The icon of the Mother of God known as the Novgorod Icon was painted by St. Peter, Metropolitan of All Russia, ca. 1320, while he was still in Volyn' in a monastery which is no longer in existence, which lay built on the Rati river, in a border settlement known as Novy Dvorets. During Uniate persecution of the Orthodox, when the Uniates attacked the Novgorod Monastery, the local hieromonk James (Iakov) took the icon to the Yeletsk monastery of the Dormition, in Chernigov. When the Surazh monastery was established near the town of Surazh, Bishop Antony Stakhovsky gave the icon to Symeon, builder of the monastery. The holy icon of the Novgorod Mother of God stood in the cathedral church of this monastery, which is no longer in existence. On August 14, 1677, the image was taken from the old church to the new one. St. Dimitry of Rostov, having come to venerate the miraculous icon at that time, reported that after the liturgy held in the church on August 16, Nicodemus, Bishop of Tselersk, told of the miracles which had flowed from the Image of the Mother of God.