Source: Daily Beast How a priceless Russian icon—said to be painted by St. Luke himself—evaded the Bolsheviks and the Nazis to land in a charming Chicago church designed by a world-famous architect. WILLIAM O’CONNOR The Tikhvin Icon has traveled through history and across the globe on an arduous journey few pieces of art can claim to match. A portrait of the Virgin Mother said to be painted by the divine hand of St. Luke himself, the icon is one of the world’s most precious religious objects. According to legend, over the centuries it eluded capture by the Turks, the Swedes,…
Browsing: Virgin Mary
Source: Mystagogy A Muslim refugee named Ahmet, who was given hospitality from Greece to stay in Thermopylae, has built a shrine to the Virgin Mary there to thank the Greek people for their help, and with tears in his eyes asks for people to pray at this shrine that the war in his homeland will come to an end. It took Ahmet one day to build it with the help of two youngsters. “We came here to escape war and we thank you for your warm hospitality, I cannot say enough about the Greek people and the way they have…
Source: Ahram Online Our beloved lady: Exploring Egypt’s fascination with the Virgin Mary Dina Ezzat The Virgin Mary continues to be a figure of faith and fascination for Egyptians of different religious traditions The festival of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which took place on Saturday 15 August, received unprecedented recognition in the public sphere in Egypt. The festival is celebrated by Coptic Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and many other denominations worldwide, who believe that Mary was bodily taken up into heaven at the end of her life. Throughout Thursday, Friday and Saturday, a number of presenters on Egyptian radio…
Source: Christ J. Kamages The Earliest Known Prayer to the Theotokos The earliest known prayer to the Theotokos (Greek, Θεοτόκος, meaning “Bearer of God”) is a prayer found on a fragment of papyrus dating back to approximately AD 250. In 1917, the John Rylands Library [1] in Manchester, England, acquired a large panel of Egyptian papyrus. The prayer is located on the fragment recorded as reference number Greek Papyrus 470. The prayer appears to be from a Coptic Christmas liturgy or vespers written in Koine Greek although the fragment in question may be a private copy of the prayer. The prayer is still…
Source: adeiladenow RUSSIANS have queued to see one of the most treasured Greek Orthodox relics, believed to have miraculous powers to boost fertility, as the country struggles to reverse a population decline. The relic on loan from Greece and the Greek Orthodox Church, that believers venerate as the belt of the Virgin Mary, arrived overnight in Russia’s northwestern city of Saint Petersburg, where hundreds, mostly women, stood in line to pay their respects. Arriving in Russia for the first time in its history, the relic will remain in the Russian imperial capital until Tuesday, after being flown from its home…