A wonderworking icon is an icon through which God has chosen to work miracles. That’s it. The icon itself doesn’t possess power, God acts through it, just as He acts through the prayers of the saint or the Theotokos depicted in the image.
These icons have become known over time for healings, for streaming myrrh, for protection during disasters, or for other signs that the Church has witnessed and recognized. They’re not different in kind from other icons. Every icon is a window to heaven, a means of communion with the person shown. But some icons become known as wonderworking because God has chosen to manifest His grace through them in ways that people can see, smell, or experience physically.
How It Works
Here’s what we don’t believe: the wood and paint have magic properties. Here’s what we do believe: when we venerate an icon, our honor passes through the image to the person depicted. That’s basic iconography, settled at the Seventh Ecumenical Council. With a wonderworking icon, God sometimes makes that connection visible. Myrrh streams from an icon of the Theotokos. Someone prays before an icon of St. Nicholas and gets healed. A fragrance fills the church when a particular icon is present.
The miracle comes from God, working through the intercessions of the saint. The icon is the meeting place.
Think of it this way. When you call your mom in Houston, the phone isn’t your mom. But it’s the means by which you hear her voice and talk to her. A wonderworking icon is like that phone, except sometimes the connection is so strong that everyone in the room can smell the roses or see the oil.
Examples You Might Encounter
The Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God travels around North America regularly. It’s been to Antiochian parishes across the country. People report that the cloth covering it gets wet with myrrh during services, and the fragrance fills the building. The Hawaiian Iveron Icon does the same thing, it streamed myrrh all morning during the Divine Liturgy at an Antiochian convention a couple years back.
There’s the Iveron Icon on Mount Athos, the Vladimir Icon of the Theotokos, the Kazan Icon. Hundreds of others, some famous across the Orthodox world, some known mainly in one monastery or one region. St. Nicholas is called “the Wonderworker” partly because so many icons of him have been associated with miracles.
If one of these icons comes to a parish near you, go venerate it. But don’t go thinking it’s different from the icons already on your parish walls. God can work through any icon. He’s just chosen to make His work more obvious through certain ones, maybe to strengthen our faith, maybe to draw attention to a particular saint’s intercessions, maybe for reasons we don’t fully understand.
What the Church Says
The Church recognizes wonderworking icons carefully. Bishops oversee their travels. Clergy and faithful witness the phenomena together, nobody’s making private claims about secret miracles. When the Kursk Icon visits a parish, it’s not because someone had a vision in their basement. It’s because the Church has seen God work through this icon for generations and blesses its veneration publicly.
This matters because we’re not Pentecostals. We don’t chase after signs. We don’t treat icons like lucky charms. The Church’s careful oversight protects us from superstition on one side and from rationalist dismissal on the other.
A Word of Caution
Don’t get weird about this. I’ve met inquirers who worry that venerating icons is idolatry, and I’ve met cradle Orthodox who treat certain icons like they’re spiritual vending machines. Both miss the point.
We venerate icons because we believe the saints are alive in Christ and we can ask their prayers. Wonderworking icons just make that reality more tangible. But you can pray before any icon of St. Mary of Egypt and ask her intercessions. You don’t need the specific wonderworking icon that’s in such-and-such monastery. God hears you either way.
The flip side: don’t be so skeptical that you miss what God is doing. If you’re standing in church and an icon is streaming myrrh and you can smell it, don’t spend the whole service trying to figure out the naturalistic explanation. Sometimes God breaks into our world in ways we can perceive with our senses. That’s what the Incarnation is about. He took flesh. He’s not afraid of matter.
When a wonderworking icon visits St. Michael or another parish in Southeast Texas, it’s a gift. Go venerate it with faith. Ask the Theotokos or the saint to pray for you. Bring your kids so they can see that our faith isn’t just ideas, it’s encountering the living God who still acts in His world. Then go home and keep praying before the icons you already have, because they’re windows to the same heaven.
