The Miracle of the Archangel Michael

On the Byzantine liturgical calendar, today, September 6, we have the commemoration of the miracle of the holy archangel Michael at Colossae in Chionia.

Given that our heavenly patron is the Archangel Michael, it is good for us to spend a little time on the place of Michael in the spiritual life.

It seems that we can deepen our desire for God by knowing more and more of how He works in this saints and angels.

The Divine Liturgy speaks of the Archangel Michael in this manner:

O Commander of the Heavenly Hosts,
We who are unworthy beseech you
That by your prayers you will encompass us
Beneath the wings of your immaterial glory
And protect us who fall down and cry:
Deliver us all from harm,
For you are the commander of the powers on High. (Troparion, Tone 4)

The biographers say,

In  Phrygia, not far from the city of Hieropolis, in a place called Cheretopos, there was a church named for the Archangel Michael, built over a miraculous spring.

This church was built by a  certain inhabitant of the city of Laodicia in gratitude to God for  healing his mute daughter. The holy Chief Commander Michael appeared to this man in a dream and revealed to him that his daughter would receive the gift of speech after drinking from the water of the spring. The girl actually did receive healing and began to speak. After this miracle,  the father and his daughter and all their family were baptized. In  fervent gratitude, the father built the church in honor of the holy Chief Commander Michael. Not only did Christians begin to come to the  spring for healing, but also pagans [unbelievers]. In so doing, many of the pagans  turned from their idols and were converted to the faith in Christ.

At  this church of the holy Chief Commander Michael, a certain pious man by  the name of Archippus served for sixty years as church custodian. By  his preaching and by the example of his saintly life he brought many  pagans to faith in Christ. With the general malice of that time towards Christians, and especially against Archippus, the pagans thought to  destroy the church in order to prevent people from coming to that holy  place of healing, and at the same time kill Archippus.

Toward this end they made a confluence of the Lykokaperos and Kufos Rivers and  directed its combined flow against the church. St Archippus prayed fervently to the Chief Commander Michael to ward off the danger. Through his prayer the Archangel Michael appeared at the temple, and with a  blow of his staff, opened a wide fissure in a rock and commanded the  rushing torrents of water to flow into it. The temple remained unharmed. Seeing such an awesome miracle, the pagans fled in terror. Archippus  and the Christians gathered in church glorified God and gave thanks to  the holy Archangel Michael for the help. The place where the rivers  plunged into the fissure received the name “Chonae,” which means  “plunging.”