Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra. †Celibate Foot of the Blessed Virgin Mary
In Western Ukraine, in the Ternopil region, in the small town of Pochaev there is a famous men's Orthodox monastery- Pochaev Lavra. And there are great healing shrines in it, among which is the foot of the Mother of God.
Pochaev Lavra is one of the most ancient Orthodox monasteries. It was founded a hundred years (!) before the baptism of Rus'. In Pochaevskaya Mountain, so named after the village of Pochaev, a cave was discovered in which two pious monks labored. And then one day after prayer they saw the Mother of God standing on a stone in a pillar of fire. After the appearance of the Most Pure Virgin, on the stone where She stood, a trace of Her foot remained, filled with clear water. “From that time,” writes one of the pre-revolutionary historians, “Pochaevskaya Mountain became the village of God’s glory, and the footprint of the Mother of God became an endless source of miracles.” A lot of time passed before the small desert monastery turned into a huge, strong monastery. This happened under Saint Job of Pochaev, whose holy relics also rest in the Pochaev monastery. It's hard to believe, but it's true. In the Pochaev Lavra this great shrine– the foot of the Mother of God, imprinted in stone. The Pochaev miracle is over 650 years old. And all this time there is water in the foot of the Mother of God. It never diminishes and never overflows. The Foot of Our Lady is one of the most famous sources Orthodox Russia. The history of the Pochaev monastery remembers many miraculous healings. On August 13, 1833, one of the many healings of a blind girl was officially recorded here. She was brought up in the house of her grandmother Agafya Andreevna Kaminskaya. It was she who set off on foot to the Pochaev Lavra, leading her nine-year-old blind granddaughter by the hand. Two hundred miles covered in six days. Finally, the grandmother brought her granddaughter to the feet of the Mother of God and washed her eyes with holy water. And suddenly the girl screamed: “Grandma, I see the Mother of God!” The chronicle also records other healings. Captain Nikolai Minin-Savarsky was healed of a cancerous tumor on his temple with holy water from the spring. For six years Tatyana Nikolaevna Meshcherskaya suffered terribly from abdominal pain. Until I went with my husband to Pochaev. After she drank holy water from the Foot, she felt completely healthy. A few years later she came to Pochaev again, announced a miracle and affixed her signature to the truth of this testimony. The Foot of the Mother of God has long been an endless source of miracles, about which one can talk for a very long time. The foot is located in the Assumption Cathedral at right hand from the entrance. Pilgrims can see the Foot if they lean towards a small hole located above the celibate source itself. Since the Foot is located under the floor of the temple, it is impossible to venerate it; pilgrims venerate the image of the foot. And now pilgrims with hope and faith fall to the Pochaev shrines, the Foot of the Mother of God, the miraculous Pochaev Icon, the holy relics of St. Job of Pochaev. The great Orthodox Pochaev shrines console the suffering, heal the weak, and strengthen those of little faith. Pilgrims bring small caps from Pochaev, attached to the relics, to the icon, to the Foot. They say that whoever puts this cap on at night with prayer sleeps peacefully and his headaches disappear. – Is this so? - I ask a pilgrim who recently returned from Pochaev, Nina Sergeevna Goryankina. “I taught my grandson, now he doesn’t go to bed without a hat.” Became calmer, study better start, and most importantly, now, before getting into bed, he will definitely pray to the Mother of God of Pochaev, I brought him an icon as a gift. As before, Pochaev shrines heal blind and visually impaired people. Pilgrims must take with them the holy oil consecrated in the Lavra. They smear it on sore eyes, pray, and read the akathist. And they receive healing. Like the 13-year-old daughter of one of their pilgrims, Antonina Mironovna Trushkina. “I prayed in front of all the Pochaev shrines, asked everything, asked for Katenka. I brought holy oil. Come on, daughter, get treatment. We read the akathist, anoint our eyes with oil, and so on every day. And our vision began to improve; we were prescribed weaker glasses. We will not give up, we will continue to ask for healing. Of course, Western Ukraine is not a distant light. But the pilgrims keep coming and going. And on the way back, someone will definitely share their joy: it helped, it let go, it became easier. Go to Pochaev and, who knows, maybe you, by the grace of God, will increase the number of those who pray before the Pochaev Mother of God, before the relics of Job of Pochaev and the Holy Foot for healing for themselves and their relatives.
