Among the household relics of the Byzantine emperor Andronicus III Palaiologos, who occupied the throne from 1328 to 1341, there was a miraculous icon of the Theotokos, according to legend, one of the three once painted by the Evangelist Luke. The name of the crowned owner gave her name, and in subsequent centuries she became known as the icon of the Andronikovskaya Mother of God.
The icon saved from the fire
Shortly before his death, the emperor (his image is given below) presented it as a gift to a Greek monastery located on the Peloponnese peninsula. There, under the arches of the ancient monastery, the Andronikovskaya Icon of the Mother of God was kept until the invasion of the Turks, who captured the peninsula in 1821 and devastated the monastery.
Ottoman conquerors plundered all the valuables stored in the monastery, and what they could not bear, they put on fire. Miraculously, only the icon, donated by the Byzantine emperor, has survived. She was saved from the hands of the Gentiles by the abbot of the monastery, Bishop Agapius. At the risk of his life, he took the shrine to the city of Patras, free from invaders.(the modern name of Patras), and there he handed it over to his relative, the Russian consul A. N. Vlassopulo.
The icon painted on a wooden board had a very small size ─ 35 cm x 25 cm. The Most Holy Theotokos was depicted on it alone without Her Eternal Child. A characteristic feature of the image was a bleeding wound on the neck of the Virgin, left after a spear inflicted in the 8th century, when Byzantium was engulfed in the fire of iconoclasm.
Road to Russia
In 1839, the icon of the Andronikovskaya Mother of God was sent from Greece to St. Petersburg by the son and heir of the consul who had died by that time. Upon arrival in the capital of the Russian Empire, the shrine until 1868 was in the house church of the Winter Palace, and then for some time - in the Trinity Cathedral, located on the Petrograd side. It is believed that in the same years the akathist to the Andronikovskaya Icon of the Mother of God was compiled.
In April 1877, the holy icon was sent to Vyshny Volochok, where it was met with extraordinary honors by the local clergy and townspeople. After the solemn service in the Kazan Cathedral, the shrine was transferred in a procession to a convent located not far from the city, founded in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.
Miracles at the Feodorovsky Monastery
After the icon of the Andronikovskaya Mother of God took a place of honor in the main temple of the monastery, its abbess Dosithea addressed the Holy Synod with a petition to establish an official dayfestivities dedicated to the acquired shrine. Soon her request was granted, and since then, celebrations dedicated to this icon have been held annually on May 1.
There is evidence that the prayer to the Andronikovskaya Icon of the Mother of God often carried the fulfillment of the most cherished and hard-to-fulfill desires. The monastic book is full of records about the healing of the hopelessly ill, about finding family happiness and prosperous childbearing. It is not surprising that after this the image began to be revered as miraculous.
Years of the Bolsheviks
This continued until the tragic events of 1917, which radically changed the whole way of life in Russia. With the coming to power of the godless forces, the convent was closed. Most of the buildings located on its territory were destroyed, and those that, according to the authorities, were of economic value, were rebuilt and used for the needs of the military unit located there.
Two miraculous icons of the Theotokos, kept in the monastery before its destruction ─ Andronikov and Kazan, were transferred to the only city church that remained open at that time. It was the same Kazan Cathedral, which in 1877 became the site of celebrations on the occasion of the arrival from St. Petersburg of an image painted by the Evangelist Luke.
The fate of this temple is very sad. Having successfully survived all the decades of communist domination with their regular anti-religious campaigns, it was destroyed in 1993,when, on the wave of perestroika, the Churches returned and thousands of ruined and desecrated shrines were restored. The church utensils, vestments and icons that were in it were transferred to another city church ─ Epiphany. The icon of the Andronikovskaya Mother of God was also placed there in the early 80s.
Stolen Shrine
Simultaneously with the destruction of the Kazan Cathedral near Vyshny-Volochka, the revival of the women's monastery began, in which the miraculous Andronikov Icon had been located before its abolition. However, she was not destined to return to her former place. Back in 1984, the icon, under very mysterious circumstances, was stolen from the Church of the Epiphany, and to this day has not been found. For more than two decades, nothing is known about her fate.
Andronikovskaya Icon of the Mother of God in Pereslavl-Zaleskom
The news about the appearance of a stolen icon in Pereslavl spread around the country in 2005. However, as it turned out, it was not true. The reason for its appearance was the events that in themselves deserve attention. It all started back in 1998, when one of the parishioners brought to the temple of the Pereslavl-Zalessky Feodorovsky Convent, a full-size lithographic copy of the stolen Andronikov icon (photo below). After some time, another woman presented the monastery with an icon case, which exactly corresponded in size to the previously brought lithograph.
The icon obtained in this way was placed in the temple, but since it did not representof any artistic or historical value, its appearance has gone unnoticed. This continued until 2005, until the lithograph, according to eyewitnesses, began to emit a wonderful fragrance that filled the entire temple.
An inexhaustible source of miracles
Moreover, in the subsequent time, numerous miracles of healing were recorded, revealed through prayers before her. This caused an extraordinary stir among believers and served as a reason to consider the lithographic copy as miraculous as its stolen original. The celebration of the day of the newly found icon takes place on May 14 and November 4.
A year later, the Andronikov icon, or rather, its lithographic copy, began to profusely stream myrrh, which made it universally famous, and, accordingly, increased the number of pilgrims. For the information of skeptics, we note that there are many testimonies of people living today who received healing from ailments after their visit to the Feodorovsky Monastery, where the Andronikov Icon of the Mother of God is still located.
What is prayed for in front of her is clearly seen from the text of the short prayer given along with the photo that opens the article. The main thing is the petition for the intercession of the Mother of God for us before the Throne of the Most High, who gives life, he alth and all earthly blessings.
