The Gold Chervonets
Returning the icon
Tichvin's icon of Mother of God will be met by a memorable medal
On the 8th of July 2004 the wonder-working Tichvin"s icon of Mother of God came back from America to Tichvin"s the Virgin Mary"s Assumption monastery.
For this remarkable event a memorable medal was minted at Saint-Petersburg Mint.
The history of Tichvin"s wonder-working icon is long and mysterious. Due to the legend it was painted by the Apostle-Evangelist Luke during the earth life of the Virgin Mary. Saint Luke sent the icon together with the text of Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles as a gift to the ruler of Antioch Theophilus. In V century the icon appeared in Constantinople. There the famous Vlachern church-reliquary was built for it. According to the chronicle, in 1383, 70 years before Constantinople"s fall, "this icon Hodigitria appeared from it by the will of God and dashed to Russia. Fishermen saw Image of Mother of God over the Ladoga lake, near the ancient capital of Russia-Old Ladoga.
According to the chronicle, in the year 6891 since the world began, in June on the 26th day (due to the common method of numbering the years- on the 9th of July 1383), the icon " The Most-Pure Image Hodigitria" appeared in front of praying people on the bank of the river Tichvinka. The decision to start constructing the temple urgently was made. The same day the wood was cut down, the people had enough time to build three rows of logs, arranged the guards around the building and left the place till morning. But, being very tired, the guards fell asleep, and, after waking up, they found that neither the icon, not the base of the log cabin and even slivers from cut and hewn wood remained.
In some time the icon was found on another bank of the river together with the begun log cabin and prepared logs. This way the icon itself chose a place for its keeping. On the same place they began erecting the first church of the Assumption.
The church was existing for 7 years but then it burnt down. But the wonder-working icon was kept intact: it was found nearby in junipers. Afterwards the church was burnt thrice and restored thrice, but the icon kept unharmed every time. The fame about the wonders of the icon spread over far away the place and in 1507, due to the edict of the tsar Vasiley III, there was foundation of a stone Assumption church- five-domed and, as the chronicle tells, "was watched finely everywhere by everybody…" That time the icon began being called as Tichvin"s one.
Ivan IV the Terrible came to Tichvin in 1547 together with the metropolitan of the whole Russia Makarey. Three years later due to the tsar"s edict Tichvin"s Assumption male monastery was founded. The monastery was attacked not once. In the Time of Troubles it endured Swiss army siege, having lasted for three months. The Clear Virgin helped Tichvin"s citizens to win the enemy. The besieged people came up on the wall, holding Tichvin"s icon of Mother of God. And the miracle happened: as captured Swiss soldiers told afterwards, the whole detachment dreamt in fears that the countless Russian army was coming up from all sides to the monastery.
In the middle of the 20-s last century the monastery was closed. In November 1941 Tichvin was occupied by German army. Hitler"s soldiers stole all ancient icons from the monastery, including Tichvin"s icon of Mother of God. The icon appeared in occupied Pskov, and then in Riga in 1944. But while retreating German soldiers didn"t get to take the wonder-working icon along.
In 1944 the bishop of Riga that time and future archbishop of Chicago and Minneapolis John brought the holy icon abroad-firstly to Germany, then to the USA. The priest bequeathed to return it to Russia, when the country got rid of Christian persecutors and when Tichvin"s monastery was restored. Until this time he left the icon to his adopted son archpriest Sergey Garklavs, who has been keeping the icon for 60 years in Chicago.
The restoration of Tichvin Assumption male monastery of Mother of God started in 1995. Eight years later, in 2003, there was an agreement about returning the icon of Mother of God. The icon is returning to Tichvin this summer, by exactly the same way it was brought from the country: from America it will be brought by a special flight to Riga, then to Moscow, and through Saint-Petersburg it will reach Tichvin"s monastery.
There was a decision to produce 500 memorable medals for the holiday of returning Tichvin"s icon. The initiators of the idea was Saint-Petersburg diocese in the person of Saint-Petersburg and Ladoga metropolitan Vladimir, the fund "Sacred object" ("Svyatinya"), which is taking up the deals of revival of Tichvin"s monastery, and the head of Main Directorate of State Traffic security inspection of Ministry of Internal Security of the Russian Federation V.N.Kiriyanov. The creator of the memorable medal was Saint- Petersburg Mint. There the memorable medals were minted from different metals: gold, silver and bronze.
The draft was created by the main painter of Saint-Petersburg Mint Alexander Baklanov with tight cooperation with the representatives of Saint-Petersburg diocese. For the work over the pictures the dean of Tichvin"s Assumption male monastery of Mother of God hegumen Evphimey submitted the photos of the monastery and icons to the painter. Finally some variants of the drafts were made, among which the metropolitan Vladimir has chosen the most suitable one.
On one side of the medal there is Tichvin"s monastery, reflecting in the river water, over it in the there is the wonder-working icon in the clouds. On another side there is Tichvin"s icon of Mother of God itself, being held by angels.
The memorable icons were presented to the people, having participated in the restoration of the monastery and the honored guests of the coming event.
Tatyana Balueva
