Icon of the Mother of God of Akhtyr
The Akhtyr Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos appeared on July 2, 1739 in the village of Akhtyr in the area of Kharkov, east of Kiev.
Father Basil Danilov, a righteous man of strong faith, was the priest of the Dormition church in Akhtyr. He wanted to try out a new scythe, and so he went out to a field by the church. As he began to cut the tall grass, Father Basil noticed an icon of the Mother of God shining with a radiant light. Dropping the scythe, he fell to his knees and began to pray, then took the icon to his home.
The icon remained in the priest’s home for three years. No one could spend the night in the same room as the icon, because an inexplicable fear would force them to leave.
One night the Theotokos appeared to Father Basil in a dream, reproaching him because he had not cleaned the icon in the three years since he had found it. When he awoke, he dusted the icon off and washed it with water, then went back to sleep. That night he had another dream in which he saw himself going to the river in order to pour out the water he had used to wash the icon. The Mother of God appeared to him again and ordered him to return home with the water, explaining that it would cure people of malaria and fever.
When Father Basil’s daughter became ill with malaria, he gave her some of the water to drink and she was healed. Others also received healing in this way. The priest decided that the icon should not remain in his home, so he took it to the church.
An iconographer named John was commissioned to restore the icon. When his son was suffering from malaria, John remembered how the water used to wash the icon had cured people of that disease. Therefore, he washed the icon and gave his son some of the water to drink. The young man was healed at once, and there were many other miracles after this one.
The miracles of the Akhtyr Icon were investigated no less than three times. In 1751 the Holy Synod determined that reports of the miracles were true, and declared the icon to be wonderworking.
Empress Elizabeth had a stone church built in Akhtyr for the icon, and she personally donated two thousand rubles. Saint Joasaph of Belgorod (September 4 and December 10) blessed the cornerstone. The church was consecrated in the year 1768.
Tsar Nicholas I ordered that on the Saturday before Pentecost the Akhtyr Icon should be taken from the Protection Cathedral and carried in procession to the Akhtyr-Holy Trinity Monastery. The icon was brought back to the cathedral on the Sunday of All Saints. Unfortunately, the icon was stolen from the Protection Cathedral on April 1, 1905. Many copies of the Akhtyr Icon were made before it was stolen.
On July 2 many churches bless water in remembrance of the healings which took place after the Mother of God ordered Father Basil Danilov to wash the icon.
The original Icon (not shown here) is rather unusual, and does not seem to have any earlier prototype. Furthermore, It is painted in the Western style. The Mother of God is depicted with her head uncovered, Christ's Crucifixion is portrayed too small, and the Virgin seems to be gazing directly at the Cross. Her hands are folded and her fingers are pointing upward, which is not the typical gesture of prayer in Orthodox iconography. Usually, Orthodox Icons depict the figure's hands raised with the palms facing upward, or with the arms crossed over the chest, just as we do when receiving Holy Communion.
In 1903, the Icon was sent to St. Petersburg for restoration, and it was stolen. Afterward, it ended up in Harbin, China, where it was purchased by S.A. Stepanov. According to the testimony of Archpriest N. Tryphanov of Harbin, who was very familiar with the Akhtyr Icon in the city of Akhtyrka, declared that the image was the genuine wonderworking Icon.
In the 1950s, Stepanov's son took the Icon to Brazil, and then to San Francisco, where he gave it to the Russian Orthodox Youth Committee. The icon's location in San Francisco became known in 1975.
In 1995, a copy was made and was brought to the Akhtyr Protection Cathedral by Metropolitan Nikodemos (Rusnak) of Kharkov and Bogodukhov. With that copy, the tradition of a Cross Procession to the site of the Akhtyr-Holy Trinity Monastery, was resumed on the third Suday after Pentecost.
In July of 2010, Demetrios Medvedev, the President of the Russian Federation presented the wonderworking Icon to the Novodevichii Convent of the Resurrection in Moscow, where it is kept in the Resurrection Cathedral.