Let's cleanse our hearts during Lent! For today’s spiritual reading, we offer you an edifying word from Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko “On the means to acquire purity of heart.” We have sure means through which we can cleanse ourselves and our hearts from all sinful filth. 1. It is a reverent invocation of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. “In My name the demons will be destroyed” (Mark 7:17), the Savior himself said. In the name of Jesus Christ they are driven out of the heart mental demons, sinful thoughts , evil lusts. Therefore, the Holy Church forces us to constantly cry out to the Savior: Jesus, cleanse my mind from vain thoughts; Jesus, keep your heart from the lusts of the evil ones (Akath. Jesus, ikos 11). Many observations show that frequent invocation with faith and reverence of the sweetest name of Jesus Christ in the so-called “Jesus Prayer” can not only expel all unclean movements from the heart of a Christian, but also fill it with high bliss, heavenly joy and peace. 2. The second means to cleanse the heart is fervent prayer. “God will not despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 2.19), says one of those who purified his heart. Holy prayer warms the heart, arouses reverent tenderness and attracts grace that cleanses and sanctifies the heart. Likewise, the Holy Church teaches us to cleanse our hearts with warm, touching prayer, when she commands us to cry out to the Savior: grant me tearful drops, O Christ, that cleanse the filth of my heart (From the Follow-up to Holy Communion). The Monk Pimen the Great gives the following advice on how to deal with tempting thoughts that harm keeping the heart pure: “This matter is similar,” he says, “as if a person had fire in his left hand; he takes water from the bowl and puts out the fire. Fire is the enemy’s suggestions, and water is fervent prayer before God.” 3. Next, constant monitoring of the heart and abstaining from evil lusts and passions. “Son, guard your heart with all care” (Proverbs 4:23), i.e. see, try that your heart is kept from sin and kept in innocence and purity the way it came out of the font of holy baptism. Here are some pieces of advice from ascetics who are experienced in guarding their hearts from all sinful filth: “When a pot is heated from below by fire,” says Abba Pimen, “neither a fly nor any other insect or reptile can touch it; when he has a cold, they sit on him: the same thing happens to a person: as long as he remains in spiritual activity, the enemy cannot hit him.” It is from inattention to maintaining purity in the heart that a person’s moral decline mainly occurs. One of the ascetics (Abba Orsisius) depicts the disastrous consequences of such inattention in this way. “I think,” he says, “that if a person does not carefully guard his heart, then everything he hears is forgotten and remains neglected, and thus the enemy, having found a place in him, overthrows him. When they prepare and light the lamp, then, if they do not add oil to it, little by little its light will weaken, and it will finally go out completely. In addition, it sometimes happens that a mouse walks around it and tries to eat the lamp, but until the oil goes out, it cannot do this; if he sees that the lamp has not only gone out, but has already grown cold, then, wanting to carry away the lamp, he knocks down the lamp too. If the lamp is made of clay, it breaks; if it is copper, then the owner installs it as before. The same thing happens with a careless soul: little by little the Holy Spirit moves away from it, until it completely loses its ardor, and then the enemy destroys the soul’s disposition towards goodness and defiles the body itself with evil. However, if a person has not completely become impoverished in love for God and has reached the point of negligence only out of weakness, then the merciful God, sending His fear and remembrance of torment into his soul, encourages him to be vigilant over himself and watch over himself with great caution, until His visitation. " 4. Physical labor, weakening the attack on the soul of unclean thoughts (voluptuous, angry, etc.), in high degree helps keep the heart pure. They once asked Abba Agathon: what is more important - bodily labor or guarding the heart? To this the elder replied: “Man is like a tree; bodily labor is leaves, and keeping the heart is fruit. But since, according to Scripture, every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10); then it is obvious that we must have full care for the fetus, i.e. about keeping the mind. However, we also need leafy clothing, i.e. bodily labor." 