Icon of the Mother of God of Georgia

Commemorated on August 22.

After the liberation of Moscow from Napoleon's troops, on December 1, 1812 the wonderworking Georgian Icon of the Mother of God, along with other miraculous Icons of the Most Holy Theotokos (Vladimir, Iveron, and Assuage my Sorrows) were carried in solemn procession around the Kremlin.

In 1904, a chapel was built in Holy Trinity church in honor of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God. Now this Icon is in the church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitnikov (Razin Street).

Miraculous healings were granted by the Most Holy Theotokos through her wonderworking Icon, which were documented and verified at the end of the XIX century. For example, on June 17, 1887, Lydia Tserkovnitskaya, the wife of a priest in the village of Shuysk, Vologda Province, was critically ill. She recovered after praying before the wonderworking Georgian Icon. There is historical evidence of four more Georgian icons of the Most Holy Theotokos.

Concerning the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God, which was in Moscow's Alekseevsky Convent, church evidence reports that it is not a copy of the Icons from Krasnogorsk Monastery nor from Holy Trinity church at Nikitnikov, which were brought from Georgia. In the same deadly plague epidemic of 1654, one of the nuns at the Alekseev Convent fell ill. While she addressed long prayers to the Heavenly Healer, the sick woman suddenly remembered the miraculous recovery she had heard about from the Icon of the Mother of God, which is in the church of the Life-giving Trinity by Saint Barbara's Gate. However, there was no one to send there. After some time, an unknown monk came to the Convent. Turning to the sick nun, he said: "Do not be sad that the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God cannot be brought here. You have here exactly the same Icon as the one brought from Georgia. You will find it in the cave, and you shall behold God's mercy."

The allegorical meaning of these words became clear afterward in the monastery sacristy, which was laid out like caves, when a hitherto unknown Icon of the Mother of God was discovered. After a Moleben, the miraculous Icon was carried to the cells of the nuns who were suffering from the pestilence. All of them were healed. From that time, the epidemic in Moscow began to abate.

Through the prayerful intercession of the Georgian Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos at the Alekseev Convent, the blind Princess Martha Prozorovskaya received miraculous healing in 1662. She gained her sight by the prayers of her parents, after seven years of serious illness.

To the northwest of Kazan, 18 versts from the city of Sviyazhsk, in the middle of the XVII century was the Raithu communal Hermitage of the Theotokos, which got its name from one of its churches, which was dedicated to the Venerable Fathers slain at Sinai and Raithu (January 14). Tradition states that during the construction of the monastery, Metropolitan Laurence of Kazan, by a revelation from above, sent the best local iconographers to Pinega, to the Krasnogorsk Monastery, which was very far from Kazan, in order to make a faithful copy of the wonderworking Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, which was brought from Persia.

In 1661, a skillfully executed copy of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God was delivered from Arkhangelsk. It became highly revered by the local population. Subsequently, this Icon was placed in the cathedral church in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos.

In the XVIII century, the pious peasants of the village of Klyucharev, Korchev county, Tver Province, presented the caretaker of the Moscow Archangel Cathedral with a copy of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God, which became highly regarded by the locals, when the rye crop was threatened with destruction in the late 1860s. Vast fields of newly-sprouted crops were being eaten by an unknown worm, and nothing they did was of any use. Then the peasants prayed for help to the Most Holy Theotokos, whose Georgian Icon they revered. After a Cross Procession around the fields with the Icon, a sudden, unprecedented torrential rain fell. Streams of water washed the worms out of the ground, which were eaten by a large flock of birds. See also other revered copies of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God in the Protection church at Vorontsov Field, and in the Holy Cross Church in the city of Tula.

The Icon disappeared after the closure of the monastery (1920-1922), and later it was returned to the monastery. In his 1946 report to the Moscow Patriarchate, Bishop Leonty (Smirnov) of Arkhangelsk states that the Georgian Icon was carried in a procession, which took place at Arkhangelsk in 1946. The further fate of the Georgian Icon is unknown.