Icon of the Mother of God of Georgia

Commemorated on August 22

The 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 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 printing office.

SOURCE:

SAINT OR FEAST POSTED THIS DATE 2012(with 2011's link here also and further, 2010, 2009, 2008 and even 2007!)