The Mysterious Icon of the Three Hands

Fr. Scott A. Haynes

High on the Holy Mountain of Athos, within the ancient walls of the Serbian monastery of Hilandar, there is an icon unlike almost any other in the Christian world. The Mother of God holds the Christ Child close to her, just as she does in countless Byzantine images, yet anyone who pauses to look carefully will soon notice something extraordinary: beneath the familiar image appears a third hand.

That additional hand belongs to an ancient story of persecution, courage, betrayal, prayer, and miraculous healing. It recalls the hand of Saint John of Damascus, the hand with which he defended the sacred images of Christ and His saints, and which, according to Christian tradition, was cut off by order of a ruler who believed John guilty of treason. The same tradition relates that, after fervent prayer before an icon of the Mother of God, his hand was miraculously restored so that he might continue his work in defense of the Faith.

The icon is known as the Panagia Tricherousa, the Three-Handed Mother of God.

The Emperor Who Wanted the Icons Destroyed

The story takes us back to the eighth century, when the Byzantine world was being torn apart by the great controversy over sacred images. Emperor Leo III opposed the veneration of icons and began a campaign against their use, with sacred images that had stood in churches and monasteries for generations being removed, damaged, or destroyed. Those who defended their veneration could face serious consequences, yet one of the strongest defenders of the holy images lived beyond the emperor's direct authority.

His name was John of Damascus.

John lived in Damascus under Muslim rule and held an important position in the administration of the caliph. Because he did not live within the Byzantine Empire, the emperor could not easily arrest or silence him, and John therefore turned to the weapon he knew how to use with extraordinary skill: the written word.

He composed powerful defenses of sacred images, explaining why Christians could honor representations of Christ, His Mother, and His saints without confusing such veneration with the worship owed to God alone. At the heart of his argument stood the mystery of the Incarnation. God had truly become man, and the invisible Son of God had taken visible human flesh, walked among men, been seen and touched, suffered upon the Cross, and risen bodily from the grave. Because the Word had truly become flesh, John argued, Christ could be represented according to the humanity He had truly assumed.

John's writings circulated widely, and although the emperor could not easily reach him by force, tradition relates that another means was devised to bring about his downfall.

The Forged Letter

According to the traditional account, a letter was fabricated in John's name and made to appear as though he were secretly offering assistance to the Byzantine emperor against Damascus. The deception was apparently convincing enough that, when the letter reached the caliph, John suddenly found himself accused of betraying the ruler whom he had faithfully served.

His protests of innocence could not overcome the evidence that had been placed before the court, and a terrible sentence followed. His right hand, the very hand with which he had written his defenses of the sacred images, was cut off.

The cruelty of the punishment carried an unmistakable symbolism. John's enemies had not merely inflicted bodily suffering upon him; they had struck at the very instrument through which he exercised his vocation as a writer, theologian, and defender of the Faith. The hand that had taken up the pen to defend the icons had now been severed, and from a human point of view the work for which John had become known seemed to have been brought suddenly and brutally to an end.

Yet according to the tradition, the story was only beginning.

A Prayer Before the Mother of God

John pleaded to have his severed hand returned to him, and his request was eventually granted. He carried it home, where, in the midst of his pain and uncertainty, he turned in prayer to an icon of the Mother of God holding the Child Jesus.

One can imagine the sorrow of that night, with his future suddenly uncertain and the work to which he had devoted himself seemingly taken from him. John placed the severed hand against his wounded wrist and prayed before the icon, not merely asking for relief from suffering, but begging that the hand might be restored so that he could continue using it in the service of Christ.

According to the tradition, John promised that if God returned his hand to him, he would use it once again to write in defense of the Christian Faith and the sacred images. The hand that had been severed because of his defense of icons now rested before an icon as he entrusted himself to the mercy of God through the intercession of the Mother of God.

Eventually, exhausted by suffering, John fell asleep. Tradition relates that the Mother of God appeared to him and assured him that his prayer had been heard, while also commanding him to continue using his restored hand faithfully in defense of the Faith.

When John awoke, he discovered that his hand had been restored.

The wound had closed, and according to some forms of the tradition only a narrow scar remained around his wrist, serving as a permanent reminder of both the suffering he had endured and the mercy he believed he had received. The man who had gone to sleep mutilated awoke to find that the hand taken from him had been made whole again.

The Silver Hand

John desired that his gratitude should be made visible, and so, according to tradition, he commissioned a representation of a human hand, commonly said to have been made of silver, and placed it upon the icon before which he had prayed. It became a votive offering of thanksgiving and a permanent testimony to the healing he believed had been granted through the intercession of the Mother of God.

