| Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God (1890) |
Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God
, miraculous image, revered icon in the Zhitomir and Kursk dioceses Celebration on June 29 (local) and on the tenth Friday after Easter (local)
The icon was “ 11 vershoks in width and 1 1/4 arshins in height
» [1], which corresponds to approximately 50 cm in width and 90 cm in height.
Appeared at the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century. Information about the place where the miraculous image appeared has not been preserved. The original icon was located in the church of the village of Pryazheva, 6 km south of the city of Zhitomir, which is why the icon began to be called “Pryazhevskaya.” The antiquity of the image is indicated by entries in Pryazhev’s church books. Before the Uniates took possession of the temple, there was a pious custom of carrying the miraculous image to the Zhitomir Cathedral. Perhaps already in those years the first copies of the Pryazhevskaya icon appeared in Zhitomir and its environs.
In the 18th century, the temple fell into the hands of the Uniates and was returned to the Orthodox on October 18, 1794. Probably, the period of the Uniate economy in the church explains the lack of documents about the acquisition and early veneration of the image. On the eve of the return of the temple to the Orthodox, a certain Roman Catholic priest arrived in Pryazhev and wanted to take away the revered icon. But when he rode a few miles from the village, the horses stopped, and they could not be forced to go further. The priest looked at the face of the Most Pure One and saw drops of moisture on it, like tears. Realizing that the Mother of God did not bless the removal of the image from Pryazhev, the priest returned the shrine.
In subsequent years, the Pryazhevskaya Church, where the icon was located, was poor, which is why the icon of the Mother of God had a copper robe. Having learned about this, Empress Maria Alexandrovna in 1864 sent a silver robe with precious stones for the image. On May 24, 1874, the miraculous icon was moved from the high place where it had been before and placed in the iconostasis, above the royal doors, and in the high place they placed the icon of Jesus Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.
To restore the ancient custom of bringing the icon to the Zhitomir Cathedral, a decree of the Holy Synod of July 27, 1893 was followed, which allowed an annual religious procession with the miraculous icon to Zhitomir, where the image stayed in the cathedral from June to August, and then returned to Pryazhev.
During the years of theomachism, the Pryazhevskaya Church and the miraculous icon were destroyed. Copies of the image have been preserved in the Transfiguration Cathedral of Zhitomir and in the Trigorsk Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. The copy of the icon found in the Gornalsky St. Nicholas Belogorsk Monastery gained special veneration.
| Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God |
Gornal list
The list is notable for being written on canvas rather than wood. It is noticeable that the icon was painted at different times by different hands: the face and hands were created more skillfully than the clothes painted at the end of the 18th century by Ivan the White.
There is an assumption that the icon dates back to the 17th century. Its large size suggests that the monks, moving from the Ostrogozh Divnogorsk Monastery to the Gornal Monastery, which was devastated in 1672, removed the icon from the iconostasis of the monastery they left behind. When the monastery was closed in the 1780s, the Transfiguration Church of the monastery was converted into a parish church in the nearby settlement of Gornali. Soon it became known about miraculous phenomena in the former monastery church: despite the fact that after the service all the candles and lamps were carefully extinguished, in the morning some of them were found burning. At first this was written off as an oversight, but the phenomena were repeated many times until the miraculous icon was found. The discovery and renovation of the icon took place in 1792, as evidenced by the inscription on the back: “ This icon of the Most Holy Theotokos of Pryazhevsk was renewed in 1792
.»
In 1862, Abbot Nestor described the discovery of the icon as follows:
«
It was revealed to a certain God-fearing painter Ivan Bely from above that he should take out the ancient icon of the Mother of God, painted on canvas and hidden behind the iconostasis of the surviving monastery church, and carefully update it, leaving only the intact, perfectly preserved faces of the Ever-Virgin and the Eternal Child. No one knew about the origin and existence of this image, but it was actually found where indicated and updated as commanded in revelation
.»
