A couple who belongs to our Swedish exarchate lived and worked in north of Sweden 1977-1988. During this time they came to know and become a good friend of a man whose name was Torbjörn. This man was diagnosed around 1970 with lymph-cancer and went through all kinds of heavy treatments, radiation and chemotherapy. During his illness he visited Sovjetunion and bought there an icon. He knew that it was illegal to take the icon out of the country through the customs without permission, so he put the icon under his shirt with the painted side against his body and by that tried to smuggle it out. When he finally was on the ferry on his way back to Sweden he took out the icon to look at it and became very disappointed. The face of the icon had by some reason disappeared and was damaged, but the rest of the icon was intact. When he was back home he put the icon in a closet and more or less forgot it. Torbjörn continued to go to his treatments and control. Sometimes he took the icon out of the closed to look at it and was sorry for that the face had disappeared. After five years the doctors declared that he now was cured from his cancer. He then took the icon out of the closet and to his surprise the face of the saint on the icon was miraculously back.

Torbjörn then told his orthodox friends this strange story and they took the icon to an iconographer to show it to him and ask if he could see if this icon had been repaired or something, but he didn’t see anything. The icon didn’t bear any sign to have been repainted.

1988 did this orthodox couple, who belongs to our exarchate, moved from north of Sweden to Norrköping, but they still had contacts with Torbjörn. 1995 Torbjörn died in a heart attack. Torbjörn had, since a couple of years back, been divorced.

1998 this orthodox couple wanted to construct a chapel in Norrköping dedicated to Sts. Zacharias and Elizabeth. When the chapel was constructed they came to think about the destiny of this icon, so they contacted the widow of Torbjörn and asked her if she had kept the icon after Torbjörns death and wondered if they could buy it. The widow found the icon and gave it away to be placed in this chapel in Norrköping. Year 2004 then our parishioners moved back to the north of Sweden they decided to give the icon to the Greek orthodox (old calendar) paris h of Uppsala – the Dormition of the Theotokos, there it now is treasured.

According to expertise this is an icon of Saint Theodosios (Feodosij), Archbishop of Chernigov (1630-1696), who was glorified 1896 by the Russian Orthodox Church and celebrated on 5/18 February.