The feast of an icon
The Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God
By tradition the Vladimir icon was painted by the Evangelist Luke on a board from the table at which the Savior, His Mother and Joseph ate; it came from Constantinople to Kiev and was brought to Vladimir by St Andrew Bogoliubsky. In 1395, when Tamerlane marched on Moscow, the icon was carried to the city while the people knelt along the road, and that same hour Tamerlane saw the Mother of God in a dream and turned back. This feast keeps that deliverance.
The dates
- Kept on
- 26 August (8 September on the Old Calendar)
- Next, New Calendar
- Next, Old Calendar
The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.
How the day is kept
Twice more, in 1480 and 1521, Moscow was spared before this icon, and three feasts keep the memory.
Orthodox Christians pray before it for the protection of their homeland, for peace and for deliverance from enemies.
The tender image of the Child pressing His cheek to His Mother's is the archetype of the Eleousa icons; the Greek Church honors the type but does not keep the three Moscow feasts.
The saint
Icons for the feast
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