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Letter to the editor

St. Michael's miracle dies at 78

Steve Tsalickis believed the saint saved his life. His family built a shrine.

By ELENA LESLEY, Times Staff Writer
Published August 17, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Family photo, 1960] Steve Tsalickis' family brought a St. Michael icon with them from Greece in the late 1930s. [Joseph Garnett Jr. | Times] Tasia Bouras of Tarpon Springs, helps grandson Alexandra Kokaliaris, 2, kiss St. Michael's icon Thursday in the saint's shrine.

TARPON SPRINGS -- As Steve Tsalickis lingered near death, feverish from what doctors said was an incurable brain tumor, the 11-year-old asked his mother to bring him the archangel Michael icon that sat in his family living room.

What happened next, believers say, was a miracle.

During the night, the boy began mumbling. "I have just seen St. Michael," he told his mother. The angel wanted his family to build a shrine in Tarpon Springs. In return, he would cure the boy's illness.

When the boy's health was restored the next day, his family held up their end of the bargain by constructing a shrine next to their home.

Today, the legacy of Tsalickis' recovery lives on through that shrine, which over the years became a destination for anyone in search of a miracle.

On Thursday, more than 60 years after doctors first predicted his death, Tsalickis passed away. He was 78.

During his life, Tsalickis was an Eagle Scout, a Pinellas County schools guidance counselor and owner of one of the most popular restaurants in Tarpon Springs.

But it is the shrine -- actually a small church -- that Tsalickis will always be remembered for in Tarpon Springs.

Through the years, it attracted thousands of visitors. Cancers cured, wounds healed, sight restored - Tsalickis' relatives say there are too many blessings to count. Crutches and canes the healed leave behind are jumbled in the shrine's storage closet.

Some even reported seeing an icon of the Virgin Mary weep for several days in the late 1980s.

As news of Tsalickis' death spread through Tarpon's Greek community Thursday, friends and neighbors began turning up at the door of his sister, Goldie Parr, crying, hugging, making plans for the funeral. As they trickled out, many walked over to the shrine at 113 Hope St. to say a prayer before the walls of colorful icons.

Some lit candles in the quiet room. Others bowed their heads silently.

Parr believes the shrine's healing powers come from the icon her family brought to Tarpon Springs from Greece in the late 1930s. Tsalickis' father, James Tsalickis, was a sponger and while caught in a treacherous storm, he prayed to St. Michael to save him. If he survived, he said he would donate money to the church on his native island of Symi.

So when James Tsalickis made it through the storm, his wife, Maria, went to Symi to give $300 to the island's church. The priest was so pleased, he gave her the icon, a silver depiction of St. Michael defeating the devil.

It was this icon that Tsalickis asked for from his hospital bed. Waking from a fitful sleep, he told his mother of his vision. Though she thought he was probably delusional and near death, she promised she would build a shrine to St. Michael, Parr said.

But the next morning, "he woke up at 10 a.m., got out of bed and took three steps," Parr said. "The doctor couldn't believe it."

Despite Tsalickis' miraculous recovery, it took some time to get the shrine under way. The archdiocese discouraged the plan because church officials worried it would become a second church that would draw members from the city's Greek Orthodox church.

Maria Tsalickis decided she would rather displease the archdiocese than a saint, so she started the project.

Before long, "St. Michael started coming to people in dreams," said Steve Tsalickis, a cousin. "People were sending money from all over the country."

A holy site was born.

"All day long there's a stream of people parking and going in," said Steve Tsalickis, who lives across the street. "It's people of all faiths, all colors."

Constructed on the lot adjacent to Tsalickis' childhood home, it's a modest concrete block and stucco building, kept impeccable by Parr's watchful eye.

Notes on her fridge remind her of various special requests. A woman from Colorado wants her to light candles in the shrine on specific days. Another wants her to send holy oil blessed by tears from the Virgin Mary icon.

Tsalickis left the duty of tending the shrine to his sister, who took over after his mother died in 1994. His children say he was surprisingly nonchalant about it.

"He didn't really talk about it much," his daughter Tula Manglis said.

He decided against becoming a priest, which had been his dream as a child, and instead became a guidance counselor. He retired from the Pinellas County school system in 1980.

Later in life, Tsalickis became the owner of Paul's Shrimp House, which won raves for its boiled shrimp, Greek salads and seafood dishes.

His kids say he was more interested in entertaining friends and family and cooking up big tubs of karvouma, a lard-laden seafarer's meat stirred with an oar, than discussing supernatural events.

Even so, as he looked toward his final hours, Tsalickis took comfort in the icon he thought had saved him once before.

On Monday, the last day he was conscious, family members took St. Michael from his shrine and gave it to Tsalickis.

Said Parr: "He was holding it and smiling."

[Last modified August 17, 2007, 02:11:08]