Ivan Bely was sick, but when he, together with the priest and sexton, found an icon behind the iconostasis and served a prayer service, he received healing. The news of the healing spread far and wide. Many came to pray before the holy image and received what they asked for. When local villages were engulfed by cholera epidemics, the monks performed religious processions around the villages and the epidemics receded.
In the middle of the 19th century, as a result of the healing of the sick pious Sudzhan merchant Kosma Kupreev, the Belogorsky monastery was revived. In a dream, Kosma was commanded to go to a closed monastery and serve a prayer service in front of the icon. After healing, Kosma, together with his sons Fyodor and Vladimir, began to work on opening the monastery. By the highest order on August 24, 1863, it was allowed to restore the monastery as a hermitage, and Kosma and his sons became one of the first inhabitants of the restored monastery.
After the restoration of the monastery, the fame and veneration of the miraculous icon increased. In memory of the rescue of Tsar Alexander II during an assassination attempt in Paris, from 1867 on Ascension to the second feast of the Holy Trinity, the icon began to be transferred to the city of Miropol in a religious procession. Later, in memory of the salvation of the August family during a train crash, a second religious procession took place in Sudzha, where the monastery’s Alexander Nevsky Chapel served as the location of the icon. From the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos until the Nativity of the Most Pure One, the icon visited all the settlements and villages of the district. In the Belogorsk hermitage, the miraculous image was in the iconostasis of the right side aisle of the Transfiguration Cathedral built in his honor, and for the winter it was transferred to the warm Church of the Intercession.
The Belogorsky Nikolaevsky Monastery was closed by the atheistic authorities in 1922, but the monks continued to live there, hiding in chalk caves and preserving the miraculous icon. In 1937, after the monastery was finally closed, the monks, taking the image, came to Sudzha, where they placed it in the Assumption Cathedral of the city, located in the central square. At night, the Queen of Heaven herself appeared to the brothers in a dream and said that she had been placed in a place of desolation and debauchery, and ordered them to take the icon to where Elder Simeon would meet her. The next morning, the monks began asking the residents if there was an old man with such a rare name in the city. Wandering around the city in search, they stopped near the Trinity Church. From the side of the altar, on the apse, they saw the icon of the Presentation of the Lord, in which Elder Simeon the God-Receiver takes the Infant Christ from the hands of the Virgin Mary. Then the monks realized that the Mother of God ordered them to place the icon in this very temple, where there was a throne in honor of the Feast of the Presentation. And the Sudzhansky Assumption Cathedral was soon destroyed and a city club was placed in it.
In 1943, a fire occurred in the Sudzhan Trinity Church, but the rector of the temple, Father John Pereverzev, saved the shrine. The miraculous icon remained in Sudzha until 1946, then data about it was lost.
The second acquisition of the image occurred in 1996, when, during an inventory in the Sudzhansky Holy Trinity Church, a discrepancy between the face and the robe covering the image was noticed on the icon listed in the inventory as Smolensk. At this time, an elderly woman, a parishioner of the temple, a resident of the city, approached the rector and said that there was a “lost” miraculous icon in the temple. When referring to archival data, it was confirmed that the image located under the robe was a revered copy of the Pryazhevsk Icon of the Mother of God. The silver robe and precious jewelry that Christians donated as a token of gratitude for the healings received have not survived.
On October 17, 1996, the tradition of religious processions with the Pryazhevsky miraculous icon to the former Gornal monastery, on the territory of which there was a special boarding school, was resumed. In 2001, the Gornal Monastery was returned to the Orthodox Church. Since 2002, the religious procession in Miropol has also been revived. According to the newly established custom, after the service in the St. Nicholas Church of the Bishop's Metochion in Miropol, priests, parishioners and numerous pilgrims from the Ukrainian side headed to the border with Russia to meet the miraculous icon. The 16-kilometer procession was dedicated to the unity of the fraternal Slavic peoples and became the only religious procession across the Russian-Ukrainian border.