5. Fasting is one of the surest means to achieve purity of heart. “Fasting tames our passions and curbs bad habits, and by vigil,” says St. John Climacus, “the heart is softened, purity of thoughts is observed, obscene imaginations are driven away.” 6. Solitude is also one of the means to achieve this virtue. Solitary living in the desert greatly contributes to the purity of the heart. Eliminating all temptations and every reason for entertainment, it provides complete opportunity to enter into oneself, observe everyone internal movements souls, open weaknesses, see your sins and dangers from spiritual enemies more clearly. One holy ascetic explained this well with the following experience: three learned friends decided to enter monasticism. One of them chose his own business - to pacify those who were arguing, according to Scripture: blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9); another is to visit the sick; and the third went into the desert for silence. The first, no matter how hard he worked, could not stop the discord between people and calm everyone down. Overcome by boredom, he went to the one who served the sick, and found that he, too, was exhausted from cowardice and was no longer able to fulfill the commandments. Then both went to visit the one who lived in the desert, told him their affairs, and asked him to tell them what benefit he had received in solitude. He, after a short silence, pours water into the vessel and tells them: “Look into the water.” The water was cloudy. After a while he again said to them: “Look how bright the water has become.” They looked and saw their faces in the mirror. Then he said to them: “Exactly the same thing happens to us when someone is among people - because of human noise and fussiness, he does not see his sins, but he who is worthy to see himself, his sins, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, is more blessed to see an Angel, of course, because, seeing your sins, you can cleanse them, and by purity make your soul angel-like" (Ancient Patericon)." Help us all, Lord, to spend the days of Lent in spiritual labors on ourselves!
Pochaevskaya Mountain, on which the Lavra is located, is a place of special significance Holy Virgin. Her invisible presence is embodied in several shrines, one of which, the oldest in Pochaev, is the Celibate Foot of the Mother of God.
The attention of those entering the Assumption Cathedral is drawn to itself by a small gilded ark at the right column. Placed behind a low fence, it is like an ancient altar, as if serving for a continuously occurring sacrament - the gracious presence of the Mother of God.
The Ark is located under a large icon case with a bas-relief depiction of what happened here in time immemorial miraculous appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a pillar of fire. It happened in 1240, at the beginning of Batu’s invasion of Rus', when the capital Kyiv fell and was already devastated, and with it many other cities and villages. Tradition has brought to us that many, and among others, two unknown monks of the Pochaev caves, then offered tearful prayers to the Mother of God, asking for Her heavenly intercession.
And then one night, leaving the cave after standing in prayer, the monks, and with them shepherds from a neighboring village, saw the Most Holy Theotokos on the mountain, engulfed in flames like the Burning Bush, which burned but did not burn during the revelation of God to Moses on Mount Sinai (it is necessary say that for Christians the image of the Burning Bush has always served as a sign of the Mother of God). The head of the Most Pure One was crowned, and She held a scepter in her hand. Astonished, the witnesses looked at the miraculous phenomenon, and Mother of God Meanwhile, she slowly rose from the earth to the sky, leaving a trace of Her right Foot on the rock. She stood on the stone for only a moment, but this mark, imprinted into the firmament like soft wax, remained forever.
