Kostroma-Fiodorovskaya icon of Mother of God

Legend has it that this icon was painted by the Evangelist St. Luke, The earliest mentions of this icon, named after the wooden monastery Church of St, Theodore Stratilates near the town of Gorodets (now in the Nizhni Novgorod Region), date back to 1164. During the invasion of Khan Batu the monastery was burned down, but the miracle-working icon survived the fire and had once again miraculously appeared in 1239. It was when Prince Vassily of Kostroma, the brother of Prince Alexander Nevsky, lost his way during a hunt. Suddenly he saw an icon of the Mother of God in a pine tree, but when he tried to touch it, the icon soared up into the air. On his return to Kostroma, the Prince told the clergy and the people about the icon. Then the people, after having offered a prayer to the Mother of God' before the icon, took it into their hands, brought it to the city and placed it in the cathedral church. The Prince founded the Monastery of the Image of Our Lord Jesus Christ "Not Made with Hands" on the site of its appearance. Later on (c. 1260), the miracle-working icon delivered Kostroma from the Tatar invasion. In 1613, Ksenia Ivanovna, mother of Mikhail Romanov, blessed her son with this icon when he was being crowned tsar. Since then it was a domestic icon of the Romanovs. Until 1917, it was kept in the Cathedral of the Dormition in Kostroma. Feast day; March 14/27, August 16/29.