My mother has had headaches for as long as she can remember. The only difference was that sometimes it hurt more, sometimes less – then the pain was hardly noticeable. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when, during my next visit home, my sister greeted me with the words:
– Mom has a bad headache, she can’t even come to you.
– Now I will heal her! – I said with some unknown source of certainty.
I really had a special medicine with me.
Shortly before that, in July – August 2000, the head of the holy great martyr and healer Panteleimon was brought from Mount Athos to Moscow. The line to the temple of Christ the Savior was huge, since the shrine was planned to stay for several days in Russia, before returning to Athos. People stood for 10-12 hours, both day and night.
I arrived at the temple after work, around seven in the evening. I found the end of the line of people waiting to enter the church somewhere on the embankment, took out a booklet with an akathist to the holy great martyr and healer Panteleimon and began to read.
I was amazed by the Orthodox people, who stood in line with dignity, prayerfully, focused on their thoughts. There was almost no conversation. True, one woman frankly admitted:
– I am standing for the third time…
– Haven’t you been here twice already? – asked the neighbor sympathetically.
– Yes, I just couldn’t wait. I gave up both times. And then in my dream I dreamed of Panteleimon the Healer, who said: “You haven’t been to me yet!” I woke up, the dream disappeared as if carried away by the hand, I got dressed and here I am. Do you think Saint Panteleimon will forgive me?!
We managed to approach the shrine only in the morning. At the exit from the church, everyone was given oil in a small bottle, consecrated on the relics of the great martyr and healer Panteleimon. It wasn’t much, just a little more than two or three millimeters from the bottom of the bottle.
How can it be used, there is so little of it? I asked the monk who was handing out the vials in surprise.
– Dilute it with another oil.
At home, I did just that, pouring regular oil into the bottle.
Leaving the suitcase on the porch, I took only the consecrated oil with me and went to the bedroom where my mother lay.
– Oh, son, my head hurts so much that I can’t see the white light! – protested the mother, instead of greeting.
– Now I will heal you! – I confidently declared and thought: “Not me, of course, but the healer Panteleimon…”
I opened the bottle. I dipped the clean end of the match into the oil (because I couldn’t think of anything else), read the “Our Father…” and made a cross with the oil-soaked match on my mother’s forehead.
The consequences still surprise me, even though almost twenty years have passed. Completely unexpected for my mother, and even more so for me, absolutely black blood gushed from her nose! Black as pitch! Mom got up, and I only had time to raise my hands so that the blood would not cover the bed, and shouted to my sister:
– Quickly bring a dish!
My sister brought a bowl, helped mother sit on the edge of the bed, and the black blood poured and poured, filling the bottom of the rather spacious bowl.
And suddenly, just as suddenly as it had started, the bleeding stopped. And three bright crimson drops of blood fell on the black liquid mass from above, without mixing with it.
We looked at them in wonder.
Mom turned her head in one direction, in another and smiled:
– It doesn’t hurt anymore!
I thought that surprised her even more than the black blood in the bowl.
– Oh, son, you cured me!
– Not me, mother, but the holy healer Panteleimon! – I kissed my mom. – This is his healing oil for you. You told us that as a child you loved to decorate his icon in the church with flowers during the holidays!
My mother never had a headache again.
Alexander Uzhankov