Ancient church tradition traces the beginning of the icons of the Mother of God to the time of the Apostles. In church chants it is mentioned that the Philermo icon Holy Mother of God- one of the few images that, during the earthly life of the Most Holy Theotokos, was written by the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke, companion and assistant of the Apostle Paul, and blessed by the Mother of God.
The icon was painted in the year 46 from the Nativity of Christ and brought by St. Luke to Antioch to the Nazarene monks.
Later, the icon was transferred to Jerusalem, where she also had to stay for a short time. In 430, the wife of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius the Younger, Evdokia, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and from there sent the icon to Constantinople.
For more than seven centuries, the miraculous shrine was kept in Constantinople. But after the capture and looting of Constantinople in 1203 by the crusaders, the icon was again transferred to the Holy Land. Exactly then miraculous image ended up in the hands of Catholics - the Knights of St. John, who were at that time in the city of Acre.
After 88 years, Acre was attacked and captured by the Turks. Retreating, the knights took the Holy Icon with them and moved with it to the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea. Together with the Johnites, the miraculous image did not find peace and traveled around the world. All this time, the knights protected the shrine from the Mohammedans. The icon stayed in Cyprus for a short time. Since 1309, for more than two centuries, the shrine has been hidden on the island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea, conquered by the knights from the Turks and Saracens.
At the end of July 1522, the army and fleet of the Turkish Sultan Suleiman I Kanuni landed on the island and began the siege of the fortress and the capital of the Order of St. John. The knights defended themselves with great stubbornness. Nevertheless, a white flag was raised over the ruins of Rhodes. The conditions for the surrender of the island said: “... so that the knights were allowed to stay on the island for 12 days until they transferred the relics of the Saints to the ships (among them was the right hand of St. John the Baptist and the Cross from a part of the wood of the Cross of the Lord), sacred vessels from the Church of St. John, all sorts of rarities of the order and their own property, so that the churches located on the island were not desecrated, for which the cavaliers, for their part, concede to the Port both Rhodes and the islands belonging to it.
After leaving Rhodes, the knights have been transporting the Holy Items to different cities of Italy for more than seven years; the island of Candia, Messina, Naples, Nice, Rome, fearing to fall into dependence on any supreme power of sovereign lords.
In 1530, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V transferred the islands of Malta, Comino and Gozo, as well as the fortress of Tripoli in Libya, to the Order of St. John for all time. In the same year, the shrines, together with the Grand Master of the order and the council, arrived on the island of Malta, where the Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos finds a new home. The place of its storage was the Fort of San Angelo (Holy Angel), and later the castle of St. Michael - the main residence of the Order of Malta.
In 1571 miraculous icon and the relics of the order were solemnly transferred to the new city. Here, in the capital of the Sovereign Order of Malta, John of Jerusalem, the city of La Valletta, in the Cathedral of St. John, the chapel of the Madonna Filermo was built. In it, next to the Altar, they placed a miraculous image painted by the Holy Evangelist Luke. Since then, the icon has become known as Philermo. For more than two centuries, the shrine did not leave the island, remaining together with other Christian relics of the Order of Malta.
On June 10, 1798, the island of Malta was captured by Napoleon's 40,000-strong army without visible resistance. Leaving Malta on the orders of the French government, the Grand Master of the Order Gompesh took with him the Holy Items: the right hand of St. John the Baptist, part Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, the miraculous image of the Philermo Icon Mother of God. Saving the Shrines, the master of the Order transported them from place to place throughout Europe. So they ended up for a short time in the city of Trieste, later in Rome, and finally ended up in Austria. Here the master deposed by Napoleon, as a private person, stopped privately, hoping to find protection in the face of the Austrian Emperor.
Russian Emperor Paul I c 1798 became the Grand Master of the Order of Malta. The throne of Rome did not prevent this, confident in the help of the Russian Emperor, the only and true Christian Sovereign, capable of withstanding the rapidly spreading revolution. The Sovereign had every right to the title of Grand Master of the Order. After all, he autocratically ruled millions of Catholics of the Russian Empire, and de facto could head the order. This fact was recognized by almost all the secular governments of Western Europe, except naturally for France itself, Spain and Rome.
The decision of Sovereign Paul I Petrovich received recognition from the first among the crowned persons of Europe - Imperat
Horus of the Holy Roman-German Empire and the Apostolic King of Hungary, Francis II. He was the last non-Orthodox monarch who owned the miraculous Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos and other Relics of the Order of Malta.
The Austrian Emperor was looking for ways to ally with the Russian Empire against the rebellious and chaos-stricken France. And in order to win over the Sovereign Emperor Paul I, who had already held the title of Grand Master for more than six months, Francis II forced von Gompesch to abdicate, and ordered to confiscate from him sacred relics Orders that he kept, having found refuge in Austria.
The shrines, among which was the miraculous Philermo Icon of the Mother of God, by order of the Austrian Emperor, were immediately sent by a special delegation to the new residence of the Order - St. Petersburg. Such is the story of their movement to Russia.
Since 1801, the Maltese shrines have been in the Imperial Winter Palace, in the richly decorated Cathedral of the Savior Not Made by Hands. From 1852 to 1919, as ordered by Emperor Nikolai I Pavlovich, all three Shrines were transported once a year from the Winter Palace to Gatchina to the Palace Church. From there, a crowded procession was made to the Pavlovsk Cathedral, where the Shrines were exhibited for 10 days for the worship of the Orthodox people. Pilgrims came from all over Russia and the world. Then the Shrines again returned to St. Petersburg to the Imperial Winter Palace. This would have happened even now if the revolution of 1917 had not taken place.
In 1919, the Relics were secretly taken to Estonia, to the city of Revel. For some time they were there, Orthodox Cathedral, and after that they were also secretly transported to Denmark, where the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Alexander III and mother of Nicholas II, was in exile.
After the death of Maria Feodorovna in 1928, her daughters, Grand Duchesses Xenia and Olga, handed over the Shrines to the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to Metropolitan Anthony.
For some time, the shrines were located in the Orthodox Cathedral in Berlin. But in 1932, foreseeing the consequences of Hitler's coming to power, Bishop Tikhon handed them over to the King of Yugoslavia, Alexander I Karageorgievich, who kept them in the chapel royal palace, and later in the church of the country Palace on the island of Dedinya.