The people who saw this, the name of one of whom, Ivan Bosy, preserved the legend, understood that the miraculous phenomenon that they saw meant the approach of new troubles to Rus', but at the same time, the intercession of the Mother of God, through whose prayers Rus' would be reborn. They immediately thanked the Lord and glorified the Virgin Herself. From that time on, the footprint of Her Foot began to fill with water, like the footprint of the Foot of our Lord Jesus Christ, left by Him on the Mount of Olives during His Ascension. At the foot of the rock on which the miraculous appearance of the Mother of God took place, the monks built a small temple, consecrated in the name of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary . The rock itself with the trace of the Celibate Foot remained under for another four hundred years. open air, until in 1649 the Trinity Church erected on this site received a source with the Foot. A century and a half later, the Trinity Church was dismantled, and the Assumption Cathedral was built in its place.
It is interesting that, due to the need to enclose a source with the Celibate Foot in the temple under construction and in accordance with the conditions of the area, the builders had to somewhat break tradition and instead of facing the east, turn the Assumption Cathedral to the north.
From its very appearance on Mount Pochaevskaya to this day, the Foot of the Mother of God has been the source of many miracles. There is a legend that in 1607 the Tatars (the Horde had already fallen apart into many small principalities, which, out of old memory, periodically sent their troops to Rus') approached the walls of the monastery, met an old monk going to the monastery, and cut off his head. The murdered monk took his head in his hands, brought it to the miraculous icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, and only then did he die. There was another legend, according to which in 1674 one of the Pochaev monks languishing in Turkish captivity prayed so earnestly to the Most Holy Theotokos that on the day of Her Dormition he was transferred directly in shackles to his native monastery.
Undoubtedly, there were a lot of miracles, but most of them (especially the most ancient) remained unknown to the world. Only from relatively recent times, already distant from the most miraculous phenomenon, have descriptions made by direct witnesses been preserved. The oldest recorded healing occurred in 1664. Then the landowner Chojnatskaya's servant David, nicknamed Haiduk, was seriously ill. Due to many pains, his eyes bulged out of their sockets, and he almost lost his sight. Khoynatskaya asked the then abbot of the monastery to pray for the sick person before the Pochaev Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary and send water from the Foot. After the servant’s eyes were anointed with this water, the disease subsided.
Even those who did not specifically seek healing from the Cellular Foot sometimes received it. A sick girl named Zagurskaya, already near death, asked the priest who confessed her to give her holy water. The priest had with him water from the footprint of the Foot, which he offered to the girl. After drinking it, she was immediately healed. Upon recovery, wishing to thank the Blessed Virgin, Zagurskaya went to Pochaev, where she had never been before. This happened in 1770.
The Mother of God healed more than one illness and more than one grief. The water that fills the Cereal Foot does not dry out. However, now the Foot is hidden from view by the ark, and only its image can be seen on the silk plate that lies on that ark. But still, holy water is collected drop by drop and distributed to the pilgrims.
Video Foot
“...the day was like day, clear, only suddenly the wind blew up - I looked at the mountain, and above it a wondrous light spread across the whole sky. My sheep huddled together, the birds fell silent, and it was as if I was drawn there. The light beckons - I go, I go to him, and he becomes brighter and suddenly I see the Mother of God herself in this heavenly light. I fell on my knees, reaching out to her and praying and crying, and the Mother of God rose above the stone mountain and was all in this wondrous light, and it seemed to have melted in the sky. I looked at the stone, but a trace remained on it and the spring water appearedThis is what Ivan Bosy, a shepherd from Volyn, told. The Mother of God stood on the solid stone for only one moment, but her trace remained forever. At the foot of that rock, the monks built a temple, but the rock itself and the trace of heaven remained in the open air for another 400 years. Later, a church was built there, and now in its place stands the magnificent Assumption Cathedral. It takes your breath away when you see this beauty. In memory of the miracle of goldsmithing the master created a large bronze icon case with a bas-relief of the Pochaev Mother of God.
The very existence of the Pochaev Lavra is already a miracle - not once in its entire history long history The conqueror never set foot on Pochaevskaya Mountain.
