Real-Life X-Files (35 page)

On Tuesday, September 3,1996, at the request of The Toronto Sun, I headed to Canada to investigate the world’s latest “weeping icon.” I was to meet with reporters at the newspaper’s King Street offices and from there to be escorted to a Greek Orthodox Church in Toronto’s East York district. Church officials had promised the Sun they could examine the icon at 11:00 P.M., and I was enlisted for that purpose. In addition to my over-night bag, I also packed a “weeping icon kit” consisting of a camera and close-up lenses, a stereomicroscope removed from its base, and various vials, pipettes, bibulous paper, and other collection materials.

As we arrived in the neighborhood, however, I saw not the nearly deserted church I had expected to be awaiting our special appointment but rather traffic congestion and a line of pilgrims stretching far off into the night. I waited outside with my conspicuous case while reporters went to learn that the promise of an examination had been retracted. I determined to proceed anyway and do the best I could. A Sun reporter of Greek extraction feared I might start a riot, but his colleague, Scot Magnish, who had brought me there, was only concerned for my safety. (It was not wise for
him
to go inside, given rumored responses to his critical article on the phenomenon published in the latest edition of the newspaper.) After stuffing some essentials from my kit into my pockets, I handed Scot my case, turned, and bounded up the steps of the little church two at a time. Behind me, Sun photographer Craig Robertson rushed to keep up. We passed a lady who shouted the admission price (“two dollars fifty cents”) at us; I shouted back,
“Toronto Sun!
” and kept going.

Figure 36.1. Author peers over shoulder of priest—once defrocked for working in an Athens brothel—as he illuminates a “weeping” icon at a Greek Orthodox church in Toronto. (Photo courtesy Toronto Sun)

Inside, the church was swelteringly hot. Nevertheless, people milled about for a time after viewing the controversial icon of the Madonna and Child, while new pilgrims passed before it. A table filled with candles and a crude sign, “PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE ICON OF VIRGIN MARY,” kept the curious at bay. An attendant refused my request for a sample of the tears and pretended to ignore me when I asked again in a louder voice.

A hanging oil lamp partially obscured the face of the Madonna, but by moving my head from side to side and thus catching the light on the surface of the picture, I made several important discoveries. First, the icon was a fake—not an original wood-panel painting at all but merely a color photographic
print
. In addition, the “tears” did not emanate from the eyes but from somewhere near the top of the Virgins head, and so by definition the image was not “weeping.” Moreover, one of the four rivulets was smeared and from its appearance looked “suspiciously oily” (as I told the
Sun
).

The latter point was quite significant since real tears, or even mere water, would quickly dry in the hot atmosphere of the church. But a non- drying oil (such as olive oil) would remain fresh and glistening indefinitely—just the trick for “weeping” icons and one apparently more commonly used than the hidden tubes and special chemicals so often proposed by theorists. During the quarter of an hour or so that I observed the image, there was no fresh flow of “tears”—just the same unchanging rivulets I saw at the beginning. (There were also fine droplets between the streaks as if spattered on, possibly from the oil lamp that almost touched the print.)

At length, I persuaded the priest, the Reverend Ieronimos Katseas, to provide a better view—at least for the photographer. Katseas pulled the lamp away with one hand while holding a candle close to the Madonna’s face with the other. Photographer Robertson clicked away, producing the accompanying photograph.

In the subsequent article by Magnish and two colleagues, I was quoted as saying that the phenomenon was “more carnival sideshow than miracle” and that I was troubled by the withdrawal of the promise to allow the icon to be examined. “It would seem to me a miracle could withstand a little skepticism,” I stated, complaining further about being kept at a distance and being refused a sample of the “tears” (Magnish et al. 1996).

In the meantime, reporters learned that Katseas had been embroiled in considerable earlier controversy. It turns out that he had also preached at a Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Queens, New York, when an icon there—that of a mid-nineteenth nun, St. Irene—began crying and drawing hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, some as far away as India and Japan. More than a year later, after I had investigated that icon with New York Area Skeptics and concluded that the phenomenon was bogus (Nickell 1993), the icon was stolen at gunpoint. Supposedly, Katseas refused to cooperate in producing the key to the Plexiglas case that housed it and was pistol-whipped, after which the bandits broke the lock and made off with the “miraculous” icon. It was subsequently returned—minus $800,000 in gems and golden jewelry that decorated it—under conditions that still remain controversial (Christopoulos 1996).

Katseas was also defrocked in 1993 when it was learned he had previously worked in a brothel in Athens. A church document on the priest’s excommunication states that a New York ecclesiastical court found him guilty of slander, perjury, and defamation, as well as being “in the employ of a house of prostitution” (Goldhar 1996). In fact, in 1987 sworn testimony before a Greek judge, Katseas admitted he had been so employed (Magnish et al. 1996).

