The Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God
Commemorated on July 23, September 8 and on the Friday of the Bright Week
The Pochaev Icon
of the Mother of God is among the most venerable sacred items of the
Russian Church. It is reknown throughout all the Slavic world: they venerate it
in Russia, in Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria and other places. Christians also of
other confessions come for veneration of the wonderworking image of the
Most Holy Mother of God, alongside the Orthodox. At the Pochaev Lavra, an
ancient rampart of Orthodoxy, the wonderworking icon has resided about 400
years. (The account about the transfer of the icon to the Pochaev monastery is
located under 8 September). The miracles, which issued forth from the holy
icon, are numerous and are testified to in the monastery books with the
inscriptions of the faithful, who with prayer have met with deliverance from
unclean spirits, liberation from captivity, and sinners brought to their
senses.
The celebration in
honour of the Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God on 23 July was established in
memory of the deliverance Uspenie-Dormition Lavra monastery from a Turkish
siege on 20-23 July 1675.
In the Summer of 1675
during the time of the Zbarazhsk War with the Turks, during the reign of the
Polish king Jan Sobesski (1674-1696), regiments composed of Tatars under the
command of khan Nurredin via Vishnevets fell upon the Pochaev monastery, surrounding
it on three sides. The weak monastery walls, just like some of the stone
buildings of the monastery, did not offer much defense against a siege. The
hegumen Iosif Dobromirsky urged the brethren and laypeople to turn themselves
to Heavenly intercessors: to the Most Holy Mother of God and the Monk Job of
Pochaev (Comm. 28 October). The monks and the laypeople prayed fervently,
prostrating themselves before the wonderworking image of the Mother of God and
the reliquary with the relics of the Monk Job. On the morning of 23 July with
the rising of the sun, as the Tatars were holding a final meeting about an
assault on the monastery, the hegumen ordered the singing of an akathist to the
Mother of God. With the first words, "O Queen of the Heavenly Hosts",
suddenly there appeared over the church the Most Holy Mother of God Herself, in
"an unfurled gleaming-white omophor", with heavenly angels holding
unsheathed swords. The Monk Job was beside the Mother of God, bowing to Her and
beseeching the defense of the monastery. The Tatars took the heavenly army for
an apparition, and in confusion they began to shoot arrows at the Most Holy Mother
of God and the Monk Job, but the arrows fell backwards and wounded those who
shot them. Terror seized the enemy. In a flight of panic and without looking,
they trampled upon and killed each other. The defenders of the monastery
attempted pursuit and took many prisoner. Some of the prisoners afterwards
accepted the Christian faith and remained at the monastery thereafter.
In the year 1721
Pochaev was occupied by Uniates. But even in this difficult time for the Lavra,
the monastery chronicle notes 539 miracles from the glorified Orthodox sacred
image. During the time of the Uniate rule in the 2nd half of the XVIII Century,
for example, the Uniate nobleman count Nicholas Pototski became a benefactor of
the Pochaev Lavra through the following miraculous circumstance. Having accused
his coachman for overturning the carriage with frenzied horses, the count took
out a pistol to shoot him. The coachman, turning towards Pochaev Hill, reached
his hands upwards and cried out: "Mother of God, manifest in the Pochaev Icon,
save me!" Pototski several times tried to shoot the pistol, which had
never let him down, but the weapon misfired. The coachman remained alive.
Pototski then immediately set off to the wonderworking icon and decided to
devote himself and all his property to the building-up of the monastery. From
his wealth was built the Uspenie-Dormition cathedral and buildings for the
brethren.
The return of Pochaev
into the bosom of Orthodoxy in 1832 was marked by the miraculous healing of the
blind maiden Anna Akimchukova, who had come on pilgrimage to the holy things
together with her 70 year old grandmother, from Kremenets-Podol'sk 200 versts
away. In memory of this event, the Volynia archbishop and Lavra archimandrite
Innokentii (1832-1840) established weekly on Saturdays the reading of the
cathedral akathist before the wonderworking icon. During the time of the rule
of the Lavra by archimandrite Agathangel, archbishop of Volynia (1866-1876),
there was constructed a separate chapel in the galleries of the Holy Trinity
church in memory of the victory over the Tatars, which was dedicated on 23 July
1875.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
