OUR LADY OF TIKHVIN, SURROUNDED BY SCENES FROM HER LIFE AND HER WONDERWORKING ICONS

Another huge icon — Our Lady of Tikhvin — was painted by patriarchal iconographers from the Trinity Sergius Lavra Feodor Elizariev and Gavriil Kondratiev in 1668. One hundred and four panels illustrate in detail the Life and Dormition of the Virgin, as well as the Story of the Icon of Our Lady of Tikhvin. According to the Story, created at the end of the 15th century, it miraculously appeared in Tikhvin in 1383, where a temple was built for it and then a monastery was founded. The miraculous icon protected the cloister from the Swedes during its siege in the early 17th century. The icon margins incorporate images representing an ancient legend of the icon’s prototype, the so-called Our Lady of Lydda or Our Lady of Rome.