Icon of the Mother of God of Kyiv-Bratsk (Ukraine)

Marian devotion

Where is he?

The icon of the Mother of God of Kyiv-Bratsk, also called the Brotherhood, is related to the city of Kyiv and the ancient tradition of the Bratsk monastery. The original is currently preserved in the collection of the National Art Museum of Ukraine. The map points to the museum building identified by OpenStreetMap, in Kyiv, with coordinates 50.4494, 30.5308. This precision is verified_building: locates the museum that retains the original, not the place of the traditional apparition or a specific room of the collection.

The Orthodox Church also transmits the existence of an exact copy, preserved in the monastery of the Protection of the Mother of God. This is why the fact sheet does not confuse three different realities: the place of origin that counts the tradition, the original today guarded in a museum and the copy that continues to be linked to monastic veneration.

Documented history

The source of the Orthodox Church in America places the image in the church of the saints Boris and Gleb of Vyshhorod, near Kyiv, and date in 1654 the miraculous apparition that is part of their ecclesial memory. In 1662, during the war between Poland and Russia and the attacks that affected the city, the church was looted. The Orthodox account states that some people rescued the icon and entrusted it to the Dniéper River; then it would have reached Podil in Kyiv, where it was collected and taken to the Bratsk monastery.

What has more concrete documentary support is the continuity of the memory of the icon in the property records of the Bratsk monastery of 1807. It also contains a song dedicated to the image, composed after 1692 according to the Orthodox source. The original is not preserved in the present monastery: the source that documents its history indicates that, after the closing of the monastery in 1919, it was thought lost for decades. Later research related one of the pieces of the National Museum of Art of Ukraine to the icon of Kyiv-Bratsk, and the recovery of that identification is located in the early 21st century.

Tradition

Tradition tells that the image floated vertically through the Dniéper and that one of the persecutors was saved by clinging to it. The narrative adds that that man was received by the monks and baptized. These elements belong to the Orthodox devotional account transmitted by the source; the fact sheet does not present them as a demonstrated contemporary observation or make tradition an independent historical part.

The copy preserved in the Monastery of Protection allows that the liturgical memory does not depend exclusively on the museum piece. The Orthodox source mentions four annual commemorations, including on 6 September, 10 May and 2 June. The dates show the presence of the icon in the devotional calendar of that Church, but the ecclesial label of this fact sheet indicates that it is a cult of another Church and not a Catholic approval.

Legend and limits of the record

The expression "miraculous" is part of the language of the orthodox sources on the icon. The existence of the work, its institutional trajectory and its Orthodox veneration are documented. It does not contain in the sources used a Catholic file nor does it apply to this icon the categories of discernment of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is also not stated that each episode of protection, conversion or salvation transmitted around the image can be verified with the same degree of certainty.

Ecclesial State

The state is marked as another Church: the veneration and the commemorations described are part of the Orthodox tradition. This is not a disqualification of devotion, but an honest identification of its ecclesial realm. Christians venerate Mary and can ask for her intercession before God; worship corresponds only to God.

Anecdotes and stories

The history of Kyiv-Bratsk brings together displacement, apparent loss and museum recovery. The passage of the icon through Vyshhorod, the Dniéper, Podil and the Bratsk monastery explains why its name retains a historical geography even though the original is today in another institution. The coexistence between the museum that keeps the piece and the monastery that retains a copy shows how an object of veneration can continue to be studied and venerated without their changes in custody being erased.

Prayer

Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus, intercedes before God for Kyiv and Ukraine. Help us to guard the memory with truth, to respect the Christian tradition of each community and to direct all veneration towards your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sources

• Orthodox Church in America, historia litúrgica del icono de Kyiv-Bratsk (HTTP 200).
• Orthodox Church in America, trayectoria del original, museo y copia monástica (HTTP 200).
• OpenStreetMap way 62805191, National Art Museum of Ukraine (HTTP 200).