October 12, 2020

Synaxis of the Rudens Icon of the Mother of God

Synaxis of the Rudens Icon of the Mother of God (Feast Day - October 12)

The miraculous Rudens Icon of the Mother of God was revealed in 1687 in the town of Rudnya in the Mogilev diocese. In 1689, the local priest, Father Vasily, transferred it to the female Kiev Pechersk Monastery. Since 1712, the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos resided in the Kiev Florovsky Monastery in Podil after its merger with the Kiev Pechersk Monastery. In the 1920s, the miraculous icon, placed in a beautiful robe adorned with diamonds, disappeared; it appears to have been stolen from the temple. But now in the Ascension Cathedral you can venerate the copy of the miraculous icon.

There are quite a few revered copies of the miraculous Rudens Icon of the Mother of God. Among them is an icon painted on canvas that was in the Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos in the town of Aleshki of the Kharkiv region. Legend says that it was brought to the Kharkov borders around 1612 by a certain priest Peter Andreev, who came from the Podolsk region, fleeing the persecution of the Uniates.


 
There were also known other copies of the Rudens Icon of the Mother of God - in the village of Lubny, Lubensky district, Poltava province; in the village of Olishevka, Kozeletsky district of the Chernigov province; and in some villages of the Rivne region, Grodno region and Vitebsk region.

The most famous copy is considered to be the icon which is located in the Moscow Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in Krylatskoye. According to folk legend, passed from mouth to mouth, around the middle of the 19th century, the icon of the Mother of God was acquired by the peasants of the village of Krylatskoye, who, having come early in the morning to the spring (and now full-flowing) in the ravine, saw the holy icon in the grass. On the site of the appearance of the icon, a chapel was erected in the name of the acquired Rudens icon, and a copy of the icon was placed in the local church of the Nativity of the Theotokos.

 
It is known that even before the October coup of 1917, the inhabitants of Krylatskoye ordered a day of rest on the day of the feast of the icon on October 12, with an all-night vigil and Liturgy, they toured many churches in Moscow from the shrine, and arranged long processions of the cross.

In 1936, during the atheistic persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church, the sacred Rudens Icon of the Mother of God was destroyed. However, the pre-revolutionary copy of the icon, which was in the temple, was preserved by local residents. The copied icon, handed over to the rector of the newly opened church in 1989, took its rightful place in it and became famous for many miracles that came from it through the fervent prayers of the parishioners. In 1996, in honor of the Ruens Icon of the Mother of God, one of the thrones of the temple was consecrated.

On the day of the celebration of the Rudens Icon of the Mother of God, many Orthodox residents of Moscow come to the spring, consecrated by the miraculous icon that once appeared on there.