The Icon of the Mother of God of Bogoliubsk-Zimarovsk

Commemorated on June 18

      The Icon of the Mother of God of Bogoliubsk-Zimarovsk according to ancient tradition stood on the gates of the city of Pronsk, and during the time of an invasion of Tatars (XIII Century) it was taken down and broken in pieces, but of itself it miraculously came back together, though one half of it remained higher than the other.
      In the latter XVIII Century this icon was situated in the house of the landowner Lopukhin, living at Moscow. Because of the antiquity of the icon they kept it among a number of things in a storeroom. At the time of a fierce plague in 1771 one of the afflicted inhabitants of Moscow was commanded in a dream vision to make a molieben before the icon, located in the house of Lopukhin. They located the icon and gave it to the sick person, who after making the molieben was healed, returning the wonderworking image. Other similar healings were done by the icon.
      Before his death (about 1780) the owner of the icon made a bequest to send it to its own native region, to the village of Zimarovo in Ryazan gubernia, situated 18 versts from the city of Ranenburg.
      In 1848 an outbreak of cholera raged in this city. The inhabitants quickly set off to the venerable image in the village of Zimarovo, and when the ancient wonderworking icon of the Bogoliubsk Mother of God was brought to the city, the threat of the danger of disease stopped.

© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.