"Chenstokhovskaya" Icon 

6 / 19 March

According to tradition, this icon dates to those seventy icons of the Most Holy Theotokos which the holy Evangelist Luke painted. It was painted in Jerusalem, in the upper room upon Sion (where the Mystical Supper and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles took place). In the years 66-67, during the invasion by Roman troops under the command of Vespasian and Titus, the Christians fled to the small town of Pella. Together with other holy objects, they also preserved the Chenstokhov image of the Mother of God in a cave. In 326, when the holy Empress Helena went to Jerusalem to venerate the holy places and find the Cross of Christ, she received this icon as a gift from the Christians, took it to Constantinople and put it in the palace chapel, where the holy object was in the course of five centuries.

The wonderworking image was transferred to Russia with great honor by the Galician-Volhynian Prince Leo Danilovich, the founder of the city of Lvov (Lemberg - 1268-1270), and placed in Belz castle under the authority of the Orthodox clergy.

Subsequently, during the conquest of the western Ukraine by the Poles, the wonderworking icon passed to the Polish ruler, Prince Vladislav Opolsky. The Tatars, having invaded the borders of Russia, besieged Belz castle. Trusting in the help of the Mother of God, Prince Vladislav carried out the holy object from the church and placed it on the city's wall. Pierced by an enemy arrow, the wonderworking image ever after preserved traces of flowing blood. The noxious gloom that then fell upon the Tatar army forced them to lift the siege of the castle and retreat to their own borders. The Heavenly Succorer, in a vision during sleep, commanded the Prince to transfer the wonderworking icon to Jasny Mountain (mountain of "witness" - thus was it called because of the multitude of miracles that took place there). Prince Vladislav transferred the wonderworking holy object there, entrusting it for safekeeping to the monks of the Paulist order. In a few years, the monastery was pillaged by Hussites. Having deprived it of all its treasures, they wanted to carry off the wonderworking image also, but an invisible power restrained the horses, and the closed sleigh with the holy object would not budge from the spot. In a rage, one of the pillagers threw the holy icon to the ground, while another hit its face with a sword. Here a just punishment overtook them all: the first was torn apart, the hand of the second withered, the rest fell down as dead or were struck with blindness.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Swedish King Carl X Gustav, having taken Warsaw and Krakov, suffered defeat at the Chenstokhov Monastery on Jasny Mountain. The help and succor of the Queen of Heaven encouraged the Poles, while King Jan Kazimir, on returning to Lvov, promulgated a manifesto according to which he commended his state to the protection of the Mother of God, calling her Chenstokhov image the "Polish Queen". The war with the Swedes ended successfully for Poland in 1656.

A multitude of miracles from the Chenstokhov wonderworking image was testified to in a special book preserved in the church of the Chenstokhov Monastery. Many copies of this icon were made both for Catholic and for Orthodox churches.

In 1813, when Russian troops entered the Chenstokhov fortress, the superior and brethren of the Monastery presented a copy of the wonderworking image to General Saken. Subsequently, this copy of the wonderworking icon was placed in the Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg.

icon from www.days.ru