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Our Lady of Vladimir
The earliest
references to the icon are found in the oldest chronicles (entries for
1155). The first Story was compiled in Vladimir at Prince Andrei Bogolubsky's
court in the 1160s. Prince Andrei took the icon with him when he acquired
the throne of Vladimir and Suzdal. He ordered for the holy image a gold
case, and placed it in the new Dormition Cathedral of Vladimir. |
Our Lady of Kazan
This icon is the oldest of all known copies of its miraculous original,
unearthed in Kazan on July 8, 1579, after the Virgin thrice appeared in
prophetic dreams to a little girl Matrona and told her the spot where
secret Christians had buried Her image before the Russian victory over
Muslim Kazan. Hermogene, Metropolitan of Kazan, active in these events,
later described them in the special Story he composed on request of Tsar
Fedor loannovich in 1595. |
 Our
Lady of Tikhvin
This icon is a copy of one of the
most famous Russian miraculous images. According to the chronicles, the
icon miraculously appeared in summer 1383 in the environs of Novgorod.
The Story of the Icon of Tikhvin (16th century) registers its four apparitions
following each other, the latest on the left bank of the river Tikhvinka,
where a Dormition Church was first built. Later, in 1560, the Tikhvin
Monastery arose on the site. |
Our Lady of the Don
 The
icon is first mentioned in chronicles of the second half of the 16th century.
Its worship is connected with the campaigns of Ivan the Terrible against
the Tartar states which had emerged on the ruins of the Golden Horde,
and reminiscences of the victory over Tartars in the Battle of Kulikovo,
on the river Don, in 1380. It was in the reign of Ivan the Terrible that
the Moscow Prince Dimitrii Ivanovich, who commanded the battle, received
his honourable surname of Donskoi, shared by the Dormition Church in Kolomna,
founded by him before the battle. |
 Our
Lady of St. Theodore
The icon copies the miracle-working
Our Lady of St. Theodore from the Dormition Cathedral of Kostroma, currently
in the Resurrection Church at Debri, also in Kostroma. According to its
Legend, compiled in the 17th century at the earliest, holy martyr Theodore
Stratilates carried the image from the Tartar-ransacked Gorodets on the
Volga to Kostroma in 1239 — hence its name. Prince Vassilii of Kostroma,
surnamed Kvashnya (Trough), saw the icon in a tree on a woodland
hunt. |
Hodegitria
This miraculous icon was painted
on a much older board. The original icon is known from the chronicles
to be destroyed in the conflagration of 1482: «The icon of Hodegitria
burnt in Moscow in the stone Church of the Ascension of Our Lord, a miracle-working
image of Our Lady of Greek painting. It was made in the same dimensions
as the miraculous icon in Constantinople which did leave its abode for
the seaside on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. |
 Our
Lady of Tolga
This mid-18th century copy repeated
the waist-length Our Lady of Tolga, traditionally known as revealed at
the confluence of the Tolga and the Volga near Yaroslavl in 1314. The
Tolga Convent was later founded on the site. According to the Legend,
which appeared to the 17th century, the icon was revealed by Archbishop
Tryphon of Rostov at the Tolga - Volga confluence. The archbishop suddenly
woke in the dead of night to see wonderful radiance across the river. |
Our Lady of Igor
Tradition links the protograph
of this icon with Prince Igor Olegovich of Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky.
His ascent to the Kievan throne in 1146 triggered off popular unrest,
and the citizens called Izyaslav Mstislavich to reign. The Igor's troops
were routed. He took monastic vows and entered the St. Theodore monastery
at Kiev. The feudal strife went on, and led Igor to martyrdom. He was
seized in his monastic cell, tormented and killed in 1147, on September
19. |
 Our
Lady of Kykkos
The Simon Ushakov's icon was a
copy from the ancient miracle-working Our Lady Eleousa of Kykkos, the
best-worshipped icon of Cyprus. According to the Byzantine legend, composed
in 1422, the icon appeared in the reign of Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118).
Tradition traces it to St. Luke and Egyptian Early Christian communities.
The icon was renown with the miraculous healing of the Emperor and his
daughter. |
 Our
Lady of Yakhren
The Kozmin Monastery of Dormition,
founded by monk Cosmas on the Yakhren riverside, forty kilometres off
Vladimir in 1482, had several icons of special worship, known as the Images
of Yakhroma, or Yakhren. At the beginning of this century one of them
was reproduced by Nikodim Kondakov as the miracle-working icon of Yakhren,
revealed in 1482. Now gone, it was presumably the best-worshipped image
of this church. |
 Our
Lady of Georgia
According to its Legend, the icon
known in Russia as Georgian was taken out of that country by Persians.
It was purchased in Persia by the agents of the merchant Grigorii Lytkin
from Yaroslavl in 1622. Instructed by a revelation, the merchant sent
the icon to a monastery on the Pinega riverside, in the Russian north,
known as Chernogorsky and later, Krasnogorsky. |
 Our
Lady the Fadeless Blossom
The Tretyakov Gallery icon repeats,
with slight changes, the miraculous image of the St. Alexii Convent in
Moscow — Russia's oldest and best-worshipped samples of this iconography,
whose present location is unknown. The first written reference to it dates
to 1757, though the convent had possessed this icon long before. Its commemoration,
on April 3, appeared on the Orthodox Church calendar in the 19th century. |
 Our
Lady "The Hope of Sinners"
The miraculous original of this
copy owes its name to the 7th century tale «On the Penitence of Theophilus,
Church Cellarer in the City of Adan». Theophilus prayed before the icon
of the Virgin named by him «The hope of the sinners». Russia learned the
tale after St. Demetrii of Rostov included it in the Great Menology compiled
by him and first published in 1689 (entry for June 23). |
 Our
Lady "Mother All-Glorified"
The icon owes its name to a verse
from the Kontakion 13 of the Great Akathistos inscribed in Church Slavonic
on the edging of the Virgin's maphorion: «O Mother All-Glorified, the
Word Most Holy Who hast brought forth all saints, accept this offering
and save all who invoke Thee, Hallelujah, from all affliction and the
torment to come». This iconography came to the Russian icon-painting in
the 17th century. |
 Our
Lady "The Joy of All Afflicted"
The icon is a copy of the miracle-working
image of Our Lady the Joy of All Afflicted of the Transfiguration Church
at Ordynka, Moscow. The worship started in 1688, after it cured the sister
of Patriarch Joachim. The icon, probably, appeared in the church after
it was rebuilt of stone in 1685. The history of this icon is unclear.
According to one version, it was in the Church of Our Lady the Joy of
All Afflicted at Ordynka. |
