ABSTRACT
During the reign of the iconoclast emperor Theophilos, an icon of the Virgin in the possession of a pious widow and her son from Nicaea in Bithynia was cast into the sea to save it from the destructive frenzy of its pursuers. Many years later it reappeared in the midst of a pillar of fire in the bay of St Clement’s monastery, the future Iveron, on Mt Athos. The monks tried to approach it, but in vain, as the icon retreated out to sea. After the Virgin herself gave a sign to the abbot, the icon was taken to the katholikon of the monastery by a humble Georgian ascetic, Gabriel by name, who had walked across the waves to pick it up. Eventually, after another sign from the Theotokos, the icon was placed in the parekklesion, which had been built for this purpose at the entrance (ðüñôá) to the monastery, to be its guardian and protector: whence it acquired the name ‘Portaitissa’ (Our Lady of the Gate).
