July: Day 28: Teaching 1: Celebration of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God

July: Day 28: Teaching 1:
Celebration of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God

 
(The Great Perfections of the Blessed Mother of God)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Smolensk Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, called "Hodegetria", was painted by Saint Luke the Evangelist. It is called Hodegetria, that is, the Guide, because the Most Holy Theotokos appeared in Constantinople to two blind men and commanded them to go to Her temple, and when they were brought there, she granted them healing, and also because the icon accompanied the emperors on their campaigns against their enemies. From Jerusalem it was transferred to Constantinople. In 1046, the Greek Emperor Constantine Monomachos, giving his daughter Anna in marriage to Prince Vsevolod of Chernigov, blessed her with a copy of the Constantinople Hodegetria. In the 12th century, the son of Vsevolod and Anna, Vladimir Monomakh, transferred this icon to Smolensk. From that time on, the icon was called the Smolensk Icon. 

June: Day 26: Celebration of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God

June: Day 26:
Celebration of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God
 
(Lessons From the History of the Feast: 
a. The Mercy of the Mother of God to our Fatherland, and 
b. With Our Sins We Bring Upon Ourselves the Wrath of God)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, the celebration of which is held today, was first in Constantinople, but 70 years before the fall of this city it appeared in Russia, within the boundaries of Novgorod, over the waters of Lake Ladoga. This was in 1383, during the reign of Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy. The icon traveled through the air, carried by angels, and stopped at the Tikhvinka River. During its procession, many saw it, and where it stopped, churches were later built. At the site of its last stop, a wooden Church of the Dormition was built. Despite repeated fires in this church, the icon remained unharmed. Through the zeal of Grand Prince Vasily Ioannovich, a stone church was built in place of the wooden one, and in 1556, 173 years after the appearance of the icon, the Tikhvin Monastery for men was built here. 

In 1613, the monastery suffered from the Swedish commander De la Gardie. Embittered by the failures in the war, De la Gardie surrounded the monastery and began to attack it incessantly. The monks, along with many local residents, locked themselves in the monastery and placed all their hope in God and His Most Pure Mother. At that time, the Mother of God appeared to a pious woman, Maria, who had come to the monastery two years before and was healed of blindness, and said: “Tell everyone to take My icon and walk around the walls and see the mercy of God.” When a religious procession with the icon of the Mother of God was held around the monastery, the enemies were confused and fled. 

June: Day 18: Teaching 1: The Bogolyubov Icon of the Mother of God

June: Day 18: Teaching 1:
The Bogolyubov Icon of the Mother of God

(Can We Always Hope To Receive What We Ask From the Mother of God?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Eternal monuments of the miraculous help of the Queen of Heaven to suffering Christians are Her numerous miraculous icons, which adorn the Russian land. Among them, the Bogolyubov Icon of the Mother of God, the feast in honor of which is now celebrated, has been reverently venerated in Holy Rus' since ancient times. This miraculous icon was painted in the twelfth century, by order of the Holy Grand Prince of Vladimir, Andrew Yuryevich Bogolyubsky. In 1157, when the pious prince was leaving Vyshgorod to return to his homeland, the land of Suzdal, he took with him the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God that had been in the Convent of Maidens, upon the advice of his boyars. During his journey from Vyshgorod to Rostov, he did not cease to perform prayers before the icon of the Mother of God. When they were approaching the city of Vladimir, at one place near the Klyazma River the horses harnessed to the sleigh in which the holy icon was being carried stopped. They changed horses several times, but none of them could move the sleigh. The Grand Prince then ordered the tents to be pitched and then, together with those accompanying him, he prayed for a long time before the icon of the Mother of God. The Mother of God then appeared to him with a charter in her hand and commanded him to remain forever in Vladimir, and on that place (ten miles from the city) to build a monastery and a church in the name of the Nativity of the Mother of God. The pious and God-fearing prince did not hesitate to fulfill the command of the Queen of Heaven and erected a monastery on the site of Her appearance, calling it Bogolyubov. At the same time, to glorify this miraculous event, he ordered icon painters to depict the radiant face of the Mother of God in the form in which She appeared to him. The newly painted icon was called Bogolyubsky ("the God-lover") and was to be celebrated annually on June 18. Local residents soon began to venerate it as miraculous.