Theotokos "Prousiotissa" icon

Orthodox icon of the Most Holy Theotokos "Prousiotissa".

Commemorated August 23rd.

The story goes back a thousand years to the time when the heresy against the holy icons, Iconoclasm, was raging all over the Christian world. The Byzantine Emperor Theophilos had ordered, all holy icons be removed from the churches and burned. The Orthodox people were protecting and hiding the holy icons. They put themselves at risk of exile and even death for those icons.

In the year 829 this Holy Icon of the Theotokos, which according to tradition was painted by the hand of St. Luke the Evangelist, was kept in a beautiful church in the renowned city of Proussa. Today the church still stands in the city named Brusa, which is in Turkey near Constantinople. Many miracles have taken place in this Church. As soon as the decree of the Emperor reached the city of Proussa, a godly man, the son of an officer of the royal court, decided to disobey the Emperor's order.

He took the Holy Icon and fled to the mainland of Greece, because the persecution was less violent there. The young man was on his way to the city of Callipolis, (today Gallipoli or Gelibolu.) On his way to the city he lost the Holy Icon. His sorrow was great. Alas, to me the wretched one , he wailed. The Lady Theotokos left me because of my sins. However, he wouldn't turn back.

He could not endure living amongst the enemies of the icons. He continued his journey and settled in the city of New Patre, near the northwest end of Peloponnesus. Time went by, and then one day he heard news about some miraculous events, which happened in an area of Aitola, Greece.