In April 1941, at the beginning of the occupation of Yugoslavia by German troops, the 18-year-old King of Yugoslavia, Peter II, and the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Gabriel, took the great Relics to the remote Montenegrin Monastery of St. Basil of Ostrog, where they were secretly preserved. But in 1951, local Chekists arrived at the monastery - the special service "Udba" (Yugoslav OMON). They took the Relics and took them to Titograd (now Podgorica) and after some time transferred the relics to the State Repository of the Historical Museum of the city of Cetinje.
In 1968, one of the policemen secretly informed about the Shrines of Cetinje hegumen Mark (Kalanya) and Bishop Daniel. In 1993, they managed to rescue the right hand of St. John the Baptist and a particle of the Life-Giving Cross from many years of imprisonment.
The Philermo miraculous icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is still in the historical museum of the ancient capital of the Montenegrin Metropolis, the city of Cetinje, and all attempts by the Orthodox community, laity and clergy to rescue her from captivity are still unsuccessful.
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Lists Icons.
When in 1852 the six-year construction of the majestic Cathedral in the name of the Holy Apostle Paul was completed in Gatchina, a list was made for this Cathedral from the miraculous icon of Philermskaya. In 1923, the Italian government, one of the first to recognize Soviet Russia, turned to Moscow with a request to return the relics of the Order of Malta. Since there were no more Shrines in Russia, in 1925 this same list was handed over to the Italian ambassador to the USSR.
It is known that the icon was kept for five decades on Via Condotti in Rome in the residence of the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem Rhodes and Malta (the full name of the Order). From 1975 to this day, she has been in the basilica Holy Mary Angelic in the city of Assisi.
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On October 25, we celebrate the Transfer from Malta to Gatchina of a part of the Tree of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God and the right hand of John the Baptist (1799).
Ancient church tradition traces the beginning of the icons of the Mother of God to the time of the Apostles. In church hymns, it is mentioned that the Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is one of the few images that, during the earthly life of the Most Holy Theotokos, was painted by the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke, the companion and assistant of the Apostle Paul, and blessed by the Mother of God.
The icon was painted in the year 46 from the Nativity of Christ and brought by St. Luke to Antioch to the Nazarene monks.
Later, the icon was transferred to Jerusalem, where she also had to stay for a short time. In 430, the wife of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius the Younger, Evdokia, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and from there sent the icon to Constantinople.
For more than seven centuries, the miraculous shrine was kept in Constantinople. But after the capture and looting of Constantinople in 1203 by the crusaders, the icon was again transferred to the Holy Land. It was then that the miraculous image ended up in the hands of Catholics - the Knights of St. John, who were at that time in the city of Acre.
After 88 years, Acre was attacked and captured by the Turks. Retreating, the knights took the Holy Icon with them and moved with it to the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea. Together with the Johnites, the miraculous image did not find peace and traveled around the world. All this time, the knights protected the shrine from the Mohammedans. The icon stayed in Cyprus for a short time. Since 1309, for more than two centuries, the shrine has been hidden on the island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea, conquered by the knights from the Turks and Saracens.
At the end of July 1522, the army and fleet of the Turkish Sultan Suleiman I Kanuni landed on the island and began the siege of the fortress and the capital of the Order of St. John. The knights defended themselves with great stubbornness. Nevertheless, a white flag was raised over the ruins of Rhodes. In the conditions of the surrender of the island, it was said: "... so that the cavaliers were allowed to stay on the island for 12 days until they transferred the relics of the Saints to the ships (among them was the right hand of St. John the Baptist and the Cross from a part of the wood of the Cross of the Lord), sacred vessels from the Church of St. John, all sorts of rarities of the order and their own property, so that the churches located on the island were not desecrated, for which the cavaliers, for their part, concede to the Port both Rhodes and the islands belonging to it.
After leaving Rhodes, the knights have been transporting the Holy Items to different cities of Italy for more than seven years; the island of Candia, Messina, Naples, Nice, Rome, fearing to fall into dependence on any supreme power of sovereign lords.
In 1530, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V transferred the islands of Malta, Comino and Gozo, as well as the fortress of Tripoli in Libya, to the Order of St. John for all time. In the same year, the shrines, together with the Grand Master of the order and the council, arrived on the island of Malta, where the Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos finds a new home. Fort San Angelo (Holy Angel) became its place of storage, and later the castle of St. Michael - the main residence of the Order of Malta.
In 1571, the miraculous icon and relics of the order were solemnly transferred to the new city. Here, in the capital of the Sovereign Order of Malta, John of Jerusalem, the city of La Valletta, in the Cathedral of St. John, the chapel of the Madonna Filermo was built. In it, next to the Altar, they placed a miraculous image painted by the Holy Evangelist Luke. Since then, the icon has become known as Philermo. For more than two centuries, the shrine did not leave the island, remaining together with other Christian relics of the Order of Malta.
On June 10, 1798, the island of Malta was captured by Napoleon's 40,000-strong army without visible resistance. Leaving Malta on the orders of the French government, the Grand Master of the Order Gompesh took with him the Holy Things: the right hand of St. John the Baptist, part of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, the miraculous image of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God. Saving the Shrines, the master of the Order transported them from place to place throughout Europe. So they ended up for a short time in the city of Trieste, later in Rome, and finally ended up in Austria. Here the master deposed by Napoleon, as a private person, stopped privately, hoping to find protection in the face of the Austrian Emperor.
Russian Emperor Paul I c 1798 became the Grand Master of the Order of Malta. The throne of Rome did not prevent this, confident in the help of the Russian Emperor, the only and true Christian Sovereign, capable of withstanding the rapidly spreading revolution. The Sovereign had every right to the title of Grand Master of the Order. After all, he autocratically ruled millions of Catholics of the Russian Empire, and de facto could head the order. This fact was recognized by almost all the secular governments of Western Europe, except naturally for France itself, Spain and Rome.
The decision of Sovereign Paul I Petrovich was recognized by the first among the crowned heads of Europe - Emperor of the Holy Roman-German Empire and Apostolic King of Hungary Francis II. He was the last non-Orthodox monarch who owned the miraculous Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos and other Relics of the Order of Malta.
