The Theotokos of Vladimir
It is one of the world’s most recognisable works of art, and a symbol of God’s blessing on all Christian Rus’.
1480
Metropolitan Kiprian and the clergy and rulers of the threatened city of Moscow go out to meet clergy from Vladimir, bringing the miraculous Theotokos of Vladimir on August 26th, 1395. A monastery was founded on the spot, and named the Sretensky Monastery, as Sretenie means ‘meeting’. It was moved a short distance to a new location in the 16th century, and there in 2017, on the centenary of the unhappy Revolution, a new church dedicated to the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church was opened. It stands hard by the Lubyanka prison where so many suffered and died under the socialist regime.
Introduction
The Theotokos of Vladimir is an icon of Mary embracing her child Jesus, which came to Kiev from Constantinople in the 1130s. Not only has it become one of the world’s most recognisable works of sacred art, but on several occasions it has been credited with delivering the Christians of Rus’ from seemingly inevitable disaster.
ON June 23rd, 1480, Khan Ahmet, leader of the Tartar Golden Horde, faced Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow, across the Ugra River, a few miles southwest of the capital. There was a standoff lasting several weeks and then suddenly, for reasons still unexplained, Ahmet and the Horde fled.
Tradition, however, says that they fled because Moscow was protected by a remarkable icon of Mary kept in the Dormition Cathedral, and that this was not the first time this had happened.
Back in 1395, the Horde was commanded by Tamerlane, a Muslim with an insatiable thirst for conquest who saw himself as a new Genghis Khan.* He too had suddenly abandoned what was likely to be a successful siege of Moscow, after dreaming of shining hosts camped about it, led by a glorious Lady. At that very moment, Metropolitan Kiprian and the people of Moscow were shedding tears before an icon of the Virgin and child,* hurriedly brought over from the city of Vladimir.*
Tamerlane or Timur (1336-1405), founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia.
Kiprian or Cyprian was Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus’, but following the complete destruction of Kiev now resided in Moscow. In 1441, Metropolitan Isidore was deposed for agreeing reunion with heretical Rome at the Council of Florence, and after a seven year hiatus Metropolitan Jonas was elected in his stead: Constantinople, still in its shotgun marriage with Rome, could hardly be consulted, though the remaining Orthodox Churches approved Jonas’s appointment. His successors have been independent of Constantinople and styled either Metropolitan or Patriarch of Moscow (not Kiev) and All Rus’ ever since. On the Council of Florence and the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, see Filioque.
Vladimir-on-Klyazma, roughly halfway between Moscow a hundred miles to the west and Nizhny Novgorod just a little further to the east. It was founded, according to the Primary Chronicle, in 1108 by Vladimir II Monomakh, who has an English connection: see Gytha and Vladimir.
