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31-607: Since the Feodorovskaya follows the same Byzantine Eleusa (Tender Mercy) type as the Theotokos of Vladimir , pious legends declared it a copy of that famous image, purportedly created by Saint Luke . In Greek, Theotokos means "God-bearer". At the beginning of the XII century it was kept in an old wooden chapel near the city of Kitezh. It is believed that, before the Mongol invasion of Rus ,

62-515: A copy of the Feodorovskaya . She asked the icon to protect Mikhail and his royal descendants. The young tsar took a copy of the icon with him to Moscow, where it came to be regarded as the holy protectress of the Romanov dynasty . Apart from Kostroma, the Feodorovskaya has been venerated in nearby Yaroslavl , where some of the oldest copies of the icon may be found. In 1681, the icon appeared in

93-415: A dream to Ivan Pleshkov, who had been paralysed for 12 years. He was commanded to go to Kostroma, procure a copy of the icon, bring it back to Yaroslavl and to build a church for its veneration. As soon as he was cured of palsy, Pleshkov commissioned Gury Nikitin , the most famous wall-painter of 17th-century Russia, who hailed from Kostroma, to paint a copy of the miraculous icon. The Fyodorovskaya Church

124-502: A legend that the cap had been presented by the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus ( r.  1042–1055 ) to his grandson Vladimir Monomakh , the traditional founder in 1108 of the city of Vladimir and patrilineal ancestor of Ivan III. In the early part of the 16th century The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir elaborated the legend, which reinforced the 15th-century claims for

155-475: A scrolled gold overlay, inlaid with precious stones ( ruby and emerald ) and pearls, and trimmed with sable . The cap is surmounted by a simple gold cross with pearls at each of the extremities. The main hypothesis sees the Cap as originating in ancient Moscow. One alternative account classifies it as of Central Asian origin (from the ethnological or cultural point of view); this has led some modern scholars to view

186-829: Is a type of depiction of the Virgin Mary in icons in which the Christ Child is nestled against her cheek. In the Western Church the type is often known as the Virgin of Tenderness . Such icons have been venerated in the Eastern Church for centuries. Similar types of depiction are also found in Madonna paintings in the Western Church where they are called the Madonna Eleusa , or

217-686: Is also used as epithet for describing and praising the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. While the Eastern Church does not generally create three-dimensional religious art, Eleusa-style reliefs and sculptures, as well as icons, have also been used in the Western Church. The Pelagonitissa is a variant in which the infant Jesus makes an abrupt movement. Monomakh%27s Cap Monomakh's Cap ( Russian : шапка Мономаха , romanized :  shapka Monomakha ), also called

248-522: Is that, during Vasily's absence in the forest, several residents of Kostroma claimed to have seen an apparition of Saint Theodore come up to the city with an icon in his hands. Since the icon was overwritten several times during its history, by the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 , the image had nearly disappeared. Art historians disagree about when and where the icon was created. Some propose an early 11th-century date; others date it as late as

279-464: The "Moscow as the Third Rome" political theory. The crown became known as "Monomakh's Cap", the term first recorded in a Muscovite document from 1518. However the fact that Constantine IX Monomachus died 50 years before the coronation of Vladimir Monomakh makes the attribution a mere legend. The first version of the orient origin of the Cap (Uzbeg Khan) was suggested by George Vernadsky . Vernadsky

310-716: The Golden Cap (Russian: шапка Золотая , romanized:  shapka Zolotaya ), is a chief relic of the Muscovite Grand Princes and Russian Tsars . It is a symbol-crown of the Russian autocracy , and is the oldest of the crowns currently exhibited at the Imperial treasury section of the Kremlin Armoury . Monomakh's Cap is an early 14th-century gold filigree skullcap composed of eight sectors, elaborately ornamented with

341-477: The Feodorovskaya was found intact on the third day after the fire. The people of Gorodets, at a distance to the east from Kostroma, learned about the miracle of the survival of the icon in the fire. They recognized the newly found icon as the one that used to be in their church. Church legends differ as to why the icon was named after Saint Theodore Stratelates ( Russian : Феодор Стратилат , Feodor Stratilat), not to be confused with Theodore Tyro ). One explanation