The Austrian Emperor was looking for ways to ally with the Russian Empire against the rebellious and chaos-stricken France. And in order to win over the Sovereign Emperor Paul I, who had already held the title of Grand Master for more than six months, Francis II forced von Hompesch to abdicate, and ordered the sacred relics of the Order, which he kept, having found refuge in Austria, to be confiscated from him.
The shrines, among which was the miraculous Philermo Icon of the Mother of God, by order of the Austrian Emperor, were immediately sent by a special delegation to the new residence of the Order - St. Petersburg. Such is the story of their movement to Russia.
Since 1801, the Maltese shrines have been in the Imperial Winter Palace, in the richly decorated Cathedral of the Savior Not Made by Hands. From 1852 to 1919, as ordered by Emperor Nikolai I Pavlovich, all three Shrines were transported once a year from the Winter Palace to Gatchina to the Palace Church. From there, a crowded procession was made to the Pavlovsk Cathedral, where the Shrines were exhibited for 10 days for the worship of the Orthodox people. Pilgrims came from all over Russia and the world. Then the Holy things again returned to St. Petersburg to the Imperial Winter Palace. This would have happened even now if the revolution of 1917 had not taken place.
In 1919, the Relics were secretly taken to Estonia, to the city of Revel. For some time they were there, in an Orthodox cathedral, and after that they were also secretly transported to Denmark, where the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Alexander III and mother of Nicholas II, was in exile.
After the death of Maria Feodorovna in 1928, her daughters, Grand Duchesses Xenia and Olga, handed over the Shrines to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Metropolitan Anthony.
For some time, the shrines were located in the Orthodox Cathedral in Berlin. But in 1932, foreseeing the consequences of Hitler's coming to power, Bishop Tikhon handed them over to the King of Yugoslavia, Alexander I Karageorgievich, who kept them in the chapel of the Royal Palace, and later in the church of the country Palace on the island of Dedinya.
In April 1941, at the beginning of the occupation of Yugoslavia by German troops, the 18-year-old King of Yugoslavia, Peter II, and the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Gabriel, took the great Relics to the remote Montenegrin Monastery of St. Basil of Ostrog, where they were secretly preserved. But in 1951, local Chekists arrived at the monastery - the special service "Udba" (Yugoslav OMON). They took the Relics and took them to Titograd (now Podgorica) and after some time transferred the relics to the State Repository of the Historical Museum of the city of Cetinje.
In 1968, one of the policemen secretly informed about the Shrines of Cetinje hegumen Mark (Kalanya) and Bishop Daniel. In 1993, they managed to rescue the right hand of St. John the Baptist and a particle of the Life-Giving Cross from many years of imprisonment.
The Philermo miraculous icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is still in the historical museum of the ancient capital of the Montenegrin Metropolis, the city of Cetinje, and all attempts by the Orthodox community, laity and clergy to rescue her from captivity are still unsuccessful.
Lists Icons.
When in 1852 the six-year construction of the majestic Cathedral in the name of the Holy Apostle Paul was completed in Gatchina, a list was made for this Cathedral from the miraculous icon of Philermskaya. In 1923, the Italian government, one of the first to recognize Soviet Russia, turned to Moscow with a request to return the relics of the Order of Malta. Since there were no more Shrines in Russia, in 1925 this same list was handed over to the Italian ambassador to the USSR.
It is known that the icon was kept for five decades on Via Condotti in Rome in the residence of the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem Rhodes and Malta (the full name of the Order). From 1975 to this day, she has been in the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels in the city of Assisi.
The last image of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God remaining in Russia is on the medallion of the Grand Master de La Valetta - a large Maltese cross with an image of the icon placed in its center, on the medallion. It is currently kept in the collection of the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin Museums.
>By the grace of God, in June-July 2006, the right hand of St. John the Baptist and the Baptist of the Lord was temporarily brought to Russia from Montenegro to worship the people. In this article Short story the origin of each of the Gatchina shrines separately (according to the book "Lives of the Saints" by St. Demetrius of Rostov).
October 12/25 is celebrated in the Orthodox church calendar the feast of the "Transfer from Malta to Gatchina of a part of the tree of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God and the right hand of John the Baptist (1799)". Before appearing in Russia, these shrines were the most valuable part of the collected sacred relics of the knightly Order of Malta of St. John of Jerusalem.
In the year 326, the miraculous finding of the Holy Cross of St. queen Elena. Soon after that, by royal command, a new church of the Resurrection of Christ was laid here, which was destined to become for many years the guardian of this great shrine of the entire Christian world. But it cannot be represented in its entirety, as it was when it was acquired. Tradition tells us about many parts of the Cross of the Lord, even in ancient times separated from him and distributed to all ends of the world. The East kept these particles, and the Christian West also kept them. In the same way, Holy Rus' in the 1000-year period of its Christian life more than once received from the East parts of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. She received one of these particles from the West from the Knights of the Order of Malta.
At the same time, with a particle of the Cross of the Lord from the island of Malta, another, long-preserved shrine was transferred to Rus' by the Johnites: the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God - Hodegetria. Tradition coming from ancient times says that it was written by the holy Evangelist Luke and consecrated by the blessing of the Ever-Virgin herself.
During the Fourth Crusade, the icon of Hodegetria, along with many other relics of Constantinople, was taken by the crusaders from Blachernae Church and sent to the West. Transferred again to Palestine, she went to the Johnites. The icon was their inalienable property during all their further migrations, until they brought it as a gift to Emperor Paul.
The gum (right) hand of St. John the Baptist is the third shrine in honor of which a celebration has been established in Rus'.
According to a tradition dating back to ancient times, St. Evangelist Luke, preaching Christ in Sebaste, venerated the remains of the relics of His Baptist and asked the inhabitants of Sebastia to allow him to transfer them to Antioch, where they could be saved from desecration and extermination by the infidels. But the Sebastians allowed him to take only the right hand of the Baptist, which with reverence was transferred by him to Antioch.
In 639, Antioch fell, and with it the right hand of the Baptist fell under Muslim captivity. Many times the Byzantine emperors tried to take her from Antioch, but all their efforts did not achieve the desired goal. Finally, the Lord judged the Christian shrine to be transferred from the city enslaved by the unclean people to the capital of the Christian kingdom - Constantinople.
