THIS ICON IS ONE of the most venerated of Russian Orthodox holy objects Significant in itself, it has been made doubly significant by its location, standing as it does on the western border of Russia, between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Around this icon Orthodox have fought for their faith and prayed for the strengthening of their zeal and perseverance. From the multitude of the miracles which have poured from it, it has become known throughout the whole Slavic world; and, together with Orthodox, many non-Orthodox Christians also venerate it.
The miracles worked by this icon are distinguished not only by their great number, but by their unusual nature as well. In the monastic books records have been preserved with the signatures of the very people who have been healed by the icon. There are cases of deliverance from incurable maladies, of rescue from captivity, of the enlightenment of sinners, and similar miracles.
The icon came to Pochaev Monastery over three centuries ago; but long before that Pochaev Mountain was marked by the grace of the Mother of God. Over five centuries ago, when the mountain was completely uninhabited, two monks came and settled in a small cave, and it is they who were witnesses of the miraculous appearance of the Mother of God. It was in 1340 that one of them, after saying his usual prayers, decided to climb to the top of the mountain. And suddenly he caught sight of the Mother of God standing on a rock, enveloped in flame. Without delay he called the other monk, who was also found worthy to behold the miraculous vision. It was seen also by a shepherd, John Bosoy. He ran up the hill, where he found both monks, and all three together gave glory to God. On the rock where the Mother of God had stood there was left the permanent impress of Her right foot, filled with water; from this miraculous spring many in the centuries since then have received healing.
When in 1559 the Greek Metropolitan Neophit was travelling through Volhynia from Constantinople, he visited Anna Goiskaya, who lived on an estate six miles from Pochaev, and at her request spent some time there as a guest. On his departure he left with her as a blessing an icon of the Mother of God which he had taken from Constantinople. Signs began to appear from the icon; it was seen surrounded by light. Goiskaya placed before it an ever-burning lamp; and when, in 1597, it healed her brother Philip of his lameness, she gave the icon to the monks who had settled on Pochaev Mountain. She built a church on the mountain in honor of the Dormition of the Mother of God, and in connection with it established a coenobitic monastery, together with the means for its maintenance. It is from this time that the icon began to be called the “Pochaev” Mother of God.
After the death of Goiskaya, Pochaev Mountain passed to her nephew, Andrew Firley, a Lutheran and hater of Orthodoxy. He sacked the monastery and seized the icon, which he kept at his home for twenty years. On one occasion he decided to show his contempt for Orthodox holy objects. He invited guests and, having dressed his wife in the vestments of an Orthodox priest, placed a chalice in her hand, and she began loudly to blaspheme the Mother of God and Her icon. But she was immediately punished: an evil spirit took violent possession of her and tormented her until after her husband had finally returned the Pochaev icon to the monastery. This was in 1644.
In five years the icon was transferred to the new Church of the Holy Trinity. Healings once more began to come from the icon; in particular on July 17, 1674, there were so many healings that it was as if the days of our Lord’s earthly life had returned.
To the defenders of Her monastery the Mother of God displayed a marvellous assistance. In 1675 the Turks laid siege to Pochaev. The monastery was made up almost entirely of wooden buildings, and defense was difficult; the only hope lay in the Mother of God. With tears the monks prayed before Her image. The abbot ordered an akathist to be sung to the Mother of God, and no sooner had they begun to sing the first kontakion, Queen of the Heavenly Host, than there appeared in the sky above the church a wonderful apparition, immediately noticed by the Turks. In an aureole of brilliant light, blazing brighter than the sun, the Mother of God, in the form of a Woman of regal bearing, held up over Pochaev Her omophorion, as if covering the monastery with Her power. Around the Mother of God there was a multitude of angels in military dress with lightning-bearing swords in their hands; and beside Her was St. Job, earnestly praying to Her to save his monastery. The Turks let fly their arrows against this apparition, but the arrows began to turn back and strike those who had shot them; at this the Turks turned and fled in disarray, and the defenders of Pochaev sallied out and conclusively defeated them, taking many prisoners, some of whom later became Christians. Long afterwards the Turks could not forget this defeat. Fifty years later the Pochaev monk Gabriel was travelling through Constantinople and got into a conversation with a Turk. Hearing that the monk was from Pochaev, he asked, ‘'And is your goddess still alive?'’ ‘'She is alive and will ever live,’’ replied the monk, understanding to Whom he was referring. “Your goddess is terrible!'’ cried the Turk in great agitation. “My father and many in our family were lost there. I was small then, but I will never forget this disaster.”
In 1720 Pochaev, together with the icon, fell into Uniate hands. In place of the Church of the Trinity, which they took down, they built the spacious Cathedral of the Dormition. The miracles of the icon did not cease: in the 110 years it was in Uniate hands 539 miracles were recorded, and by no means all the miracles were entered in the annals.
In 1831, when the Union was dissolved, Pochaev returned to Orthodox hands and was designated a lavra (great monastery). The Catholics spread rumors that the wonderworking icon had left Pochaev and was located in a nearby Dominican monastery within the borders of Austria. But new and yet more healings of chronic diseases, restoration of sight to the blind, and strengthening of paralytics refuted these deceitful rumors.
Thus, in 1831 a blind girl, Anna Akimchukova, walked to Pochaev with her 70-year-old grandmother, from her village 130 miles away. After praying before the icon and washing her eyes with water from the Footprint of the Mother of God, she was suddenly able to see. Her grandmother, who was a Uniate, was so struck by the miracle that she became Orthodox right there.
In 1859 Emperor Alexander II, in memory of his visit to Pochaev, donated to the Church of the Dormition a high iconastasis. On the third tier, in a star-shaped case, the wonderworking icon was placed, with provision made for lowering it by means of a cord for those who wished to venerate it. The dimensions of the icon are not great: 11 by 9 inches. The Mother of God is portrayed in half-stature. In her right hand is the Eternal Child, and in the left a kerchief. There are also on the icon seven small representations of various saints, which lead one to suppose that the icon belonged earlier to a family that had caused to be represented on the icon the saints whose names they bore.
At the entrance to the Cathedral of the Dormition, behind an iron grating, under a special canopy, there is the “Footprint of the Mother of God.’’ In the same Cathedral there is preserved also another icon bearing the name of “Pochaev.’’ It was placed there by some Kievans in memory of the deliverance of Kiev from cholera in 1848, and is also considered to be wonderworking. At the bottom of this icon there is a representation of the Footprint of the Mother of God. Such icons are known as those “with the Footprint,’’ to distinguish them from those which have the figures of saints. Wonderworking copies of the Pochaev icon are located near Tobolsk and in Moscow. The Feast of the icon is celebrated at Pochaev on July 23, September 8, and on Friday of Bright Week.
From The Orthodox Word, May-June, 1965.
Archbishop Gregory P.O. Box 3177 Buena Vista, CO 81211-3177 USA Email: ArchbishopGregory@starband.net
Copyright 2005.
