Every year, on the first Sunday, coming after the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the Russian Orthodox Church honors the Mother of God icon, found a little over a century ago among the harsh cliffs of the island of Valaam. What did the Valaam icon of the Mother of God become famous for , what helps and where is it now? Let's talk about this in the article.
Ailing servant of God Natalia
The circumstances under which the icon of the Valaam Mother of God was acquired are very surprising, and this story extends over two decades. It began with the fact that in 1878 a resident of St. Petersburg Natalya Andreevna Andreeva, a devout and pious person who came from peasants, caught a cold.
In St. Petersburg, with its damp Baltic climate, this is quite a common thing, but for Natalya Andreevna the common cold ended in a complication - her legs began to hurt and swell, so that the sufferer could barely move. This went on for almost ten years.
Since the doctors she was contacting could not provide significant assistance, Andreeva, on the advice of her relative, decided to make a pilgrimage to the Valaam Monastery, known throughout the Orthodox world. There, on the islands of the harsh Lake Ladoga, in holy churches and in secret monastic monasteries, God's grace forever dwelt, generously pouring out on all who opened the doors of his heart to it.
Marvelous night vision
On the night before departure, and this was in June 1887, Natalya Andreevna was visited by an extraordinary vision. In a subtle dream, she saw a woman dressed in raspberry velvet robes, holding a baby in her arms and surrounded by a marvelous radiance. Encouraging the patient with her smile, the young mother ordered her to visit the monastery without fail, promising her help and intercession.
After these words, the woman disappeared without opening the astonished pilgrim of her name. Excited by what she saw, Natalya Andreevna did not even dare to imagine that the appearance of the Queen of Heaven herself was honored that night. But a wonderful vision gave her strength, and the next morning the patient went to the pier.
First trip to the monastery
The first time she stepped on the shore of the island on the day of the feast of finding the relics of the local saints the Monks Herman and Sergius. On this occasion, all the churches were crowded with pilgrims, and only at the very end of her stay on the island Natalya Andreevna managed to break into the Assumption Church, where in the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, hanging on one of the columns, to her amazement, she recognized the guest from her night vision, promising her help and intercession. This was the icon of the Valaam Mother of God, by then not yet glorified by miracles.
However, as soon as she had time to attach herself to the image, in the distance a whistle of a steamboat sounded, calling the pilgrims to the marina, and on this first visit of Andreev she did not even manage to serve a prayer service to the Virgin. Nevertheless, when she returned home, she felt an inexplicable lightness in her legs, the sensation of which was caused by the ceased pain. Since that time, she quickly recovered and was already moving without crutches.
Return visit to the island
Another ten years passed, during which the disease did not return, and the grateful Natalya Andreevna wished to go again to the island, where the icon of the Valaam Mother of God was stored, through which the Blessed Virgin showed her a miracle of healing. Again, like the first time, she gathered on the road and went to the familiar marina.
However, disappointment awaited her on the island - the Valaam icon of the Mother of God disappeared without a trace from the Assumption Church. Moreover, none of the inhabitants of the monastery could not only tell where she could go, but many even claimed that such an image did not exist. Even the omniscient father of the sacristan shrugged his hands in bewilderment, but suggested that if such an icon was, then, apparently, he was sent to Petersburg, where by that time the monastery courtyard had opened.
Searches in the city on the Neva
After returning to St. Petersburg, Andreeva first hastened to the Narva side, where the courtyard of the Valaam Monastery was located. However, to her great disappointment, there was no coveted image there either. The icon of the Valaam Mother of God disappeared as completely as the night vision, which once visited the servant of God Natalia.
But some inner voice did not cease to impress on her that the wondrous image that had once saved her from suffering really existed and it was she who was destined to find it. Filled with faith in such a wonderful destination, Natalya Andreevna went to the island for the third time.
Second Prophetic Vision
Hoping in her writings for the help of the Valaam saints, she began by serving a prayer service before their relics. On the very first night spent in the monastery hotel, Andreeva had a wonderful dream, which in the morning she hastened to tell her already familiar to her father Paphnutius - that same sacristan who had addressed her last visit.
She dreamed that, wandering around the monastery and not ceasing to pray to the Mother of God, she went to the old church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which had long been abolished and closed due to extreme disrepair. And there, standing on the porch, the servant of God Natalya suddenly clearly heard a voice addressed to her from heaven: “You will soon find me. I'm here".
Before the sound of the voice fell silent, the church door was suddenly opened by an old man who appeared from nowhere in a blue cloakroom, in which Andreeva immediately recognized the Monk Sergei of Valaam, before whom she prayed that day. He pointed her inside, where in the depths of the temple, among the old church utensils, an icon of the Valaam Mother of God stood in a corner.
The meaning of the dream was quite obvious - the Queen of Heaven herself showed her the place where her miraculous image was located. But before committing a holy work, Natalya Andreevna considered it her duty to first partake of the sacrament and gain strength in holy gifts. For three days she fasted and prepared herself for the sacrament of holy gifts, and the night before in a dream she saw Father Pafnutius leaving the church, in whose hands was the very image.
Finding a holy image
Communing at the early liturgy of holy gifts and barely leaving the church, Andreeva saw a crowd of pilgrims in front of her, ahead of which solemnly walked Father Paphnutius, carrying before him the image of the Most Holy Theotokos. The scene was undoubtedly a continuation of her dream today. Aligning with Andreeva, the priest spoke in a voice breaking with excitement only one word: “She?” There was no doubt, it was the same icon of the Valaam Mother of God, which miraculously healed her ten years ago.