When Constantinople fell under the onslaught of the Turks (1453), Sultan Mohammed II, who entered it, ordered the right hand of the Baptist, along with other Christian shrines, to be placed in his royal treasury and sealed with a seal.
But to defend the desecrated city and its desecrated shrines, the aforementioned Order of St. John, who at that time had the island of Rhodes as its place of residence, rose up. They not only courageously repelled all the attacks of the Turks on this island, but also began to threaten their own possessions. Then the successor of Mahomet II, Bayazet II, wishing to gain favor with the Joannites, sent the right hand of the Baptist as a gift to the master of their Order (1484). Everywhere, wherever the Johnites moved, churches were built in honor of the Baptist, and since then, along with each resettlement, his right hand was transferred to new churches. The same church was subsequently built by the master of the Order on the island of Malta.
* * *When Malta was taken by Napoleon and the crown of the Master of the Order passed to the Russian Emperor Pavel Petrovich, who had admired the glorious history of the Knights of Malta as a child, the Johnites, grateful to him for his patronage, decided to transfer all three great treasures to his possession, none of which they had ever parted with. .
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The right hand of John the Baptist was the first of the relics they brought to Russia. In 1798, she was temporarily placed in the order chapel, located in St. Petersburg. The following year, on October 12, 1799 (s / n. style - ed.), the other two shrines were transported to Gatchina along with her: a particle of the Cross of the Lord and the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God. All the details of this solemn event were subsequently included in the service compiled on behalf of the Holy Synod for the day of October 12.
To store shrines and accommodate the Knights of Malta, construction began in Gatchina on the outskirts of the palace park of a small monastery in the name of the holy martyr Kharlampy. During the emperor's stay in Gatchina, the palace church in the name of the Holy Trinity was the place of storage of shrines.
After the assassination of Emperor Paul I by the conspirators, the construction of the monastery was stopped, the shrines were kept in the temple of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. In 1852, when, on the personal instructions of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, the Cathedral of St. Apostle Paul - in honor of heavenly patron Paul I, from that time the shrines were transferred annually for ten days - from October 12 to October 22 (old style) from St. Petersburg to the Gatchina Pavlovsk Cathedral to worship the people.
After the October Revolution, the church of the Winter Palace was plundered, but the shrines were saved. They ended up in the sacristy of the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Then, with the blessing His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, the shrines were transferred to Gatchina, to the Pavlovsk Cathedral.
On October 13, 1919, the rector of the cathedral, Archpriest Fr. John the Epiphany (future Bishop Isidore and confessor of the future Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II) took the shrines to Estonia, thus saving them from being taken away by the Bolsheviks and desecrated.
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Then they were taken to Copenhagen, where they were handed over to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. After her death in 1928, her daughters, Grand Duchess Xenia and Olga, handed over the Philermo Icon to the head of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who placed it in the Orthodox Cathedral of Berlin. Bishop Tikhon, who ministered to the Orthodox flock of Berlin, in 1932 transferred this icon and the rest of the Maltese shrines to Orthodox Serbia, the Serbian royal dynasty, as a token of gratitude for the fact that Serbia gave shelter to many Russian emigrants.
The further fate of the revered shrines is as follows. King Peter III Karageorgievich, leaving in April 1941 for Great Britain, handed over the shrines to the Serbian Patriarch Gabriel for preservation. Together with other treasures of the royal dynasty, they were hidden in the underground cells of the abbot of the Montenegrin monastery of St. Vasily Ostrozhsky Archimandrite Leonty (Mitrovich), where they were kept for ten years. The shrines were illegally confiscated by the Yugoslav communist authorities during a campaign to confiscate church property.
Only in 1993 the right hand of St. John the Baptist and part of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord were transferred to the Cetinje Monastery of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. The Philermo Icon of the Mother of God is still in the National Museum of Cetinje (Montenegro).
* * *After the shrines left the Russian land, "copies" of them were made in the Pavlovsk Cathedral in Gatchina, i.e. picturesque images of the right hand of St. John the Baptist and the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God. The priest Alexy Blagoveshchensky made them, he also sewed beautiful robes for them. (Father Alexy served in the Pavlovsk Cathedral from 1919 to February 1938. He was arrested on February 24, 1938 in the case of the "clergymen" and shot in Leningrad).
During the time of the rectorship of Archpriest Peter Belavsky, a donated silver cross-reliquary with a particle of the relics of St. John the Baptist and the Baptist of the Lord. In the 1990s, a particle of the Tree of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord was donated to the cathedral, which is now placed in a reliquary, also mounted on the icon of the Right hand of St. John. So, by the grace of God, the particles of the shrines came to the Pavlovsk Cathedral in different ways...
G. Elfimova
CETINO MONASTERY
Cetinje Monastery is the most famous spiritual relic of Montenegro, annually attracting thousands of pilgrims from all over the world. Such popularity is due not only to the presence in the vaults of the monastery of the greatest Christian shrines - the right hand of John the Baptist and a particle of the Life-Giving Cross, but also to the atmosphere of deep faith and asceticism that has been preserved unchanged since the time of the first southern Slavs.
The first mention of the holy monastery goes back to 1484, when Zetsky ruler Ivan Chernoevich, retreating under the onslaught of Turkish conquerors, moved his residence from Lake Skadar to the Lovchensky foothills. Soon a monastery was also built there - the center of the metropolis.
Presumably, the temple was erected by craftsmen from Primorye, which left a special imprint on the architectural style of the monastery. In the middle of it stood the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, surrounded on three sides by a colonnade. Along the edges of the site were monastic buildings and small church St. Peter. There were loopholes in the outer walls of these buildings, and the entire monastery was surrounded by a moat and a fence of stakes. Some fragments of these buildings have survived to this day.
It then became the see of the Diocese of Zeta. After 1493, the bishop was called the "bishop of Montenegrin and seaside." The monastery was wiped off the face of the earth in 1692 by the Turks, and was restored by Bishop Danila, on a site not far from its former position. On this occasion, a new monastery was built from old stones, and received a plate with the seal of Crnojević. In 1714 the monastery was burnt down and was rebuilt in 1743 by the Montenegrin metropolitan Savva Ivanovich Negosh. It was rebuilt several times, the last time in 1927. The relics of St. Peter of Tsetinsky are kept in the monastery of the Nativity of the Virgin.
