Celebration: January 2
The Novodvorskaya Icon of the Mother of God was originally painted by St. Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow (December 21), around 1320. While still a hieromonk of the monastery in Volhynia, Peter asked the abbot’s blessing to leave the monastery and settle in a secluded place. Not far from the place called the New Palace, on the banks of the Rati River, he built a cell and began to lead an ascetic lifestyle. Soon on this place there was a monastery, which received the name of the Novodvorsky monastery. During the period of persecution of the Uniates, after the signing of the Brest Union, the Novodvorsky Monastery was robbed, and the holy icon was transferred by Hieromonk Jacob to the Chernihiv Yelets Holy Dormition Monastery. Later, Bishop Anthony (Stakhovsky) of Chernihiv blessed the icon and gave it to Simeon, the builder of the Surazh monastery. In August 1677, during the transfer of the icon from the old church to the new one, miracles occurred in front of the assembled believers, which were witnessed by St. Demetrius of Rostov. Subsequently, the icon was placed in the Novgorod-Seversky Transfiguration Monastery, which was later closed in the 1950s. The original icon itself was lost during difficult times. One of the monks of the monastery, where the list with the miraculous icon was transferred, took it to the city of Nizhyn, where in 1997 it was placed in the local Holy Cross Church. The Akathist of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos is served weekly before the icon. Lists with the image of the miraculous Novodvorskaya icon of the Mother of God were also found in the Kamensky Assumption Convent of the Novozybkovsky district of the Chernihiv province and in the Kiev Golden-Domed Mikhailovsky Monastery. In 2004, during the visit of the Presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to the Transfiguration of the Saviour Monastery in Novgorod-Seversky, the list with the image of the icon, written in the XVIII century, was donated to the monastery. The Novodvorskaya icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is a belt image of the Mother of God with the Divine Infant on her left arm, decorated with crowns.