The revered list remained in the Holy Trinity Church in the city of Sudzha. The huge number of decorations on the icon testified to the healings that people received through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos in front of this image. Before Christmas 2005, the icon was enlightened. The image began to be revered as the second most important shrine of the Kursk diocese after the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God “The Sign”.
Icon of the Pryazhevskaya Mother of God who helps
As is known in the Orthodox faith, there are many different miraculous icons that help to heal from many diseases and ailments . They also pray before the faces of the saints with requests. The icon of the Pryazhevskaya Mother of God is no exception.
The best article for you, go to: Icon of Theodore Trikhina
It should be noted that contemporaries have found a fairly large number of records that describe the miraculous powers of the icon. As it became known from the recordings, people who prayed in front of the icon received healing:
- For leg disease
- From lung diseases,
- For diseases of the spine.
There were also frequent cases when a woman was healed of infertility and accepted the joy of motherhood.
The miraculous icon of the Mother of God in the temple is decorated with jewelry. In the light of lit candles, it takes on an incredibly beautiful glow. They decorate it for a reason. The believers themselves bring jewelry as a sign of gratitude to the icon for its help.
It must also be said that there is a prayer to the Pryazhevskaya icon. But when you come to the temple to bow before her, you don’t have to read a special prayer. It is enough to sincerely, with all your heart, simply ask the Saint for healing or help in business.
The text of the prayer to the Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God is as follows:
Oh, Most Holy Lady Theotokos, Queen of Heaven and earth, the highest angel and archangel and the most honest, pure Virgin Mary of all creation, good Helper to the world, and affirmation for all people, and deliverance for all needs!
Look now, O All-Merciful Lady, upon Thy servants, praying to Thee with a tender soul and a contrite heart, falling with tears to Thee and worshiping Thy most pure and wholesome image, and asking for Thy help and intercession. Oh, All-Merciful and Most Merciful Pure Virgin Mary!
Look, O Lady, at Thy people: for we are sinners and imams of no other help than to You and from You, Christ our God born. You are our intercessor and representative. You are protection for the offended, joy for the sorrowing, refuge for the orphans, keeper for widows, glory for virgins, joy for those who cry, visitation for the sick, healing for the weak, salvation for sinners.
For this reason, O Mother of God, we resort to You, and looking at Your Most Pure Image with the Eternal Child held in Your hand, our Lord Jesus Christ, we bring tender singing to You and cry out: have mercy on us, Mother of God, and fulfill our request, for all that is Thy intercession is possible: for unto Thee is glory due now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. Rejoice, God-delighted and Immaculate Ever-Virgin; Rejoice, imperishable and incorruptible Lamb and Shepherd Mother.
May the Lord protect you!
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Watch also the video about the miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Pryazhevskaya:
History of the icon
The miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Pryazhevskaya is one of the most revered shrines of the Kursk land. After 1788, the Transfiguration Cathedral was converted into a church. Various miracles took place in the monastery at that time. More than once there were such cases when in the evening after the service in the monastery all the candles were extinguished, and when believers entered the church in the morning they found burning candles. This phenomenon was repeated until the Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God was found.
The icon was taken out and outlined by the painter I. Bely. A sign about the restoration of the icon was sent to him from above. The icon was found in 1862. At that time, Ivan was very sick. But after he found it and restored it, a miracle happened. His illness has subsided. Since then, various miracles began to happen.
Probably, it was God’s will and the Mother of God’s will that the ancient monastery begin to host prayer services again. Prayer services resumed after the healing of the merchant Kupreev. In a dream, a messenger of the Lord appeared to him and ordered him to go to the Belgorod closed monastery and hold a service there. When the merchant woke up in the morning, he didn’t think long, but immediately decided to do as he was told in the dream.
After the healing of the merchant and his sons took place, people began to work to have the church opened. Ivan Kosma and his sons were among the first monks who settled in the monastery after the opening. Since the monastery was opened, the popularity of the icon has increased. People from all over the world began to come to bow and pray before her.