The central element of the monastery complex is the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin, built of hewn stone, which houses one of the greatest Montenegrin shrines - the relics of St. Peter of Cetinje and Christian relics of the Order of the Knights of Malta. The church is famous for its rich carved iconostasis made by Greek masters of the mid-19th century.
The treasury of the monastery contains a unique collection of manuscripts and old printed books, as well as personal belongings of Montenegrin metropolitans, church utensils, many of which were received as a gift from Russia.
Special mention deserves the relics of the Order of Malta, whose path to the Cetinje Monastery was difficult and confusing. It is reliably known that in 1799 the shrines were presented to the Russian Emperor Paul I by the head of the Order of the Knights of Malta, and until 1917 they were in the Winter Palace. After the revolution, they were kept for some time in Copenhagen by Maria Feodorovna, mother of Nicholas II, then in the Orthodox Church in Berlin and at the court of the last ruling Yugoslav dynasty Karageorgievich in Belgrade. Second World War forced members of the royal family to leave the country and hide the shrines in one of the remote Montenegrin monasteries. Then traces of them are lost. And only many years later, the relics were discovered in one of the storehouses of the Montenegrin Cheka, identified and donated to the church.
Despite its difficult history, the Cetinje Monastery has always remained a stronghold of Orthodoxy on the Balkan Peninsula, a symbol and cradle of the famous Montenegrin freedom-loving spirit.
The monastery houses:
Hand of John the Baptist
Relics of St. Peter of Tsetinsky (Peter I Petrovich Negosh)
Pieces of the Holy Cross
Epitrachelion of Saint Sava
Crown of King Stefan Dečanski
Various old church banners
Lecture "Filerma Icon of the Mother of God"
On December 2, as part of the Russian Museum: Virtual Branch project, a meeting dedicated to the history of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God was held in the Concert Hall of the RCSC in Kyiv. According to its iconographic type, the Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos belongs to the abbreviated version of the Hodegetria, which also corresponds to the original name of the image.
At the beginning of the meeting, two short computer films were presented: “M.-F. Kvadal. Coronation of Paul and Maria Feodorovna” and “V.L. Borovikovsky. Portrait of Emperor Paul I in coronation vestments.
The first film created according to the script of the director of the Russian Museum V.A. Gusev, tells about the work of the famous European artist of the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries M.-F. Kvadal, who depicted the coronation of Paul I and his wife Maria Feodorovna, which took place on April 5, 1897 in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. This large-format, multi-figured composition is a kind of carefully thought-out and rehearsed theatrical performance and, at the same time, a group portrait of the highest state dignitaries. The painting, which did not find a place in the Mikhailovsky Castle, was purchased by Prince A.B. Kurakin for his estate "Nadezhdino". Now it is stored in the Saratov Art Museum. A.N. Radishchev. The film tells about the coronation itself and about the characters depicted in the picture. An analogy is drawn with the painting by J.-L. David "The Coronation of Napoleon I and Empress Josephine".
The second film contains a detailed story about the portrait of Paul I in the attire of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, received by the Russian Museum in 1897 from the Romanov Gallery of the Winter Palace. The film contains interesting information about the history of the adoption by the Russian Emperor of the title of Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, named after John the Baptist. The presentation of the regalia brought to Russia by the plenipotentiary ambassador of Malta, Count Litta, to Paul I took place on November 29, 1797 in the Throne Room of the Winter Palace. The portrait, executed during the life of the autocrat, in 1800, recalls the solemn ceremonial that set up all the events associated with the Order of Malta, which looked magnificent and sometimes mysterious, with a touch of theatricality and chivalric romance.
The film tells about the work of the author, the outstanding painter V.L. .
After short short films, the topic was touched upon, concerning one legendary shrine, which was assigned both in the West and in the East the status of an apostolic shrine seen by the Most Holy Theotokos. If the question of the apostolic letter is closed in relation to most of the icons, and some are said to have become a list from the icon painted by Luke, then they speak of Filerma by default as the one written by the apostle. The first three centuries of Christianity give us no information about appearance Theotokos, no indications relating to the iconography of the Mother of God have come down to us, and the evidence of the 4th-5th centuries and some a priori considerations, apparently, even speak against the existence at that time of genuine Her images or recognized as such. According to the remark of Blessed Augustine Aurelius (354–430): “We do not know the face of the Virgin Mary, from whom Christ was miraculously born without a husband and incorruptibility… We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was born from a Virgin whose name is Mary… Mary, which is represented in the mind when we speak or remember about it, we do not know at all and are not convinced. You can say, keeping faith, maybe She had such a face, maybe not like that. All the numerous testimonies about the Apostle and Evangelist Luke as an icon painter are of late origin, not earlier than the 6th century.
In almost every description of the Philermo Icon, there is a default mention that “in the year 46 St. Luke sent the image to his native city - Syrian Antioch - to the Nazarenes, who dedicated their lives to monastic deeds.
In the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great, when the Christian shrines of Jerusalem were restored, and material evidence of the earthly life of Jesus Christ and the holy apostles began to be collected, the Filerm Icon of the Mother of God was also transferred to Jerusalem from Antioch. Where the icon stayed until 430. The Greek Empress Eudoxia, wife of Emperor Theodosius the Younger, during a pilgrimage to holy places, sent the holy image as a blessing to Empress Pulcheria, to Constantinople. In the royal city, the icon was placed in Blachernae Church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Here the image stayed for several centuries and became famous for its miraculous power. The fact of the healing of two blind men is known, to whom the Most Holy Theotokos appeared and ordered to go to the church to the icon, where they immediately received enlightenment. After this incident, the image also received the name Hodegetria (Guide).
In 626, during the reign of the Greek emperor Heraclius, during the invasion of the Byzantine Empire by the Persians and the Avars, Constantinople withstood the intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. All night long, many people, together with the patriarch, stood at prayer in the Blachernae church, asking for the help of the Mother of God. The next day was done procession along the walls of the city miraculous way Savior, the Hodegetria icon and the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, after which the patriarch immersed the robes of the Virgin into the waters of the bay. The rising storm agitated the sea and sank the enemy ships, saving the city from ruin.
For several centuries, by the miraculous intercession of the Queen of Heaven through Her holy image, Constantinople was delivered from the Saracens (under the emperors Constantine Pagonat, Leo the Isaurian) and from the detachments of Russian knights Askold and Dir (under Emperor Michael III).
