Wonder-Working Icons of the Most Holy Theotokos
Wonder-Working Icons of the Most Holy Theotokos
Disclaimer and Endorsement:

The Icons posted on this web site are for spiritual inspiration only. There are no claims for ownership of the Icons listed. This Icon Directory is intended as an Orthodox Christian medium for Spiritual education.

If an Icon listed is an infringement of copywright, I will gladly remove it.

For those authors who kindly allow the spiritual, educational, and memorial display of their beautiful work, thank you for your blessed ministry.

Many Miracle-Working Icons can be found on the Orthodox Church in America web site.

For purchasing information please visit the web site of The Icon Studio of the Convent of St. Elizabeth which produce Icons in all sizes of Jesus, the Theotokos, traditional Saints and Festal Ocasions.

They are in strict Byzantine or traditional Russian style.

For full or partial Church Iconography, large Icons can be produced on canvas by the studio and permanently applied to Church walls and ceilings.

Their Icon studio has a well-known reputation for the beauty and refined artistic quality of its work, and has the lowest prices available.

They also provide Icon prints of all Icon productions.

It is a pleasure to list and give the appropiate credit for all authorship listed.

Gilbert-Joseph
GGallant2@Tampabay.rr.com

Synaxarion or Legend:

Icons of Mary holding her Son Jesus have been popular since the Council of Ephesus which in 431 solemnly declared Mary to be the Theotokos or Mother of God.

St. Luke was the first one who painted the "Theotokos", "Mother of God", while she was still alive. He is credited with three icons of the "Panagia", in one case using the wooden table where Mary and St. John ate their meals.

Throughout history, many Icons of the Most Holy Mother of God have had miracles attributed to them.

In addition, there are those Icons which may not have been miracle working, but still been venerated with the hope of intercession from the Mother of God.

Georgian Icon
of the
Mother of God 
 


In 1622 the Persian Shah Abbas conquered Georgia. Many Christian holy things were stolen, and many were sold to the Russian merchants in Persia. Thus, the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God came to a certain merchant named Stephen, who piously kept it.

In Yaroslavl, the merchant George Lytkin, on whose business Stephen was in Persia, received a revelation in a dream about the holy object found by Stephen, and he was commanded to send it to the Chernogorsk monastery in the Arkhangelsk diocese, founded in 1603.

When Stephen returned home in 1629 and showed the icon to George Lytkin, he remembered his vision and he set off to the Dvina outskirts to the Chernogorsk monastery (so called because it was built on a hilly and somber place. From of old it had been named Black Hill, but afterwards the monastery changed the name to Pretty Hill.

The icon was glorified there by miracles. In 1654, during the time of a pestilential plague, the icon was transferred to Moscow, and those praying before it escaped the deadly plague. The numerous copies of the icon testify to its deep veneration.

In 1658, with the blessing of Patriarch Nikon, there was established an annual feastday of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God. The service was written in 1698 under the supervision of Theodore Polykarpov of the Moscow.

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