The Pochaev Dormition Lavra is one of four lavras in the Russian Empire. It
is a bastion of Orthodoxy in
South-western Rus’, in Volhyn (now part of
Ukraine’s Ternopol Province). This is a place where throughout the ages,
borders between empires, civilizations, and world views clashed. Until 1914, the
Austro-Hungarian border was a mere 8 versts [1 verst = 1.07 km.] away, and the
fame of Pochaev’s holy objects extended not only to neighboring Galicia, but also
to Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Serbia.
At one time, this had been a forest-covered hill, where monks carried on their spiritual struggle living in caves. They were hermits from the Kiev Caves who had taken refuge here after the mother of all Russian cities Kiev was laid waste in 1240 by Baty [Khan].
In that same 13th Century, two of the nameless strugglers, along with the local shepherd Ivan the Barefoot, were made worthy to witness a great miracle: the appearance of the Most Pure One in a pillar of fire standing above the Pochaev hillside. In the solid limestone on which the Theotokos had been standing in prayer that night, there remained the print of her right foot; that footprint is the most ancient of the holy treasures of Pochaev. The footprint is always full of pure healing water from a spring that burst forth on that same night.
At the base of the hill, the monks soon erected the first stone church, in honor of the Dormition. Now the enormous Dormition Cathedral, built in the 1780s in the baroque style, and encompassing the hill itself, the caves, the Footprint, and the sacred spring, stands on the site. Rising like a cliffside set amid the boundless surrounding fields, the cathedral is visible many kilometers from the town of Pochaev itself.
However, back in the 13th Century, with the collapse of Rus’ and the gradual falling away of its Southwestern lands, the monastery fell into decline as well.
The monastery was re-established at the turn of the 16th Century. In 1559 the Greek Metropolitan Neophyte, who was traveling through the area stopped for the night at the home of the pious landowner Anna Goiskaya. In thanks for her cordial hospitality, he left the housewife a memento: an image of the Theotokos painted in Constantinople.
For three decades, the icon remained in the house chapel in the village of Urlya (about 8 versts from Pochaev). Then it began to emit a mystical radiance at night, a radiance like unto the pillar of fire in which 300 years earlier, the Most-holy One herself had appeared there. Philipp Kozinsky, who was the brother of the lady of the house and who had been blind from birth, regained his sight before that Icon. The Goisky family interpreted the miracle as a Queen of Heaven’s expression of her intention to abide in the restored Pochaev Monastery, to which they gave the Icon, along with generous gifts.
After Anna’s death in 1644, all of the surrounding lands were inherited by one of her kinsmen who hated Orthodoxy, and who robbed the Monastery and seized the Icon. However, he and his wife were immediately visited with a brutal sickness from which they recovered only after they had returned the Miraculous Icon to the Monastery.
Since that time the Miraculous Icon has been housed in a frame in the shape of a radiant star, in the third row of the Dormition Cathedral iconostasis. On special occasions, it is lowered down from its place so that pilgrims might venerate it. The "Pochaev" Icon has gained renown for a host of miracles.
The "Pochaev" Icon is of the type known as the Eleoussa Icon. The Pre-eternal
Infant sits on her right
arm. In her left is a cloth partially covering the Son
of God. Usually, on copies of the Miraculous Icon, the Footprint of the Theotokos is also depicted below her image.
Through the intercession of the Most-holy One, the Monastery remained faithful to Orthodox even under Polish-Lithuanian rule, resolutely opposing the Uniate assaults upon the area.
The Theotokos also manifested her marvelous help during the siege of the Monastery by the Turks in the year 1675, when the Hagarites completely surrounded the Monastery’s wooden structures and threatened to put them to the torch. The Monks appealed to the Image of our Sovereign Lady with prayers that she intercedes.
Then the Turks witnessed an awesome sight in the sky above the Cathedral: The Most-pure One hovered above her Monastery in radiant splendor, surrounded by the Angelic Hosts armed with flaming swords, and extending her Omophorion over the Monastery. Next to the Sovereign Lady stood Venerable St. Job, the recently deceased (+ 1651) Abbot of Pochaev, who prayed along with his earthly brethren for her assistance.
Blinded by the heavenly apparition, the Hagarites turned on one another, and fled from the site which had so terrified them.
Despite its firm resolve to remain Orthodox, in 1713 the Pochaev Monastery was forcibly turned over to the Uniates, and remained under them until the Polish rebellion of 1831. Returned to the bosom of Orthodoxy, in 1833 the Monastery was granted the great honor of being called a Lavra, and ranked as “fourth among the Lavras in Russia” (along with the Kiev Caves, Holy Trinity-St. Sergius, and Alexander Nevsky Lavras).
In Moscow, there is a greatly venerated "Pochaev" Icon in the Lefortovo Church of Sts. Peter and Paul. This church was never closed down, and here the Icon was brought at the height of atheist persecutions of the 1930s.
images from www.pravoslavie.ru