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After the Bolsheviks closed the monastery, the icon of the Mother of God survived the attacks of bandits. She was taken to the city of Sudzha. But in the 90s, when an inventory was carried out in the Holy Trinity Church of this city, on the icon with the inscription “Smolensk” it was noticed that the faces and the vestment did not match, which covered the image. After contacting the archive, it was determined that this was the Pryazhevskaya icon. Since 1996, the tradition of crusades with the icon has also been renewed.
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From the history of the Pryazhevskaya icon
It is not known exactly who wrote it and when, although at first glance it is clear that this is an ancient Byzantine letter. The icon appeared at the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century in the village of Pryazhev not far from Zhitomir, and it got its name from the name of the village. Her appearance was recorded in rural church books.
As was customary, they began to make copies of the Pryazhevskaya icon, and one of them was made in a truly miraculous way. It happened like this. When the Tatars destroyed the Divnogorsk monastery in the Voronezh province, its hieromonks moved to Kursk and founded the Belogorsk Nikolaev Hermitage in 1672. However, in 1788, due to certain circumstances, the hermitage was closed, and the Transfiguration Cathedral that belonged to it became the parish church of the nearby settlement of Gornali.
Tradition says that it was then that miracles began to happen in the church, which was once a monastery: at the end of the service, all the candles were certainly extinguished to avoid a fire, but the next morning it was discovered that some of them were burning again. This happened before the Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God was rediscovered.
According to Abbot Nestor, who wrote down this amazing story in 1862, the artist Ivan Bely, who led a pious life, received a revelation from above that behind the iconostasis of the church, which once belonged to the monastery and still survived until that time, there was an ancient icon of the Virgin Mary, painted on canvas. Ivan was ordered to take out the icon and carry out its renovation, without affecting the faces of the Mother of God and the Child, for they were preserved intact.
Until that moment, no one knew either about the very existence of such an icon, or about where it was hidden, but Ivan Bely, accompanied by a priest and a sexton, discovered the icon exactly where it was indicated in the revelation. The painter suffered from illness, but after a prayer service was served in honor of the appearance of the icon, he completely recovered.
And then the Pryazhevskaya icon of the Mother of God did not cease to show miracles. There lived in the city of Sudzha, Kursk province, a merchant Kosma Kupreev, a pious and God-fearing man, who fell ill with a serious illness. He also received a revelation in a dream - to go to the Belogorsk Monastery, which by that time was already closed, and serve a prayer service in front of the miraculous icon.
The merchant did so and completely got rid of his illnesses, and after that, supported by his two sons, he began to strive for the restoration of the monastery. Finally, on August 24, 1863, the highest order came to restore the monastery, which was now to be called the Belogorsk Nikolaev Hermitage. Among its first monks were Kosma Kupreev and his sons.
When the monastery was restored, the miraculous Pryazhevskaya icon of the Mother of God was
What do they pray for in front of the icon?
The Pryazhevsk Icon of the Mother of God is venerated twice a year: on the ninth Friday after Easter and on July 12.
These days, people pray with the words of the Mother of God akathist or any other Orthodox prayer addressed to the Most Holy Theotokos.
The fame of the miracles and healings of the Pryazhevskaya icon spread throughout the Russian land. Many people with problems with their legs, spine, respiratory system and infertility received relief and healing in response to their fervent requests before the Image.
Every year, pilgrims come to the location of the icon on the Kursk land to receive help and support from the Heavenly Patroness in difficult everyday circumstances and temptations.
Iconography and appearance
According to its iconography, the Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God belongs to the “Hodegetria” type. It depicts the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus sitting on her left hand. The image has several colorful layers of different times. The more skillfully executed faces date back to the 17th century, and the rest of the image was updated at the end of the next century. The relic is covered with a silver chasuble, which is decorated with numerous jewelry. Parishioners and pilgrims offer them in gratitude for deliverance from illnesses.