Protection of the Virgin Mary
Miracles in Pochaev never dried up. When there were Basilians in the Lavra, people still flocked to the Cereal-Bearing Foot and the miraculous Pochaev Icon. And during the Soviet period, a new saint was even found, through whose prayers the Lord grants healing to the sick. The invisible presence of the Mother of God over the Pochaev Lavra becomes obvious if we recall the main milestones of the monastic history. One of the visible miracles occurred in 1675, when the monastery was saved from plunder by the enemy. Then Pochaev was besieged by the Turks, and the brethren of the monastery, together with the surrounding residents who had taken refuge in it, prayed outside the walls of the monastery, built shortly before under the Monk Job, in front of the miraculous Pochaev Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. And the Most Pure One appeared over the besieged monastery in radiance, accompanied by the Monk Job and many angels. Even the Turks saw them, were amazed and began to shoot at them, but the arrows came back, beating those who sent them. The shocked Gentiles were forced to lift the siege. Since then, this event has been revered in the Lavra along with the appearance of the Mother of God in the pillar of fire and the discovery of the miraculous image of Pochaevsky. The chapel in the Church of Praise is dedicated to him. Of course, a “military” miracle affecting many people is much more noticeable than what happens to one person. But evidence of miracles that occurred through the prayers of the Most Pure One before Her Pochaev image or at the Celibate Foot is recorded in the monastery with mid-17th century century. Healings before the Pochaev Icon did not stop even under the Uniates, and it is no coincidence that Pototsky achieved the coronation of the icon.
Apparently, under the Basilians, the veneration of St. Job continued, despite the fact that he was an opponent of the union, who did a lot to keep the Lavra in Orthodoxy for as long as possible. In any case, in 1777, Potocki even submitted a petition to the Vatican for the canonization of St. Job of Pochaev and donated the amount required for the conduct of this matter. In Rome, the process that had begun was hindered by the works of the Orthodox saint in the fight against Greek Catholicism - no one questioned the miracle creation through his prayers.
More than one page will be filled with descriptions of miracles that took place only at the three main shrines - the Holy Foot, Pochaev Icon The Most Holy Theotokos and the relics of St. Job, abbot of Pochaev. And the 20th century gave birth to a new Pochaev saint, Venerable Amphilochius, and now people are still alive who happened to be healed through his prayers during his lifetime. The Lavra is collecting these testimonies to publish them as a separate book. Among them is, for example, the story of an archpriest who was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1960s. He could no longer sing or even speak. Six months after visiting the monk, with whom he served the blessing of water, Father Joseph appeared to him in a dream and removed something dark from his throat. The doctor, who monitored the development of the disease, could not believe for a long time that the priest had managed without surgery - traces of tumor removal were visible in his throat.
It was different in the 20th century. Locals still remember sad story local party leader. When the Holy Spiritual Skete assigned to the Lavra was closed in 1959, the secretary of the Pochaev district committee of the CPSU, Ichansky, especially distinguished himself. He tore off the icons, threw them on the floor and trampled them under his feet. When the stunned people asked the madman if he was afraid of God, he replied that if God exists, then let him take away what is most precious to him. Returning home, the party chief learned that precisely at that moment when he was mocking the icons, in the chemical laboratory of the Lvov Automobile Plant in the hands of his daughter, who was just beginning her working life and life path After graduation, a flask with acid exploded. The girl died from burns. Ichansky was so mired in unbelief that admonition did not benefit him and he later committed suicide.
About the attempts to close the Lavra, which followed shortly after the destruction of the monastery, there is a rumor that over the Trinity Cathedral there was an apparition of either the Mother of God herself, or the Monk Job. And in the closed monastery for all three decades, until it was opened again, eyewitnesses sometimes heard angelic singing at night.
