Memorial Day of the Kozelshchansky Icon of the Mother of God

In the Orthodox church calendar there are dates dedicated to the veneration of miraculous icons One of these days is March 6 - the Holiday in honor of the Kozelshchansky Icon of the Mother of God The origin of the icon from the Hodegetria icon painting type is presumably Italian, since its first known owner was an Italian lady-in-waiting at the court of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna The girl became the wife of a military clerk from Zaporozhye, and thus the icon came to Little Russia and became a family heirloom of the Kapnist count family The shrine with the image of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus with a cross in his right hand protected family members, they turned to it with prayers for God’s mercy, and one day the icon showed its miraculous power In 1881, on March 5, the daughter of Count Vladimir Kapnist, Maria, received healing after a year of painful illness In the spring of 1880, the girl’s leg began to hurt and fail; visits to doctors did not yield positive results, and moreover, Maria’s second leg began to fail All that the medicine of that time could advise was to shackle sore legs in iron shoes to keep the joints and bones in a constant position The famous Moscow doctor remained Maria’s only hope for a cure, but the girl was so exhausted from visiting doctors that before the long journey she wished to stay at her native estate in the village of Kozelshchina, where the shrine of the Kapnist family was kept While in agonizing anticipation, the sick girl turned with humble prayer to the images of the Mother of God and the baby Jesus and gradually cleaned the robe of the icon After this action, Maria felt that the illness that had tormented her for more than a year had receded, the pain had disappeared, and her sore legs were filled with strength The girl shared her joy with her mother and father, but Count Vladimir still insisted on a visit to the famous doctor Imagine his surprise when the Moscow hospital confirmed that his daughter’s health was not in danger Everything that happened was recorded in the family tradition of the Kapnist family After a miraculous healing, a wooden chapel was built for the holy image in the village of Kozelshchina, and then in its place the stone Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, which was later converted into a convent The family heirloom of the Kapnist counts was in the church until 1929, and after the destruction of the monastery by the Bolsheviks, it had to be kept secretly by former nuns and believers In 1993, the reopened monastery was opened, and the saved icon again took its original place of honor within the walls of the temple On the occasion of the return of the shrine, Archbishop Feodosius of Poltava and Kremenchug held church celebrations