MARY AND BEES

A reader asked me to talk a bit about the Greek icon called the Panagia Melissou (Παναγία Μελισσού) — The “All Holy One of the Bee,” or ” – of the Bees,” as we would have it in English. Here is a copy of the original:

There is not much to say about it as it is a modern icon. The concept giving rise to it originated in the Monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos at Katousi, Karditsa, Greece, where a hive of bees lived in the sanctuary of the church. The bees were allowed to live there and to fly about. The priests, as a blessing, even gave congregants a bit of the honeycomb along with a piece of antidoron bread annually on the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, September 8th.. Antidoron bread is bread made for the Eucharist but not consecrated. As a consequence, and considering Mary as protectress of bees, an icon depicting her holding a honeycomb with some bees on it was painted in September, 2009. It was eventually sent to its present location, the Byzantine Cultural Center of Panagia Melissos in Trikala, in 2018.

Oddly enough, bees. – some 180,000 -200,000 of them in three hives, were also kept in the roof above the sacristy of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. When the church caught fire on the 15th of April, 2019, The main roof was severely burned, but the bees, being some distance below, survived.

In recognition of this, the Government of Greece, as a friendly gesture, gave a copy of the Panagia Melissou icon to France for the reopening of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.