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372-548: The Rurikid family, it was customary for a groom to present his bride an icon representing her patron saint. On these grounds, Byzantine expert Fyodor Uspensky concluded that the Feodorovskaya was presented by Alexander Nevsky to his wife on the occasion of their wedding in 1239. If this theory is correct, the revered image of the Theotokos could have been commissioned by Alexander's father, Yaroslav II of Russia . His Christian name

403-560: The Terrible had himself crowned the first Russian Tsar with this headgear in 1547, the Polish king asked Ivan to explain the meaning of his new title. To that Ivan replied that whoever is crowned with Monomakh's Cap is traditionally called a tsar, because it was a gift from a tsar (i.e., Constantine IX) who had sent the Metropolitan of Ephesus to Kiev to crown Vladimir Monomakh with this cap. Ivan

434-612: The Virgin of Tenderness. By the 19th century examples such as the Lady of Refuge type (e.g. the Refugium Peccatorum Madonna by Luigi Crosio ) were widespread and they were also used in retablos in Mexican art . In Eastern Orthodoxy the term Panagia Eleousa is often used. The Theotokos of Vladimir and Theotokos of Pochayiv are well-known examples of this type of icon. Eleusa

465-719: The annual Makariev Fair , the icon was brought for veneration to Nizhny Novgorod . Western Christian women who married into the House of Romanov and converted to Russian Orthodoxy often took Feodorovna as patronymic in honour of the Feodorovskaya icon. Examples include two empresses Maria Feodorovna ( Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg and Dagmar of Denmark ); two empresses Alexandra Feodorovna ( Alix of Hesse and by Rhine and Charlotte of Prussia ); and grand duchesses Anna Feodorovna ( Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld ), Victoria Feodorovna ( Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha ) and Elizabeth Feodorovna ( Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine ). When

496-579: The crown as a gift from Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde ( r.  1313–1341 ) to his brother-in-law, Grand Prince of Moscow Ivan Kalita ( r.  1325–1340 ) during Mongol- Tatar yoke era after the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' of 1223-1241. Boris Uspensky (1996) in particular argues that the Tatar headgear was originally used in coronation ceremonies to signify the Muscovite ruler's subordination to

527-526: The icon mysteriously rose up in the air. The awestruck prince informed the citizens of Kostroma about the miracle he had witnessed and returned with a crowd of people to the forest. They fell prostrate before the icon and prayed to the Theotokos . They carried the icon to the city and placed it in the Assumption Cathedral. A conflagration destroyed the cathedral and most of its icons soon thereafter, but

558-453: The icon was kept in a monastery near the town of Gorodets -on-the- Volga . After the Mongols sacked and burnt the town, the icon disappeared and was given up for lost. Several months later, on 16 August 1239, Prince Vasily of Kostroma wandered while hunting in a forest. While trying to find his way out of a thicket, he saw an icon concealed among fir branches. When he reached out to touch it,

589-636: The image was hardly visible. This was interpreted as a bad sign for the Romanov dynasty. Indeed, the Romanovs were dethroned four years later during the Russian Revolution. Unlike the other great icons of Russia, the Feodorovskaya was not transferred to a museum, because the image was impossible to discern. The Black Virgin was given to the sect of obnovlentsy , which had it restored in Moscow in 1928. After

620-615: The khan. According to Sergey Solovyov (1879) "after the death of Ivan Kalita all Russian princes traveled to the Horde... and the Khan announced the eldest son of Kalita, Simeon, the Grand Prince of Vladimir". After Muscovy overcame the period of feudal fragmentation , and Ivan III of Moscow and Vladimir ( r.  1462–1505 ) asserted his position as successor to the Roman emperors, there arose

