Παναγιά Τσαμπίκα Tsambika, Ρόδος Rodos. Entrance vestibule

The name Τσαμπίκα is explained as a "flicker of light" in the local dialect and by a tradition that a shepard saw a flicker of light where the church now stands. After the light was observed over several nights, the shepard and several villagers investigated and found a silver-plated icon of the Virigin in a tree with a vigil lamp in front of it. The news of the discovery spread and eventually reached Cyprus. An icon and vigil lamp has disappeared from a monastery there, so officals came from Cyprus and, recognising the icon as theirs, removed it to Cyprus. The icon miraculously returned to Rodos, but was returned again to Cyprus, this time marked for identification with a burn mark on the back. Once again the icon miraculously returned and the chapel then built. The icon is kept now in the lower church. A celebration is held in the chapel on the third Sunday in Lent (the hike up the hill said to remind pilgrims of Christ's climb to Golgotha). The chapel is especially venerated by women who beseech the Virigin Mary for children. This association came into promenance under the Ottomans when the wife of a Paşa could not conceive. She procured a small burnt wick from the vigil lamp at the chapel and swallowed it. When she became pregnant, the Paşa refused to believe that this was due to the intercession of the Virigin, but when the child was born it was found holding the wick. The Paşa was convinced and in gratitude donated the surrounding lands to the church. This story maybe read as a narrative that justified the land holdings of the church under the Ottomans, and attempted to protect its properties from abrogation by appeal to the female elites in the time of Turkish rule.