CURIOUS FOOT of the Mother of God
Anyone who crossed the threshold of the Pochaev Assumption Cathedral could not help but pay attention to the gilded bronze ark located behind a small brass fence near the first column on the right. This place involuntarily attracts everyone's attention. Shrouded in the intimacy of an incomprehensible mystery, it seemed to have absorbed the fervent prayers of an endless stream of pilgrims, flowing here for many centuries. And, indeed, this ark, like an ancient altar, made of thick, slightly yellowish glass with a bronze lid, as if it serves for the sacrament that is continuously occurring here - the gracious presence of the Mother of God. The material sign of this presence is the image of Her Holy Celibate Foot on a silk cloth located on the ark.
This image indicates the memory captured here of the miracle that happened on Mount Pochaevskaya in 1240 - the appearance of the Mother of God in the pillar of fire. Above the ark is a large bronze icon case with a bas-relief depiction of this phenomenon. Both the ark and the icon case are the creation of goldsmith S.F. Verkhovtsev; in 1884 they replaced the gilded canopy that rose above the Stopa in the form of a chapel. Above the icon case are two high mirrored pilasters with silver-gilded crowns with a scepter and crown. And inside the ark there are three unquenchable lamps, the light from which lightly touches the dark stone, closed with a glass door and remaining in darkness.
The Holy Foot... Here, on this piece of stone, the Most Holy Theotokos herself once stood, and the footprint of Her foot was imprinted on the stone. And a visit to Her always does not remain without beneficial consequences: in this very place a miraculous spring arose, inexhaustible to this day. However, the stone itself, from which water constantly oozes, is located below the floor level. He is invisible to bodily eyes. The pilgrims who come to Pochaev, after praying and bowing before the ark, kiss the image of the Healing Foot, and then drink and take away the healing water that emanates. They receive it in silver ladles from the hands of the hieromonk, who bears special obedience here and, according to tradition, is called “stack”. People who come here know: more than once this water has served as a source of miraculous healings from all kinds of ailments. But do they know how this source arose, how the Celibate Foot of the Mother of God appeared in Pochaev, how much and how it helped people?
Tradition says that with the beginning Tatar-Mongol invasion, when capital Kyiv fell and was devastated, when all Ancient Rus' became like a smoking wound crying to heaven, she offered up her tearful prayers to the Mother of God, asking for Her heavenly intercession. The unknown monks of the Pochaev caves also prayed for this. They prayed that the grace of the Mount Athos and the hills of Kyiv rest on the Pochaev Mountains, that the Most Pure Virgin would become the Patroness of the monks and those who resort to her with warm prayer and ardent hope. By grace God's prayer these were heard here. One night, leaving the cave after a prayer vigil, the Pochaev monks, together with peasant shepherds from a neighboring village, saw the Mother of God on the top of the mountain, standing on a rock in a pillar of fire. Like the burning bush, which burned but did not burn, during the revelation of God to Moses on Sinai, the image of which always served as a sign of the Mother of our Lord, the Most Pure Virgin was engulfed in flames: on her head was a crown, and in her right hand was a scepter. Having revealed herself to people with dazzling laziness, she rose from the earth to heaven, leaving the imprint of her right Foot on the rock. And then the monks and shepherds understood (tradition preserved the name of one of the latter - Ivan Bosyi) that the appearance of the Mother of God in the pillar of fire meant the approach of new disasters, from which Volyn and all of Rus' would suffer as if in flames, but through the prayers and intercession of the Mother of God she would survive will be reborn.
Immediately, with fervent prayer, they thanked God, who had given them the miraculous appearance of the Mother of God, and glorified the Virgin who appeared to them, leaving the trace of Her Foot. For from that time on the Foot began to fill with water. Only for one moment did the Mother of God stand on the hard stone, but the trace of Her foot, imprinted on it as if on soft wax, remained forever. (A similar tradition exists about our Lord Jesus Christ: at His ascension, our Savior left His footprints on the Mount of Olives). The miraculous appearance of the Mother of God on Mount Pochaev was in 1240 from the Nativity of Christ.
