Thousands of permanent residents and visitors to Lesvos walked tens of kilometres as usual throughout the day yesterday and into this morning from all parts of the island to the mountainous Agiaso, where the pilgrimage of the Dormition of the Virgin took place with the ancient icon of the Virgin Mary, believed to have been from the Evangelist Luke.
The icon with the characteristic name “Mother of God Agia Sion” passed to Lesvos during its iconoclasm of Asia Minor Ephesus and hid in the area of Lesbian Olympus, which was later the occasion for the construction of the church. And then for the construction of houses around the church which constituted the nucleus of the creation of the modern city of Agiasos, a corruption of the words “Agia Sion”.
The Fifteenth of August festival in Agiaso begins on August 1st and ends in Niamera de Panagia on the 23rd of the same month. But it culminates today, August 15th, when inseparability also prevails in the village. It should be noted that in recent days, among the thousands of pilgrims, there have also been many Turks, who are on holiday in Lesvos at this time and do not miss the opportunity to experience a festival that is unprecedented for them.
Smyrna and East and Ephesus
Cesarios Dapontes, describing the feast of the Virgin at Agiaso and the impact it had on the Christians of the East, wrote:
In previous years, the “Tasmataris”, that is, those who hoped to go to church on the fifteenth of August, did not limit themselves to walking up to the village, but flocked to the “dekapentis” in the cells and trellises of the church courtyard, many during the entire fifteenth of August.
Yesterday, in the Church of Panagia in Agiaso, the Hierarchical Vespers of the Dormition were celebrated under the patronage of Metropolitan Iakovos of Mytilene. While today a High Priestly Divine Liturgy is celebrated in the presence of the President of the Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
RES-MEB