In the difficult times of iconoclasm, the image of the Philermo Mother of God was preserved by Christians from desecration of ungodly heretics. Upon the restoration of icon veneration, the miraculous image was again placed in the Blachernae Church.
In 1204, when the Knights of the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople, they took away the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God among many other Constantinople shrines. The image was again transferred to Palestine, where it went to the knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. At the end of the Crusades, the knights transferred the icon to the island of Rhodes, where they built a temple for the icon on the territory of the ancient village of Filermios, near the city of Rhodes.
In 1573, after the capture of Rhodes by the Turks, the holy image found a new location on about. Malta, in cathedral in the name of Saint John the Baptist. After its consecration, the venerated icon was placed in the Filermsky chapel, where it remained until the very end of the 18th century.
On June 10, 1798, the island of Malta was occupied by the 40,000-strong army of Napoleon. Leaving Malta on the orders of the French government, the Grand Master of the Gompesh order took with him several shrines. Among them were the right hand of St. John the Baptist, a part of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord and the miraculous image of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God. Rescuing sacred relics, the master of the Order transported them from place to place throughout Europe until he reached Austria. From here the icon made another long journey, this time to Russia.
The Austrian Emperor Francis II, who was looking for ways of alliance with the Russian Empire against the rebellious and chaos-stricken France, wishing to win over Paul I, who had already held the title of Grand Master of the Order of Malta for more than six months, ordered that the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God, along with other shrines, be transferred to Gatchina. And in memory of this solemn transfer of the Maltese shrines to Russia, a special holiday was established on October 25: “Celebrations of St. John the Baptist of the Lord in memory of the transfer from Malta to Gatchina of a part of the tree of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God and the right hand of St. John the Baptist"
In his residence, Emperor Paul arranged for the Philermo Icon a new rich chasuble, on which the radiance around the face of the Most Holy Theotokos was performed against the background of the Maltese cross.
After the assassination of Emperor Paul I in 1801, the relics were transferred to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and placed in the Cathedral of the Savior Not Made by Hands, the house church of the Royal Family.
From 1852 to 1919, at the behest of Emperor Nicholas I, all three miraculous relics were transported once a year from the Winter Palace to the Gatchina Palace Church, from where a crowded religious procession was made to the Pavlovsky Cathedral, where the relics were exhibited for 10 days to worship the Orthodox people.
In 1919, in order to avoid desecration from the theomachists, all three relics were secretly taken to Estonia, to the city of Revel, where they stayed for some time in an Orthodox cathedral. Further, their path extended to Denmark, where at that time the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna was in exile. After her death in 1928, the daughters of the royal personage, Grand Duchess Xenia and Olga, handed over the shrines to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky).
For some time, the sacred relics were in the Orthodox Cathedral of Berlin, but in 1932, foreseeing the consequences of Hitler's coming to power, Bishop Tikhon handed them over to the King of Yugoslavia, Alexander I Karageorgievich, who kept them in the chapel of the Royal Palace, and later in the church of the country Palace on the island of Dedinya.
In April 1941, at the beginning of the occupation of Yugoslavia by German troops, the 18-year-old King of Yugoslavia Peter II and the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Gabriel, took the relics to the remote Montenegrin monastery of St. and from there transferred to the State Repository of the Historical Museum of the city of Cetinje.
In 1993, the Orthodox community managed to rescue the right hand of St. John the Baptist and a particle of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord from many years of imprisonment. The miraculous icon of the Holy Mother of God of Philermo, by the inscrutable will of God, is to this day in the historical museum of the ancient capital of the Montenegrin Metropolis, the city of Cetinje.
The listeners of the Russian Museum were presented with an interactive program and a film: “Coronation of Paul I and Maria Feodorovna. Painting by Martin Ferdinand Quadal. The program includes pictorial and graphic portraits, views of cities and buildings, biographies of historical figures and documented descriptions of events and regalia and vestments.
At the end of the evening, a film from the author's cycle of the director of the State Russian Museum V.A. Gusev - "Coronation of Paul I and Maria Feodorovna".
The painting by M.F. Kvadal, opened in the Mikhailovsky Castle of the Russian Museum on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Emperor Paul I. Orthodox traditions and new trends in Europe, demonstrates both the eccentricity of the personality of the emperor himself, and the prioritization and political predilections of the court and Russia itself, characteristic of that time. The canvas by Martin Ferdinand Quadal, which depicts one of the highlights of the ceremony that took place in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin on April 5, 1797, is a unique historical document, being a group portrait of the imperial family and the first persons of the state.
The Philermo Icon of the Mother of God is one of the patronesses of St. Petersburg, along with the Kazan, Tsarskoye Selo, Sorrowing with pennies, Neva Skoroshlushnitsa icons of the Mother of God. This icon stayed for more than a century within the capital of the Russian Empire in the church of the Winter Palace, being the prayer image of the last six Russian emperors, including the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II. We publish an excerpt from the book about how the icon ended up in Russia.
At the end of the XVIII century. Malta was captured by Napoleonic troops, and then the Knights of Malta decided to go under the protection of Russia. In 1796, the ambassador of the Order of Malta, Count Julio (Julius) Litta, arrived in St. Petersburg, where at a solemn audience he asked Emperor Paul I to accept the Order of Malta under his high patronage. In 1798, the Knights of Malta elected Emperor Paul I as head of the order, and on November 29 of the same year, the emperor solemnly laid on himself the crown of the Grand Master. The right hand of St. John the Baptist was brought to St. Petersburg in the same 1798, and the miraculous Philermo Icon of the Mother of God and parts of the tree of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord - in 1799. Initially, they were in the Vorontsov Palace, where the Maltese chapter was located.
Driven by a feeling of gratitude, the Maltese sent a deputation to Peterhof to present the shrines as a gift to Emperor Paul I. The emperor expressed a desire to commemorate this event with a special feast, seeing in it a manifestation of God's special mercy to Russia.
On October 12, 1799, at 10 o'clock, a cavalcade led by the emperor left the Gatchina Palace to meet another procession in which representatives of the Order of Malta were carrying their shrines to Gatchina. After the meeting at the Spassky Gate, a solemn procession began.
