In iconography, there are several types of icons of the Virgin. Hodegetria is considered one of the most common icon-painting types. This type includes one of the most revered icons of the Mother of God - the image of the Iveron Mother of God.
Christian tradition has preserved to us information that the first icon painter of the face of the Mother of God was the holy apostle and evangelist Luke. It is assumed that the icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Iver was painted by him. At present, this holy miraculous image is located on Mount Athos above the gates of the Iversky Monastery (this location of the icon was the reason for naming the image as a goalkeeper).
The story of the appearance of the image on Mount Athos dates back to the time of iconoclasm (IX century). This period in Byzantium was marked by the struggle of the authorities with any manifestations of icon painting both in churches and in the homes of believers. For icon worship, many Christians suffered oppression and persecution, and the icons themselves were seized and burned. In the IX century, the image, now called Iversky, was in the house of a pious woman living near Nicaea. During the period of the iconoclastic heresy, for the salvation of the holy icon, the Christian lowered the holy image into the sea.
Two centuries later, the monks of the Georgian Iveron Monastery of Athos saw the precarious image of the Mother of God at sea. A pillar of fire rose from the icon. Rev. Elder Gabriel the Holy Mountaineer had a vision of the Virgin, in which the Virgin Mary ordered the monk to go along the waters and bring the holy image to the monastery. The elder fulfilled the instructions of the Mother of God.
The holy icon was first placed in the temple, but at night, in a surprising way, the shrine itself was over the gates of the monastery. The icon was again brought to the temple, but in the morning the image again remained above the gate. This went on several times. In this miracle, the monks realized that the location of the icon should be located exactly above the gates to the holy Georgian monastery.
Currently, there is a legend that before the advent of the world of Antichrist, the icon of the Mother of God of Iversk herself will leave the monastery.
A special reverential veneration of the Iveron Icon of the Virgin was expressed in writing numerous lists from the prototype. Some of the lists have become miraculous. Among the most famous lists from the Iveron icon is the image of the Montreal Iveron icon, written by a Greek monk in 1981. The image has been streaming for 15 years.
In Russia, there are also revered lists of the Iveron Icon: the image of the Virgin in the Novodevichy Convent of Moscow (in turn, a list of this icon is in the Iverskaya Chapel in Moscow), the image of the Iveron Icon of the New Jerusalem Monastery, the Nizhny Novgorod image and several others.
Memorial days of the Iveron Icon of the Virgin: Sunday of the Bright Week, February 25th (listing to the Valdai Monastery), October 26th (meeting the list for Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1648), May 6th (second finding of the list of the image of the Novodevichyev Monastery in 2012). Also, some church calendars indicate the date of the appearance of the original image of the Athos monks at sea on April 13th.
