Bogolubskaya Icon of the Theotokos. XII c. Date of occurrence: 1155. Place of a presence: Vladimir clostery.

The Bogolubskaya Icon of the Theotokos is a Wonderworking Icon of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) which is venerated in the Russian Orthodox Church. The icon was painted in the 1157 at the request of Grand Prince Andrew Bogolubsky, in commemoration of an appearance to him by the Mother of God.

According to Orthodox tradition, when the prince was moving from Vyshgorod to the Suzdal Principality in 1155, he took the Wonderworking Icon of the Theotokos from the Mezhyhirskyi Monastery in Vyshgorod with him, and served molebens in front of it every day. About 11 versts (7.26 miles) from the city of Vladimir, as they approached the shore of the Klyazma River, the horses carrying the icon suddenly stopped and would not move forward. After prayer, the prince went to his tent and there the Theotokos appeared to him in a dream-like vision holding a scroll in her right hand, and commanded him to place her icon in the city of Vladimir and to build a temple (church) and monastery on the place of the vision. (Ever since this time, that icon has been known as Our Lady of Vladimir.) Great Prince Andrew did as he was told, and also commissioned an iconographer to paint the Bogolubsky Icon of the Theotokos.

On the icon, the Theotokos is depicted in full stature, holding a scroll in her right hand. Her left hand is turned in prayer to Jesus Christ, who is depicted in an aureole in the upper-right hand corner. Prince Andrew himself is depicted in a prayerful stance on his knees before the Theotokos. In variations of the icon, other saints may appear at the feet of the Virgin, such as saints Zosimus and Sabbatius of Solovki.

The icon came to be named after Prince Andrew Bogoliubsky ("Lover of God") and was placed in the monastery he built.

The church prince Andrew built was consecrated in honor of the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, and the icon he commissioned was placed there. The monastery he built has come to be known as Bogolubsky Convent, and the town which grew up around it was called Bogolubovo. The icon of Our Lady of Vladimir remained in the convent while work was completed on the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, after which it was solemly translated to the cathedral.

In 1771 a feast day was established in in honor of the Bogolubskaya icon and in memory of the deliverance of the city of Vladimir and its vicinity from plague. The feast day is June 18 (for those churches which use the traditional Julian Calendar, June 18 currently falls on July 1 of the modern Gregorian Calendar). Before the Bolshevik Revolution the icon was brought annually on May 21 (June 3) to the city Vladimir where it remained until July 16 (July 29), when it was returned from there to the monastery.

The original Bogolubskaya icon is kept in the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum, but over the centuries numerous copies of the icon have been made, and it continues to be venerated in many churches both in Russia and throughout the world.

Theotokos of Vladimir. XII century. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

The Theotokos of Vladimir, also known as Our Lady of Vladimir or Virgin of Vladimir (Russian: Владимирская Богоматерь) and "The Vladimir Madonna" - is one of the most venerated Orthodox icons and a typical example of Byzantine iconography. The Theotokos (Greek word for Virgin Mary, literally meaning "God-bearer or Mother of God") is regarded as the holy protectress of Russia. The icon is displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Her feast day is June 3. Even more than most famous icons, the original has been copied repeatedly for centuries. Many copies now have considerable artistic and religious significance of their own. The icon is a version of the Eleusa (tenderness) type, with the Christ child snuggling up to his mother's cheek.

About 1131 the Greek Patriarch Luke Chrysoberges of Constantinople sent the icon as a gift to Grand Duke Yury Dolgoruky of Kiev. The image was kept in the Mezhyhirskyi Monastery until Dolgoruky's son Andrey Bogolyubskiy brought it to his favourite city, Vladimir, in 1155. Tradition tells that the horses transporting the icon stopped near Vladimir and refused to go further. People interpreted this as a sign that the Theotokos wanted her icon to stay in Vladimir. To house the icon, the great Assumption Cathedral was built there, followed by other churches dedicated to the Virgin throughout Ukraine.

In 1395, during Tamerlane's invasion, the image was taken from Vladimir to the new capital of Moscow. The spot where people and the ruling prince met the icon is commemorated by the Sretensky Monastery. Vasili I of Moscow spent a night crying over the icon, and Tamerlane's armies retreated the same day. The Muscovites refused to return the icon to Vladimir and placed it in the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Moscow Kremlin. The intercession of the Theotokos through the image was credited also with saving Moscow from Tatar hordes in 1451 and 1480.

The icon of the Theotokos of Vladimir is sometimes described as expressing universal feelings of motherly love and anxiety for her child. By the 16th century, the Vladimirskaya (as the Russians call it) was a thing of legend. Church tradition asserted that the icon was painted by St Luke, though analysis of the image has disproved the legend. The venerated image was used in celebration of coronations of tsars, elections of patriarchs, and other important ceremonies of state. In December 1941, as the Germans approached Moscow, Stalin allegedly ordered that the icon be placed in an airplane and flown around the besieged capital. Several days later, the German army started to retreat.

As a work of art, the Theotokos is widely regarded as the most important icon produced during the Comnenian period. Scholars believe that it expresses deeper humanity and emotionality than that typical of previous Byzantine art. As David Talbot Rice asserts in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "it is of considerable importance in the history of painting, for it not only is a work of outstandingly high quality but also is in a new, more human style, anticipating the late Byzantine style that flourished between 1204 and 1453."