The clergy walked ahead with the procession, then rode the viceroy of the Order of Malta - Count Julius Litta, in whose hands, in a golden ark, on a scarlet velvet pillow, rested the honest right hand of St. John the Baptist. Following Litta, the Knights of Malta carried the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God and parts of the Life-Giving Tree. Emperor Paul I walked next to the carriage, in the full dress of the Grand Master; he wore a red "supervest" and a black robe, a Maltese cross on his chest, and the golden crown of the Grand Master on his head. The emperor was followed by Russian members of the sacred council of the Order of Malta: Count Ivan Petrovich Saltykov, Prince Pyotr Vasilyevich Lopukhin, Yakov Efimovich Sievers and others. They were followed by a numerous royal retinue; the procession was completed by many ordinary residents of Gatchina.
When the procession approached the palace, Paul I took the right hand of St. John the Baptist and, with the singing of the troparion, brought it into the court church, where he laid it in the prepared place; the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God and a part of the Life-Giving Tree were laid here.
THE LAST IMAGE OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD
IN HER EARTH LIFE
The Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is one of the few images that was painted by the holy apostle and evangelist Luke during the earthly life of the Most Holy Theotokos. The icon was painted in the year 46 from the Nativity of Christ, and it was the last image of the Mother of God in Her earthly life. In subsequent years, other icons of the Mother of God were painted by the holy apostle Luke, for example, the Kykk icon, but they were all painted in memory of St. Luke. But the Philermo icon, according to legend, Luke wrote, looking at the Most Holy Theotokos, who was sitting opposite, looking thoughtfully into the distance.
The Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos was brought by Saint Luke to Antioch, where it remained for three centuries. Later, the icon was transferred to the holy city of Jerusalem, where, by the will of God, it was to stay for a short time. In 430, the wife of the Byzantine emperor Theodosius the Younger, Evdokia, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and from there, with a special blessing, sent the icon to her husband's sister Pulcheria. Pulcheria placed a priceless image in the newly built Blachernae Church in Constantinople. In the temple, many believers received healing, praying before the miraculous image of the Queen of Heaven. For more than seven centuries, the miraculous shrine was kept in Constantinople. But after the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1203, the icon was again transferred to the Holy Land.
Then the miraculous image ended up in the hands of the Catholic knights of the Order of St. John, who at that time were in the city of Acre. After 88 years, Acre was captured by the Turks. Retreating, the Johnites took the holy icon with them and moved with it to the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea. Together with the Johnites, the miraculous image did not find peace and traveled around the world. In 1530, the Emperor of the Roman Empire, Charles V, transferred the islands of Malta, Comino and Gozo to the Order of St. John. Thus, by the will of God, the miraculous Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos finds a new home in the castle of St. Michael - the main residence of the Order of Malta on the island of Malta. And then the chapel of the Madonna Filermo was built, and in 1571 the miraculous icon took its place in this chapel and became known as the Filermo.
The name "Filermo" comes from the name of the hill Filermo, on which the chapel was built. From the Filermo hill, 267 meters high, a beautiful view of the island and the sea opens up, the chapel of the Filermo Icon of the Virgin is also clearly visible from the flat terrain. The name of the hill, in turn, comes from the name of a monk who came here from Jerusalem in the 13th century, he built a small church on the hill, next to which, several centuries later, the chapel of the Madonna Filermo was built. The village of Filermios was formed around the hill. The church, built by the monk, is today located in the center of the large Philermo Monastery, where pilgrims from many countries come.
In Russia, the celebration of the Philermo Icon was established in 1800, and this day fell on October 12, st. Art., in memory of the transfer of the miraculous image to Russia. In 1852, Emperor Nicholas I ordered to make a copy of the Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. The list from the miraculous icon was completed and found its place in the Gatchina Cathedral. It so happened that this was the only list in Russia from the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God, which resided in our country from 1799 to 1919. In 1925, at the request of the Italian government, this list from the Philermo Icon was handed over to the Italian Ambassador to the USSR, secretly from the Russian Orthodox Church.
It is generally accepted that the miraculous list is written one to one from a genuine icon, but this is not so. The dimensions of the list are 41.2 x 30.3 cm, the dimensions of the original icon are 50 x 37 cm. There are other differences as well.
It so happened that in Russia after the revolution there were no lists or photographs of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God. However, today in some churches of the Russian Orthodox Church there are lists of the Philermo Icon, which is also important: after all, believers who offer their prayers to the Mother of God in front of any of Her icons mentally ascend from the image to the Prototype.
The Philermo icon of the Mother of God in Cetinje is in good condition; throughout its long-suffering history, the icon itself has been updated several times, so the paints and the Face of the Virgin are well preserved. The precious riza is not damaged. The riza is richly covered with gold; on the gold covering the Face of the Mother of God, there is an eight-pointed enamel cross. The miraculous list has a star made of metal, and the riza gives the impression of a helmet. The riza of the authentic icon is adorned with nine large rubies alternating with large diamonds made in the form of flowers. On the robe of the Most Holy Theotokos is a double necklace of sapphires and diamonds, sapphires (there are 6 of them) - in the form of large drops. There is no central stone in the chain of sapphires, earlier in its place there was an earring, granted by Empress Catherine II. On the golden frame surrounding the image of the Mother of God, there are golden angels in the corners. The existing precious chasuble was made in Russia in 1801, after the assassination of Emperor Paul I, who prayed for hours before the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God. Before coming to Russia, the robe of the Philermo Icon was made of silver and pearls.
Unlike other shrines given from the museum in the city of Cetinje to the monastery of St. Peter of Cetinje, the miraculous icon of the Holy Mother of God of Philermo is still in the historical museum. Only one thing pleases - the shrine is intact (for a long time the icon was considered lost) and is located on the territory Orthodox state. Such is the story of just one icon, connected with the social changes that shook our Fatherland after 1917.
Tradition
The early history of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God (before the 11th century) bears a surprising resemblance to the history of one of the most revered icon-painting images of the Queen of Heaven in Russia - the miraculous Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God. Both sacred images were painted, according to legend, by the holy evangelist Luke.
In 46 St. Luke sent the image to his native city - Syrian Antioch - to the Nazarenes, who dedicated their lives to monastic deeds. There the icon was located in an ancient prayer house and was honored by believers for more than three centuries.