Figure 36.2. On a later occasion, author collects samples of oil from icon under media scrutiny.

A rumor I heard from neighborhood residents was soon confirmed by a newspaper report, namely that the Toronto icon began weeping after the East York church found itself financially strapped with an accumulated debt from mortgages of almost $271,000. In the interim, in June, the church dispatched Father Archimandrite Gregory from Colorado with instructions to evict Katseas from the church, but the matter became mired in the courts. After the icon began “weeping,” Gregory cast doubt on the phenomenon, stating in a letter, “It would not be surprising if this were a hoax, in order to attract people to spend money” (Goldhar 1996). Such revelations and opinions, however, had no effect on some pilgrims. Said one woman: “I don’t care if there’s a pipe and a hose behind that picture. I don’t care if the Virgin Mary jumps right out of the painting. You either believe in miracles or you don’t. I believe” (DiManno 1996).
On the other hand, a woman living in the neighborhood stated, “We all need something to believe in, but this is preying on those who really need a miracle” (Goldhar 1996).

On August 27,1997,1 was invited back to the church—this time by attorneys for the parent church authority. With a police guard and under scrutiny from the Canadian news media (
figure 36.2
), I examined the icon (which was dismantled from the frame it had acquired by a carpenter hired for the purpose) and took samples of the oil for the Metropolitan Toronto Police Fraud Squad for testing (Kudrez 1997). Some time later, at a forensic conference in Nova Scotia, I learned that the oil had indeed been found to be a nondrying oil, but that—of course—no one could say who put it on the icon, so the case fizzled.

References

Christopoulos, George. 1996. Priest’s 2nd “miracle” $800GS from “crying” N.Y. icon stolen.
Toronto Sun
, Sept. 8.

DiManno, Rosie. 1996. Moolah everywhere as the pious mob weeping Madonna.
Toronto Star
, Sept. 4.

Goldhar, Kathleen. 1996. Church of “weeping” Virgin headed by defrocked priest.
Toronto Star
, Sept. 4.

Kudrez, Anastasia. 1997. Crying foul.
Buffalo News
, Aug. 29.

Magnish, Scot, Philip Lee-Shanok, and Robert Benzie. 1996. Expert unmoved by crying icon’s ”tears.”
Toronto Sun
, Sept. 4.

Nickell, Joe. 1993.
Looking for a Miracle
. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 54-55.

Chapter 37

It has been the focus of “the world’s longest and most expensive treasure hunt” and “one of the world’s deepest and most costly archaeological digs” (O’Connor 1988,1,4), as well as being “Canada’s best-known mystery” (Colombo 1988, 33) and indeed one of “the great mysteries of the world.” It may even “represent an ancient artifact created by a past civilization of advanced capability” (Crooker 1978, 7, 190). The subject of these superlatives is a mysterious shaft on Oak Island in Nova Scotia’s Mahone Bay. For some two centuries, greed, folly, and even death have attended the supposed “Money Pit” enigma.

The Saga

Briefly, the story is that in 1795 a young man named Daniel Mclnnis (or McGinnis) was roaming Oak Island when he came upon a shallow depression in the ground. Above it, hanging from the limb of a large oak was an old tackle block. Mclnnis returned the next day with two friends who—steeped in the local lore of pirates and treasure troves—set to work to excavate the site. They soon uncovered a layer of flagstones and, ten feet deeper, a tier of rotten oak logs. They proceeded another fifteen feet into what they were sure was a man-made shaft, but tired from their efforts, they decided to cease work until they could obtain assistance. However, between the skepticism and superstition of the people who lived on the mainland, they were unsuccessful.

The imagined cache continued to lie dormant until early in the next century, when the trio joined with a businessman named Simeon Lynds from the town of Onslow to form a treasure-hunting consortium called the Onslow Company. Beginning work about 1803 or 1804 (one source says 1810), they found oak platforms “at exact intervals of ten feet” (O’Connor 1978, 10), along with layers of clay, charcoal, and a fibrous material identified as coconut husks. Then, at ninety feet (or eighty feet, according to one alleged participant) they supposedly found a flat stone bearing an indecipherable inscription. (See
figure 37.1)
. Soon after, probing with a crowbar, they struck something hard—possibly a wooden chest!—but discontinued for the evening. Alas, the next morning the shaft was found flooded with sixty feet of water. Attempting to bail out the pit with buckets, they found the water level remained the same, and they were forced to discontinue the search. The following year, the men attempted to bypass the water by means of a parallel shaft from which they hoped to tunnel to the supposed treasure. But this shaft suffered the same fate, and the Onslow Company’s expedition ended (O’Connor 1978, 9-16; Crooker 1993,14; Harris 1958,12-22).