The Weeping Icon of Our Lady of Chicago, St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church, 1986

St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church stands at 2701 N. Narragansett Ave., on Chicago's Northwest Side. The parish was founded in 1944. Its current church was built in 1961. In 1986, UPI put the congregation at about 250 families.

On the iconostasis hung an icon of the Theotokos in the Hodegetria style. The Christ Child sits upright on her left arm, holding a scroll. Her right hand points to him. It was the work of the Byzantine iconographer Constantine Youssis, painted, the parish says, approximately fifty years before. In Albanian it would come to be called Shën Maria Shqiptarevet, St. Mary of the Albanians.

Saturday, December 6, 1986. The Feast of St. Nicholas. The parish's own patronal feast.

Fr. Philip Koufos was lighting candles before the services. Two parishioners, Lillian George and Bessie Tolbert, were with him when they found moisture on the face of the Virgin. In the pastor's words, "moisture began to spout from the fingers of the Virgin." UPI reported "what appeared to be moisture streaming down from the eyes and hands" of Mary's image, but only Mary, not the Christ Child or any other icon in the church. Fr. John Chakos later recalled that "moisture appeared in the area of the eyes."

About 2,000 visitors came in the first five days. Parishioner volunteers took turns watching the icon to prevent tampering. Koufos spoke of awe and soul searching among those who came. "There will in no way be any effort on our part to make money from this," he said. Bishop Isaiah of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in New York told UPI such events were not unusual: "It happens with icons, normally the icon of the Virgin Mary."

The tears continued until July 1987. Visitors came by the thousands, some from as far as the Soviet Union and Sri Lanka. Pilgrims reported healings. Fr. Chakos soaked cotton balls in the tears, and these were later used in blessings. The parish records a brief return of the moisture in a later September, giving 1987 on one page and 1988 on another, and says the icon wept copiously again on July 23, 1995.

The church became a Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On July 22, 1990, Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I venerated the icon on his first visit to the United States. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew made a pilgrimage in November 1997. The parish says about 2 million visitors have come since 1986.

The icon also travelled in copies. On July 22, 1988, at Camp Nazareth in Mercer, Pennsylvania, Fr. Chakos blessed a reproduction photo with the tear soaked cotton. The photo reportedly wept. So did about 19 other icons brought by campers, with moisture and fragrance. About 200 people kept an all night vigil.

In July 1989 a photographic copy of the Chicago icon "wept" at the Shrine of St. Michael in Tarpon Springs, Florida. The skeptic Gary Posner investigated. Jim Zaluba of the Midwest Committee for Rational Inquiry visited Chicago and bought the parish's souvenir photo. Posner compared it with an AP Laserphoto from December 12, 1986. In the Chicago images, the tears formed "continuous dark linear streaks." The Florida print showed white dots. Posner concluded the dots had been added to the Florida print. His finding concerned Tarpon Springs, not Chicago.

Joe Nickell has argued that weeping icons in general are hoaxes or natural effects, such as condensation or seeping oils and varnish. None of this was ever tested on the Chicago icon. And the witnesses held to one detail. In a crowded, candle lit church, only Mary wept.