The Kupyatitsk Icon of the Mother of God

Commemorated on November 15

The Kupyatitsk Icon of the Mother of God appeared in the year 1180 nearby the village of Kupyatich in the area of the former Pinsk district of the Minsk governance. The icon was found in the forest on a tree by the peasant maiden Anna, a cattle herder. The image – in the form of a cross – shone with an unusual light. On the spot of the miraculous appearance of the icon, peasants built a church in the name of the Most Holy Mother of God, and placed the discovered icon within it. After some years Tatars burned the church. The icon was found a second time after many years by a chance traveller named Joachim. Peasants transferred the cruciform-icon to the village church. Joachim remained at the church as church-attendant, by God's will. At the beginning of the XVII Century next to the church was built the Kupyatitsk monastery, which at the end of the century the Catholics seized control of, and later on – Uniate monks. Orthodox monks in abandoning the monastery took with them the holy icon of the Kupyatitsk Mother of God. They transferred the wonderworking icon to the Kiev Sophia cathedral.
The Kupyatitsk Icon presents itself as a not-large copper cross. On one side of the cross is depicted the Mother of God with the Praeternal Infant, and on the other side – the Crucifixion.