651-538: The new Russian tsar . Romanov lived in Kostroma with his mother, Xenia , who had been forced by the regent Boris Godunov to "take the veil" (join a convent and withdraw from public life). At first the nun advised her only son to stay in Kostroma and decline the offer of the Monomakh's Cap , or the position of tsar. She noted that three previous tsars had been either murdered or disgraced. Ksenia blessed her son by giving him

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682-566: The oldest in Russia. The cathedral was rebuilt in 2005. Another copy of the icon has been venerated in Gorodets, especially after the Feodorovsky Monastery was re-established in the early 18th century. A new copy of the icon was brought to it from Kostroma. This image was fitted into a golden riza inlaid with precious stones, so as to rival the original by its sumptuous decoration. During

713-605: The school of Golden Horde filigree had developed. According to Aleksandr Andreevich Spitsyn  [ ru ] (1858-1931), possibly the cap was initially topped with the similar cross of the Jani Beg crown, however account of the German ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , Sigismund von Herberstein (known for his Notes on Muscovite Affairs , published in 1549) does not support that view. After Ivan

744-596: The sect was dissolved in 1944, the icon reverted to the Russian Orthodox Church . It deposited the icon in the famous Resurrection Church on the Lowlands in Kostroma. In 1991 the icon was moved from there to the revived Epiphany Cathedral in the same city. Recently encased in a new chasuble , the icon is still venerated at the convent associated with the cathedral. Eleusa The Eleusa (or Eleousa ; Greek : Ἐλεούσα – tenderness or showing mercy )

775-473: The tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty was celebrated in 1913, Nicholas II of Russia commissioned a copy of the Gorodets icon, which he placed at the Royal Cathedral of Our Lady Saint Theodore, constructed to a design by Vladimir Pokrovsky in the town of Tsarskoye Selo . It is said that Nicholas II could not have had a copy from the original image because the icon in Kostroma had blackened so badly that

806-516: The turn of the 14th century. On the reverse side of the Feodorovskaya is an image representing Saint Paraskeva , a saint whose veneration started in the Novgorod Republic at the turn of the 13th century. Scholars believe that the image of Saint Paraskeva is contemporaneous with the image of the Theotokos on the other side. This dating seems to confirm the Novgorodian origin of the icon, as it

837-427: Was Feodor ( Феодор ) and his patron saint was Theodore Stratelates. There may have been several reasons why the icon could have surfaced in Gorodets or Kostroma. It is known that Alexander Nevsky had a palace in Gorodets and that he died in this town. Up to the 17th century, the icon was little known outside Gorodets and Kostroma. After 1613, its fame spread when the adolescent Mikhail Romanov had been elected as

868-630: Was built to house the icon, with funds provided by ordinary people. A treatise details its construction and the miracles attributed to the icon in Yaroslavl. The church was consecrated on 24 July 1687. After the Communists destroyed the Dormition Cathedral of Yaroslavl during the Russian Revolution, the Fyodorovskaya Church served as the cathedral for the city and the archdiocese of Rostov ,

899-543: Was only in the 15th century that the veneration of Saint Paraskeva spread to other parts of the country. The saint's noble dress may indicate that the icon was intended as a wedding gift to a princess whose patron saint was Saint Paraskeva. According to Vasily Tatishchev , the only such princess known in the Rurikid family was Alexandra of Polotsk, the wife of Saint Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod . The feast day of St. Alexandra coincides with that of Saint Paraskeva (20 March). In

930-570: Was pointing to an interesting fact that according to Paul Pelliot Özbäg can be interpreted as a freeman ( maître de sa personne ). Professor M. G. Kramarovsky, who worked at the Hermitage Museum and was specifically interested in the origin of the cap, remarks that according to the technology of the headgear, the cap originated in the 14th or 15th century - either in the Volga cities or in Crimea , where

961-498: Was presumably not aware that at the time of Constantine IX Monomachus ' death, Vladimir Monomakh was only two years old and he was not the Kievan sovereign yet. The Monomakh Cap was last used in the dual coronation of Ivan V and Peter I of Russia in 1682, though it was carried in the coronation procession thereafter. After Peter I (Peter the Great) assumed the title of emperor in 1721,

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