Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Tarpon Springs’ St. Nicholas icon was sent to Greece in 1923. Mayor wants it back

tampabay.com · 3hShare

An icon of St. Nicholas that left Tarpon Springs for restoration in 1923 and never came back could be home by January, after Mayor John Koulianos tracked it down on a Greek island this summer. Koulianos found the icon in July in a harbor chapel on Aegina, where it has been for more than a century. The priest there has agreed to give it back, but the request still must be approved by church leaders in Greece and the United States. If it is, the icon would return during the city’s Epiphany celebration Jan. 6, 2027, the same day Tarpon Springs plans to make Aegina its newest sister city. The icon, a stylized image of the saint, was presented in 1910 to the original wooden St. Nicholas Greek church by a group of immigrants from Aegina. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and fishermen, a fitting protector for a community built by Greek sponge divers, the first of whom came from Aegina and Hydra. After a fire damaged the icon, it was sent to Greece in 1923 to be restored. It never r

First report: Lost Tarpon Springs religious painting discovered in Greece after 103 years — fox13news.com, 1d