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The last of the New Icons
Adorned with the beauty of virginity,
you have been crowned with unfading crowns, O Marina.
Having shed your blood in holy martyrdom,
and radiant with the miracles of healing,
you have received from the hand of your Creator the prize of victory.
(Kontakion in the third tone)
Ayia Marina (aka Margaret) of Antioch who lived at the turn of the 3rd century and was tortured to death because of her faith, is to this day evoked for her healing miracles. Where the saint is normally depicted in traditional iconography with a red robe, she appeared to Maria Whalley – Yorgos’s sister who is diagnosed with metastasised cancer – in her dreams in radiant white, in one instance her robe embellished with lots of little gold crosses. Yorgos has taken this dreamt up image into three different New Icons, as a kind of therapeutic personal dealing with the hardship of his sister’s disease. These could well be the last pieces of the series.
