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Thursday, December 9, 2010

St. Seraphim of Sarov's Icon of the Theotokos


Joy of All Joys

In my recent post on prayer, I mentioned St. Seraphim of Sarov, a 19th-century Russian monk who is said to have practiced a devotion nearly identical to the Rosary. As depicted in the icon accompanying that post, St. Seraphim would pray this devotion daily, kneeling in his cell before an icon of the Theotokos. This Umilenie (Tenderness) icon is very unusual, in that it depicts the Blessed Virgin alone, without her son. In fact, it was possibly not a traditional Orthodox icon at all, but a Western image of Our Lady. This image, which St. Seraphim called "Joy of All Joys," represents Mary's feelings of tenderness at the Annunciation.

With oil from the lampada that burned before this holy icon, St. Seraphim would anoint the sick and they would be healed. He was praying in front of this icon when he died on 2 January 1833. After his death, the abbot gave the holy icon to the sisters of the monastery at Diveyevo. The icon is sometimes known as the Seraphim-Diveyevo icon of the Theotokos, after the convent where it now resides.
While searching on-line for an icon of St. Seraphim to use with my post, I frequently encountered a very different icon of the Theotokos that was said incorrectly to be this icon of St. Seraphim's. One might think that a particular icon that is often depicted in the icons of a popular saint, and which is still in existence in a known location, would be immune to problems of mistaken identity. But in thinking this, one would be seriously underestimating the Orthodox penchant for uncritically believing and repeating misinformation.

This beautiful icon is of the Eleousa type. While Eleousa is sometimes translated, like Umilenie, as "Tenderness," more strictly it means "Merciful." I would conjecture that someone, reading that St. Serphim's icon was of the "Tenderness" type found the most beautiful "Tenderness" icon he could find and assumed St. Seraphim's must be similar. This surprisingly popular misidentification has been appearing in some pretty authoritative places on-line, such as the Website of the Orthodox Church in America (here). But the OCA displays the very same icon here, where it is labeled as the Mother of God of the Pskov Caves Monastery. I think this latter identification is probably correct – I have seen it in other places, as well.

Meanwhile, the only other image of Our Lady I have seen that is similar to St. Seraphim's Umilenie is the wonder-working image of Our Lady of Ostrobrama, which resides in Vilnius, Lithuania, where it is venerated by Catholics and Orthodox alike.


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