“Kozel'shchansk” Icon of the Mother of God
This Icon is one of the latest of the wonderworking icons of the Mother of God to be glorified, and one of the most revered. The event which glorified this Icon received the widest publicity, and produced the deepest impression. This was not some ancient tradition which might be denied, but it happened, so to speak, before the eyes of the people who lived at that time. Many people saw, for the first time, how miraculous grace flowed from this Icon. Eminent doctors who examined the hopelessly afflicted girl declared that she could not be cured, but the healing grace of the Most Pure Virgin was felt, and a miracle took place.
The Kozel'shchansk Icon was the family icon of Count Vladimir Ivanovich Kapnist and was kept on his estate, in the village of Kozelshchyna. This icon is very old, and the style of the letters bespeaks its Italian origin. In this extraordinarily beautiful Icon, the faces of the Divine Child and the Mother of God are filled with consolation.
In the XVIII century the Icon belonged to the wife of Siromakh, a records clerk of the Zaporozhsky-Cossack army, who signed the act of Little Russia's final annexation to Russia in 1764, and he was granted lands for this. By the order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, he married an Italian woman, one of her ladies-in-waiting.
Count Kapnist had a daughter named Maria Vladimirovna, who was brought up at the Poltava Institute. In 1880, during Cheesefare week, the girl dislocated some bones in her foot, causing it to become twisted. Doctor Meyer of Poltava thought the damage was minor. The famous Kharkov surgeon Grube said the same. He applied a plaster bandage, and recommended that a special shoe be made according to his own design, with steel springs gripping the leg above the knee, to reduce the pain in her foot when walking. He also prescribed warm baths and iron supplements. All of his instructions were followed to the letter, yet Maria received no relief. At Pascha her other foot became twisted. Professor Grube told the Count to take Maria to the Caucasus and treat her with the mineral waters. There new injuries were found: dislocations of her shoulder joints and her left hip, and very painful sensitivity along her entire spinal column. They tried everything – electricity, warm baths, mineral waters – but nothing helped.
The Count took his daughter to Moscow in October, where she was examined by the renowned neurologists, Professors Kozhevnikov and Korsakov, the surgeon Sklifasovsky, and the therapists Professors Pavlinov, Mitropolsky, and Caspari. They could not help her, so they recommended the European specialists Gutera and Charcot. The family was already in Moscow waiting for the arrival of Charcot, who was summoned by the famous capitalist Lyamin. Since it would be a long time before Charcot arrived in Moscow, and Maria wanted to go home, Count Kapnist let his wife and daughter return to their village, urging them to come to Moscow as soon as they received his wire. The Count stayed behind in Moscow to wait for Charcot.
On February 21, 1881, the Count sent a telegram to his wife saying that Charcot had left for Moscow. The Countess decided to go the next day, and she told her daughter to pray before their family Icon and to polish the metal riza. This was a custom in their family. The mother decided to leave the next day, and pointing to the family Icon of the Mother of God, she said to her daughter: "Masha, tomorrow we go to Moscow, take the Icon and polish the riza, and pray even harder before our Intercessor. Ask her to help us make the trip safely, and to cure your illness."
The afflicted girl had lost hope in earthly doctors, but she placed all her hope in God and entrusted herself to Heaven. Their Icon had long been known as miraculous. According to tradition, the Mother of God especially helped girls who turned to her in prayer and asked that she grant them a happy family. At the same time, it was customary for a girl to polish the Icon's riza, wiping it with cotton, wool, or a towel. Pressing the holy Icon to her bosom, Maria polished it, with her mother's help, and all the heaviness of her affliction, and all the sorrow and despair of her soul was poured out before the Theotokos.
The young Countess embraced the Icon with her feeble hands. As she held it, she prayed fervently, and her prayer was heard. All at once, she felt strength in her arms and legs, and she cried aloud,: "Mama, Mama, I can feel my legs, I can feel my hands!"
Then she removed eight pounds of metal and the bandages from her feet. Her mother thought her daughter had lost her mind. Her face was radiant, and her joyous squeals seemed to be those of a mad woman. Finally, she realized that her daughter had been healed. There were many guests in the house. When they heard her scream they ran into the room, there they saw the young Countess walking normally, and they knew that Maria had been healed. Then the parish priest was asked to come at once and serve a Moleben of thanksgiving.
Despite her daughter's full recovery, the Countess decided to bring her to Moscow, and they left the next day, taking the Icon with them. In Moscow, the Count set up a meeting with some doctors. Charcot said that if it were not for such reliable witnesses as the Moscow Professors, he would have regarded the whole incident as a hoax. The Count stayed at the Loskutna Inn, and rumors of Maria's healing quickly spread throughout Moscow, and people began to flock first to their hotel room, and then to the church, where the Icon had been moved, and where there was a large crowd.
At the end of March, the Kapnist family went back to their village with the Icon. Then a blind maiden came to the manor, who told them that in a dream the Mother of God ordered her to go to her Icon. The Countess took her to the Icon, before which she prayed for a long time. A few days later, she returned with her sight restored in both eyes. First, a chapel was built in the Count's garden, and then a church. Miracles were recorded, and twenty-one miracles were examined by a commission from Poltava. A certain boy was healed before the commission. In 1885, a women's community with a hospital was opened in Kozel'shchyna, with a school and an orphanage for cripples.
The Divine Child on the Kozel'shchansk Icon rests in the lap of the Mother of God, holding a cross. On the table is a bowl and a spoon, perhaps to symbolize that the Mother of God brought joy to all the world. This may have been inspired by the Akathist to the Mother of God, Ikos 11: "Rejoice, O cup which drawest up joy."
There is a venerated copy of this Icon in Moscow, in the church of the Kazan Icon by the Serpukhov Gate. During Passion Week of 1885 in Astrakhan, the maiden Gitsevich was healed by a copy of the Kozel'shchansk Icon.
In 1882, a church was built, and by the decision of the Holy Synod on March 1, 1885, a women's community was established, On February 17, 1891, it became a convent dedicated to the Nativity of the Theotokos.
When the Monastery was closed in 1929, the Icon was taken by the nuns to a hermitage in the village of Obitok, and after its closure in 1932 it was kept hidden in the town of Kobelyaki, in 1941-1949 it was in the Kozel'shchyna Monastery again. Then it was brought to Lebedinsky Monastery in the Cherkasy region. From 1961 the Icon was in the Kiev apartment of the former Kozel'shchyna nuns, and it was returned to Kozel'shchyna on February 23, 1993.
A Church Service has been composed for the Kozel'shchansk Icon of the Mother of God, as well as an Akathist.