The appearance of Father Pafnutius with an icon in his hands in front of Natalya Andreevna is explained as follows. Hearing her story of what she saw in a dream, he also interpreted it as a sign from above and, receiving blessing from the abbot, went to the old church, whose doors had not been unlocked for many years. In it, he found a shrine that stood in a corner, among darkened with time icons with barely visible faces of saints, as well as broken analogs and other church utensils that had served their age.
Glorification of the miraculous icon
The miraculous image was placed in the main monastery cathedral and a solemn prayer service with blessing of water was served in front of it on the same day, during which many new healings took place. The prayer of the Valaam icon of the Mother of God, offered in faith and hope, has always been heard.
Detailed records were made of all miracles, and so that no one later doubts their authenticity, each page was assured by the signatures of numerous witnesses. When the abbot Gabriel headed the monastery in 1901, he placed the greatest shrine, a particle of the robe of the Mother of God, in the lower part of the icon.
Soon after the Valaam icon of the Mother of God gained glory through its miracles and thousands of pilgrims reached it, it was possible to establish the name of the master who wrote it. It turned out to be hieromonk Alipy (Konstantinov), who once worked in the monastery.
He completed the image of the Virgin in 1887, shortly before his death, just at the time when Natalya Andreevna caught a cold. How amazing these two events turned out to be related - the artist painted an icon in the silence of the monastery, and in St. Petersburg at that time a woman fell ill, whose ailment ultimately served to glorify her.
Iconography of the Valaam miraculous image
Let us dwell in more detail on what the Valaam icon of the Mother of God represents, a photo of which is presented in the article. According to art critics, it belongs to the type of theotokos, originating from Byzantium and called "Panagia", which means "the Most Holy" in translation. Also, this icon in its compositional construction can be attributed to a different but close type of "Nikope" - "Winner".
With them, she is related by the image of the Virgin, standing at full height and holding a baby in front of her, blessing the viewer with a gesture of her right hand. However, the power in his left hand is not of Byzantine origin. This detail of the composition is characteristic of Western European icons "Christ is the Savior of the world."
The icon of the Valaam Mother of God has a curious detail that is unique in Orthodox icon painting: the Queen of Heaven is depicted with bare feet, they are visible from under the edge of her vestments. Nothing of the kind is found in other theotokos icons of the eastern church.
Departure to a foreign land
Until 1940, the island of Valaam belonged to Finland, and among other shrines there was the Valaam icon of the Mother of God. The celebration of the day of its acquisition, once crowded at the expense of pilgrims who came from St. Petersburg and other Russian cities, after the revolution began to be done only by the inhabitants of the monastery and by those few admirers who immigrated to the West after the October revolution.
When, at the end of the Finnish War, Ladoga with all its islands was annexed to the Soviet Union, the monks of the monastery, having left their habitual place, moved into the depths of Finland, where they founded the monastery, called "New Valaam". With them, they tried to take away everything that was possible. First of all, of course, they took the most sacred shrines to them, among which were crosses, icons, church books and vestments.
This is how a miraculous image ended up in Finland, which once healed Natalya Andreevna and many other pilgrims. The troparion of the Valaam icon of the Mother of God, written shortly after its acquisition, now began to sound on a foreign land, and every year more and more Orthodox Finns began to come to her in order to solicit through her the intercessions of the Queen of Heaven through prayers. There it is still located there, installed in the main temple of the monastery - the Transfiguration Cathedral (photo at the end of the article) and rightfully considered the main monastery shrine.
The subsequent fate of the island of Valaam and its monastery
And on the island abandoned by the monks during almost the entire Soviet period, religious life did not resume. For a long time there was a house of invalids of war and labor, where unfortunate cripples were brought from the mainland, sometimes forcibly. Only in the sixties this marvelous corner of northern nature was open for tourists, and ten years later the premises of the former monastery and its monasteries received the status of a museum reserve. Then their restoration began.
The revival of the monastery began in September 1989, when, by the decision of the Government of Karelia, its territory and all the buildings on it were transferred to the use of the Leningrad diocese. The Valaam Icon of the Mother of God Day, celebrated, as already mentioned, on the first Sunday after the feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, was officially established in 2002 by decree of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II.
Among other structures, the building of the very same church, which was once abolished, was preserved, in which the miraculous icon was found. After major repairs and proper restoration, a temple of the Valaam Icon of the Mother of God was created in it. It contains a list made from the original, forever remaining in Finland.
Valaam Icon of the Mother of God: what helps?
The glorification of the Valaam icon itself, through which many miracles were revealed, began with the healing of the suffering St. Petersburg woman, which was described in detail above. This marked the beginning of the tradition of praying before this image the Blessed Virgin Mary for deliverance from ailments and the granting of health. There are a lot of examples of how generously poured out on the prayers of the Grace of God and they received what was requested. Most of these cases are recorded in monastic books and confirmed by witness signatures. It is hard to imagine how many the desired healing the Valaam icon of the Mother of God brought.
What are they praying for before this marvelous image? Of course, you can not reduce the idea of the help sent down by the Queen of Heaven, only to the healing of human flesh, no matter how important it is for us. Her mercy is limitless, and, presenting herself before the Lord, she intercedes for the fulfillment of all prayers, coming from a pure heart and strengthened by faith. The Mother of God will not leave without her participation those who, in front of her, honestly ask for the reign of peace in the family, for safe permission from pregnancy, for the admonition of children and their guidance on the true path.