marian anniversaries     february

February 7

Mother of God "Assuage My Sorrow," Moscow, Russia

In the mid-1600s, Cossack troops fighting for the Czar brought this icon from Shklov in Belarus to Moscow, installing it in the Church of St. Nicholas in Pupyshev in the old central district of Zamoskvorechie. Today's feast commemorates the miraculous healing of Boyarynya, a noblewoman who lived far away. Doctors were unable to help Boyarynya, whose legs were paralyzed. In a dream, she saw an image of the Mother of God and heard a voice saying that she could find this icon, called "Assuage My Sorrow," in the Church of St. Nicholas in Pupyshev in Moscow, and that if she prayed before it, she would be healed. So Boyaryna journeyed to Moscow. She found the church, but it contained no such object. So the priest brought down some old icons from storage in the bell tower. One of these bore the inscription "Assuage My Sorrow." On seeing the dust-covered image, the woman exclaimed, "It is she!" After a Moleben prayer service, Boyarynya could move freely. She walked from the church without help. This miracle of January 25, 1760 (February 7 in the modern calendar) made the icon famous throughout Russian Orthodoxy. When the Church of St. Nicholas in Pupyshev closed in 1930, the holy image moved to its current location nearby, the Church of St. Nicholas in Kuznetsy. The transfer of the icon from Belarus to Moscow is celebrated on September 25 / October 9. 

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