Soon after this event, at the foot of the rock on which the Mother of God appeared, the monks built a small temple in the name of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But the rock itself, as well as the trace of the Celibate Foot on it, remained in the open air for another four hundred years. Only since 1649, when a church in the name of Holy Trinity, The Foot of the Virgin Mary, together with the source, finally ended up in the temple. Now on the site of this temple stands another - the magnificent Assumption Cathedral, and its builders, only in order to enclose this shrine inside the cathedral, in accordance with the conditions of the area, somewhat violated the traditional principle of temple construction: the cathedral is not facing east, as required by the Charter, but, rather, to the north.
From the very first days of its appearance on Mount Pochaev and to this day, the Foot of the Mother of God has been the source of many miracles. Most of them probably remained unknown to the world, and their mystery disappeared along with those who saw, experienced or witnessed their power. But many remained imprinted on us as visible signs of the “great and rich” mercy of the Queen of Heaven, and that is why the memory of unusual healings and miracles shown to us is so important for us. IN in this case testimonies about them, coming from the healed themselves, have reached us from relatively recent times, already centuries removed from the very appearance of the Mother of God. But they are all the more precious as another reminder that even after centuries Her mercy and favor do not dry up.
The oldest of the attested and recorded healings, the source of which was the Holy Foot of the Mother of God, occurred in 1664. One landowner, by the name of Khoynatskaya, had a servant whose name was David, nicknamed Haiduk. For a long time he suffered severe pain throughout his body, and especially in his head. The pain caused his eyes to pop out of their sockets, and he almost lost his sight. Feeling sorry for her servant, Chojnatskaya (probably having more than once recalled the Gospel story about the centurion and his servant) asked the then Abbot of Pochaevskaya to pray for the sick man in front of Pochaevskaya miraculous icon Mother of God and send water from the Holy Foot to anoint his eyes. As soon as this was done, his illness passed.
A century later, in 1763, one Volyn priest Gregory Beletsky twice received miraculous help: first he had a severe abscess on his chest, which opened only after he anointed him healing water. But then the disease suddenly returned and in a much more severe form: he developed a new abscess, now inside his body. Due to pain and weakness, the patient could not go to Nechaev on his own; he had to be taken. However, already halfway there (Fr. Beletsky wanted to arrive in Pochaev for the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God), he felt some relief and even managed to independently enter the temple and reach the Cereal Foot. Having thanked the Mother of God for this first sign of mercy, he again drank the Healing Water, and at home he washed his entire body with it. After this, the pain suddenly decreased, the swelling began to subside, and soon he completely recovered.
Records have reached us that say that not only people who were looking for healings received them, but also those who were initially looking for them will receive them as if by secret mercy given by the Queen of Heaven. In 1770, one sick girl named Zagurskaya, already on her deathbed, asked the priest who was accepting her confession to give her holy water. The priest gave her water from the Foot of the Mother of God, and after drinking it the sick woman recovered, and then went to Pochaev to thank the Blessed Virgin. Finding herself in a temple that she had never been to before, she directly approached the Holy Foot and declared that the water taken here brought her healing.
In 1780, a woman living in the vicinity of Pochaev had a three-year-old child die. One night, after a long and fervent prayer to the Mother of God, she fell asleep and in a dream saw a certain old man who told her: “Why are you crying and screaming? The medicine is in your house.”
Waking up, the woman hardly remembered that she had some water left from the Cereal Foot. She poured a few drops into the patient’s mouth and fell asleep again. And again she saw the same old man in a dream, and he now said to her: “Get up, your son is healthy.” And, indeed, when she woke up, the child was sitting on the bed and asking for food. A few days later his illness was over.
