the church and this meeting with the Nun took place, who, when she learned that I was the father of the child, asked me to tell her about the miracle and to write it down so that she could publish it in the Magazine that the Monastery publishes for the glory of God, because "God is wondrous in His Saints.”
Today, my Chrysovalantis is 39 years old, a Biology Professor and in return for what I did, now that he is married, he has given me grandchildren, two beautiful boys.
So I warmly thank her grace and my wife for her gift of our Chrysovalantis, who this year, when he also came from America and paid homage to her grace at her Holy Monastery, in Lykovrysi, the meeting with the Nun took place, who happened to be at that time in Olympi of Chios and outside the church of the Saint.
With much respect and gratitude,
Alexandros Gailas
Chios
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