From that time onward, the icon appeared to possess three hands. Two belonged to the Virgin herself, while the third represented the restored hand of John.

The additional hand was never intended to suggest that the Mother of God literally possessed three hands. Rather, it served as a visible testimony of gratitude, proclaiming through its very presence that the hand which had been lost had been returned by the mercy of God and had therefore been consecrated anew to His service.

For this reason, the icon became known as the Tricherousa, the Three-Handed Mother of God.

John Leaves the World Behind

In time, John left behind the honors and responsibilities of public life and entered the ancient monastery of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified, the great Mar Saba monastery in the Judean wilderness near Jerusalem. Tradition holds that he brought the treasured icon with him, carrying into monastic life the sacred image before which he had offered his prayer of desperation and thanksgiving.

There, amid the barren cliffs and deep silence of the desert, the former court official became a monk. The hand that had once written documents for rulers now produced theology, hymns, and defenses of Christian doctrine, while the man whose enemies had attempted to silence him became one of the great theological voices of Eastern Christianity.

The attempt to destroy his work had failed, and the hand that had been severed returned to its task.

The Icon Begins Its Journey

For centuries the icon remained associated with the monastery of Saint Sabbas, but in time its history became intertwined with another great saint, Saint Sava of Serbia, who visited the Holy Land during the thirteenth century. According to Serbian and Athonite tradition, the treasured icon eventually came into Saint Sava's possession and was carried from the Holy Land into the Serbian Christian world.

Its travels, however, were not yet finished.

During a later period of turmoil, when the icon was believed to be in danger, tradition relates that those responsible for protecting it entrusted its fate entirely to Divine Providence. The icon was placed upon a donkey and allowed to travel without anyone choosing the road or directing the animal toward a particular destination.

The animal journeyed on until, according to Athonite tradition, it reached the rugged peninsula of Mount Athos and came to Hilandar Monastery, the great Serbian monastery of the Holy Mountain. The monks received the icon with profound reverence and came to believe that the Mother of God herself had chosen the monastery as the new home of her sacred image.

The Mother of God Takes the Abbot's Place

The most unusual chapter in the icon's later history concerns a dispute that arose among the monks of Hilandar over the election of a new abbot. According to the monastery's tradition, the disagreement became serious enough to disturb the peace of the community, but then something remarkable was discovered.

The Three-Handed icon was found occupying the place reserved for the abbot.

The monks returned the icon to its customary position, but it was later found once again in the abbot's place. They moved it back yet another time, only to discover that it had again appeared where the superior of the monastery would normally sit.

According to the tradition preserved at Hilandar, a holy hermit then received an explanation of what these events meant. The Mother of God did not wish the monks to continue quarreling over who should govern the monastery, for she herself would be their protectress and superior.

The monks understood the message, and the place they had considered empty was no longer regarded as empty at all. The Mother of God had taken it as her own.

From that time onward, the Tricherousa held a unique position of honor within Hilandar, where the ancient icon remains among the monastery's greatest treasures.

The Meaning of the Third Hand

The story of the Three-Handed Mother of God is far more than an explanation for the unusual appearance of an ancient icon, because the third hand carries within it an entire spiritual history.

It is the hand of a Christian who refused to remain silent when the Faith was attacked, the hand of a man who suffered under a false accusation and endured a brutal punishment, and the hand that was placed helplessly before the Mother of Christ during one of the darkest moments of his life. Above all, however, it is the image of a hand returned to the service of God.

There is something profoundly beautiful in the tradition that Saint John's miracle concerned the very part of his body with which he had served the Church. He did not ask for his hand merely so that his life could return to what it had been before, but so that he might continue the work to which he believed God had called him.

According to the tradition, that is precisely what he did. The hand that had been cut off because it defended the holy images was restored after prayer before an icon, and it then returned to the task for which it had already suffered.

This is why the strange silver hand attached to the icon carries such spiritual power. It transforms the image into a lasting act of thanksgiving, as though the hand itself were still proclaiming that what God restores should be given back to Him and that whatever gifts He places into our hands should be used for His glory.

Centuries after Saint John of Damascus closed his eyes for the last time, the story of his hand continues to speak. It no longer speaks with ink upon parchment, nor through theological argument alone, but through an ancient icon preserved on the Holy Mountain, where three hands beneath the face of the Mother of God continue to tell the story of a man whose enemies tried to silence him and whose restored hand, according to tradition, returned once more to writing for Christ.