In the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great, when the Christian shrines of Jerusalem were restored, and material evidence of the earthly life of Jesus Christ and the holy apostles began to be collected, the Filerm Icon of the Mother of God was also transferred to Jerusalem from Antioch.
The icon remained in the holy city until 430. The Greek Empress Eudoxia, the wife of Emperor Theodosius the Younger, during a pilgrimage to holy places, sent the holy image as a blessing to Empress Pulcheria in Constantinople. In the royal city, the icon was placed in the Blachernae Church, dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos. Here the image stayed for several centuries and became famous for its miraculous power. The fact of the healing of two blind men is known, to whom the Most Holy Theotokos appeared and ordered to go to the church to the icon, where they immediately received enlightenment. After this incident, the image also received the name Hodegetria (Guide).
In 626, during the reign of the Greek emperor Heraclius, during the invasion of the Byzantine Empire by the Persians and the Avars, Constantinople withstood the intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. All night long, many people, together with the patriarch, stood at prayer in the Blachernae church, asking for the help of the Mother of God. The next day, a procession was made along the walls of the city with the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, the icon of Hodegetria and the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, after which the patriarch immersed the robes of the Virgin into the waters of the bay. The rising storm agitated the sea and sank the enemy ships, saving the city from ruin.
For several centuries, by the miraculous intercession of the Queen of Heaven through Her holy image, Constantinople was delivered from the Saracens (under the emperors Constantine Pagonatus, Leo the Isaurian) and from the detachments of Russian knights Askold and Dir (under Emperor Michael III).
In the difficult times of iconoclasm, the image of the Philermo Mother of God was preserved by Christians from desecration of ungodly heretics. Upon the restoration of icon veneration, the miraculous image was again placed in the Blachernae Church.
In 1204, when the Knights of the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople, they took away the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God among many other Constantinople shrines. The image was again transferred to Palestine, where it went to the knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. At the end of the Crusades, the knights transferred the icon to the island of Rhodes, where they built a temple for the icon on the territory of the ancient village of Filermios, near the city of Rhodes.
In 1573, after the capture of Rhodes by the Turks, the holy image found a new location on about. Malta, in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. After its consecration, the venerated icon was placed in the Filermsky chapel, where it remained until the very end of the 18th century.
On June 10, 1798, the island of Malta was occupied by the 40,000-strong army of Napoleon. Leaving Malta on the orders of the French government, the Grand Master of the Gompesh order took with him several shrines. Among them were the right hand of St. John the Baptist, a part of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord and the miraculous image of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God. Rescuing sacred relics, the master of the Order transported them from place to place throughout Europe until he reached Austria. From here the icon made another long journey, this time to Russia.
The Austrian Emperor Francis II, who was looking for ways of alliance with the Russian Empire against the rebellious and chaos-stricken France, wishing to win over Paul I, who had already held the title of Grand Master of the Order of Malta for more than six months, ordered that the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God, along with other shrines, be transferred to Gatchina.
In his residence, Emperor Paul arranged for the Philermo Icon a new rich chasuble, on which the radiance around the face of the Most Holy Theotokos was performed against the background of the Maltese cross.
After the assassination of Emperor Paul I in 1801, the relics were transferred to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and placed in the Cathedral of the Savior Not Made by Hands - the house church of the Royal Family.
From 1852 to 1919, at the behest of Emperor Nicholas I, all three miraculous relics were transported once a year from the Winter Palace to the Gatchina Palace Church, from where a crowded religious procession was made to the Pavlovsky Cathedral, where the relics were exhibited for 10 days to worship the Orthodox people.
In 1919, in order to avoid desecration from the theomachists, all three relics were secretly taken to Estonia, to the city of Revel, where they stayed for some time in an Orthodox cathedral. Further, their path extended to Denmark, where at that time the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna was in exile. After her death in 1928, the daughters of the royal personage, Grand Duchess Xenia and Olga, handed over the shrines to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky).
For some time, the sacred relics were in the Orthodox Cathedral of Berlin, but in 1932, foreseeing the consequences of Hitler's coming to power, Bishop Tikhon handed them over to the King of Yugoslavia, Alexander I Karageorgievich, who kept them in the chapel of the Royal Palace, and later in the church of the country Palace on the island of Dedinya.
In April 1941, at the beginning of the occupation of Yugoslavia by German troops, the 18-year-old King of Yugoslavia Peter II and the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Gabriel, took the relics to the remote Montenegrin monastery of St. and from there transferred to the State Repository of the Historical Museum of the city of Cetinje.
In 1993, the Orthodox community managed to rescue the right hand of St. John the Baptist and a particle of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord from many years of imprisonment. The miraculous icon of the Holy Mother of God of Philermo, by the inscrutable will of God, is to this day in the historical museum of the ancient capital of the Montenegrin Metropolis, the city of Cetinje.
The memory of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God, one of the most revered shrines of the Christian world, takes place on October 25 (NS), the day the miraculous image is transferred to Gatchina.
Iconography
According to its iconographic type, the Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos belongs to the Hodegetria variant, which also corresponds to the name once given to the image.
The miraculous icon is closest to the Kazan Hodegetria, to be more precise, to its list, located in the Kazan Cathedral of St. Petersburg. This is also a breast image of the Mother of God, but without the Infant.
The main thing in the sacred image is the concentrated face of the Virgin, with its subtle features reminiscent of Vladimir icon Mother of God. There is every reason to believe that the image of the Philermo Mother of God, just like the world-famous Russian shrine, belongs to the Komnenos' time.
Lists icons
One of the most revered copies of the Philermo Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos was written in 1852 for the Gatchina Cathedral in the name of St. Paul the Apostle. In 1923, the Italian government applied to Moscow with a request to return the relics of the Order of Malta. Since there were no shrines in Russia that year, the Gatchina list from the Philermo icon was handed over to the Italian ambassador to the USSR.
It is known that the icon was kept for five decades on Via Condotti in Rome in the residence of the Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem Rhodes and Malta (the full name of the Order). From 1975 to this day, the revered image has been in Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Assisi.
The last image of the Philermo Icon of the Mother of God remaining in Russia is on the medallion of the Grand Master de La Valetta - a large Maltese cross with an image of the icon placed in its center, on the medallion. It is currently stored in meeting of the Armory museums of the Moscow Kremlin.
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