In 1832, one bourgeois woman from Kamenets-Podolsk brought her nine-year-old granddaughter to Pochaev, who had lost her sight at the age of one after suffering from smallpox. They walked for six days to venerate the Pochaev shrines, and when they arrived, the girl, on the advice good people anointed her eyes with holy water. When both of them then moved away from Ogona to the middle of the church, the sick woman suddenly exclaimed, crying with joy: “Oh, grandmother! I see the Mother of God with both eyes!” The girl became sighted.
The Mother of God healed more than one illness and more than one grief, and it is impossible to tell about every case. Let’s just say that this help was received by noble and ignorant people, old people and children, Orthodox Christians and even Christians of other confessions, everyone who came to the Holy Foot with faith, hope and fervent prayer, everyone to whom, according to the ineffable Providence of God, help should have been sent . And today, as hundreds of years ago, with the same prayer and faith, people come here with their needs and petitions, with everything that is in their hearts, sometimes overcoming great distances to touch the shrine, drink this water, healing tea for Mount Pochaev, seeking the blessing of the Blessed Virgin, Her protection and intercession. That’s why human gratitude never runs out, expressed in words Akathist, which for a hundred years now has been conciliarly served on Sundays by the monastery brethren, headed by the vicar, before the Holy Celibate Foot:
“We sing of all your ineffable condescension, O Pure Virgin: as from the heights of heaven you descended onto your holy mountain, pouring out water from the stone for us, and with its healing power you have gloriously glorified throughout the world.”
This happened in the village of Lipovaya Koloda, Kolodishchansky village council, which is 16 kilometers from Minsk. It is there that the stone with the imprint is protected today right leg human found in the Gomel region. The stone was given to the rector of the Uruchan parish in honor of the Cathedral of Belarusian Saints, Priest Alexander Veremeychik, by the Old Believers of one of the farms not far from Vetka, fearing that the relic would be lost in the forest or would be bulldozed into a ravine. They reported that, according to ancient legend, the mark on the boulder belongs to the Mother of God. They say that it was brought by their ancestors from Siberia several centuries ago and all this time was secretly revered in a specially built chapel, but there are very few Old Believers left in their area (about this story “ People's newspaper” told on January 12, 2007).
After examining the stone and praying intently at it, Metropolitan Philaret made a conclusion: this is undoubtedly a shrine. At the same time, he refrained from directly stating that the footprint on the boulder was definitely left by the Mother of God. The fact is that Orthodoxy has long had an approach to relics of this kind: their divinity is the subject of a person’s personal faith. Let everyone look for themselves, pray and feel the grace in their souls.
The Metropolitan gave his blessing to build a temple with a bathhouse in Lipovaya Koloda - in his opinion, prayers should be offered here unceasingly. The design should be such that “the shrine is hidden,” that is, so that it is visible, but not accessible.
According to the parish rector, miracles have been happening to the stone for a long time. After prayers near him, he sometimes changes color - from gray, nondescript it becomes bright, pinkish; sometimes it makes you feel warm. One 43-year-old woman told the abbot that some time after fervently praying to the Mother of God at this place, she was finally able to get pregnant, although she had been treated for infertility all her life, but nothing helped. Another woman told Father Alexander that after she washed her face and eyes with water from a stone footprint, her sight was restored to her blind eye with a cataract.
The depression on the stone is from a woman's or child's foot, size 36-37, with a very clear imprint. Some even see wrinkles on the foot, as if a bare foot stepped on clay, after which it hardened, or as if a stone had melted under the foot of an unearthly creature. For Christians, this is a kind of icon - evidence of the presence of the Most Pure One on Earth and a reminder of the Gospel prophecy that the Mother of God “will be blessed by all nations.” According to Orthodox teaching, the Mother of God spends more time on earth than in heaven, helping people.
There is a similar relic in the Pochaev Lavra in Ukraine, the so-called Pochaev stack. Perhaps over time, Lipovaya Koloda - today an ordinary village, lost in the forest, in which only 14 families live, will also turn into a major pilgrimage center.