The first two snakes have already appeared in the church in Markopoulos. Residents associate this event with the miraculous icon, which in an unusual way showed the locals where to build this temple, dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
High on the hillside of the village of Markopoulo in southern Kefalonia, villagers saw a tree burning and flames rising several meters high. They immediately thought that the forest had caught fire. They got worried and ran to put out the fire, so that the forest and the village would not burn. When the villagers arrived, they saw only one tree completely burnt, and on its root rested a very beautiful icon of the Virgin Mary, which was not even touched by the fire. The villagers, excited, took the icon in their hands, bowed to it, and took it to their church. The next morning, the rest of the villagers entered the church to worship the icon of the Virgin. But the icon was nowhere to be found.
After a thorough search, the icon was found in the forest, again laid on the root of a burnt tree. She was immediately returned to the church, where she was locked this time. But the same thing happened three more times. The icon disappeared and was found again on a burnt tree. Then the villagers believed that it was the desire of the Mother of God to be there, so they built a church and placed her icon in a beautiful iconostasis. After some time, a women’s monastery was also built. The nuns prayed to the Holy Mother of God every day.
However, one morning in 1705 they saw pirate boats approaching and pirates climbing towards the monastery in order to rob it. Then the nuns were afraid and asked for the protection of the Mother of God. Then a miracle happened again. When the pirates entered the village, they were greeted by a multitude of snakes crawling on the walls and floors… The monastery was surrounded by snakes, the pirates fled, and the nuns were saved.
Since then, snakes have appeared every year, except for 1940, when Greece entered World War II, and 1953, the year of the devastating earthquake in Kefalonia. If some years the snakes do not appear, it is believed that something bad will happen, as in 1940 and 1953, when the island was hit by earthquakes.
None of the experts who have examined the snakes can classify them into any of the known species. These are grey, thin and up to one meter long. Their skin is velvety, and on their head, as well as on the tip of their tongue, they have a small cross. Thousands of believers testify that snakes are warm-blooded, which is not known anywhere in the world. Snakes crawl around the church and especially around the icons of the Virgin. Snakes are peaceful and harmless, and believers see this event as a miraculous manifestation of God and the Holy Mother of God.
In Kefalonia, the grace of God and the piety of the inhabitants have never stopped since the apostolic times: an example of this is the churches and monasteries where miracles and inexplicable phenomena for today’s science take place. It is the island where Saint Paul the Apostle stayed when he traveled by ship from Caesarea to Rome for trial in 59 AD. Then the ship was caught in a big storm, so St. the apostle stayed in Kefalonia for three months.