Yaroslavl: the city of the Volga and the Golden Ring

Yaroslavl es una de las ciudades más antiguas y hermosas de la Rusia central. Fundada, según la tradición, por el príncipe Yaroslav el Sabio hacia el año 1010, se asienta en la confluencia del río Kotorosl con el Volga, a unos 250 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú. Su posición estratégica la convirtió en uno de los principales centros comerciales y culturales de la Rusia medieval, y más tarde en una de las joyas del llamado «Anillo de Oro de Rusia», el circuito de ciudades históricas que rodean Moscú al nordeste.

The city was the capital of the Yaroslavl principality during the 12th and 13th centuries, one of the most important political entities in North-East Russia before the Mongolian invasion. In its medieval apogee, Yaroslavl had numerous churches, monasteries and a flourishing trade with the East and the West. The Volga River, Russia's main river artery, ensured a vital connection with the south and the Caspian.

In 2005, the historical architectural set of Yaroslavl was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Its 17th century churches with its golden domes and interior frescoes are one of the most extraordinary sets of medieval Russian art that are preserved. Among them is the Church of Elijah the Prophet, with his cycles of biblical frescoes of great wealth and vivacity.

The holy princes Basil and Constantine of Yaroslavl

The Orthodox tradition attributes the arrival of the icon of the Mother of God of Yaroslavl to the holy princes Basil and Constantine of Yaroslavl, who reigned in the city during the darkest period of Russian history: the invasion and domination of the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan (13th century). The feast of both princes is held on July 3 in the Orthodox calendar.

Basil and Constantine are remembered by the Russian Orthodox Church as pious princes who ruled with justice and stood firm in the Christian faith despite the pressure of the Mongolian invader. At that time, the Russian princes had to appear before the Golden Horde kan to get the yarlyk (the patent of government), an act that many lived as a religious humiliation, as it involved giving pleitetry to the Mongol lord. According to the chronicles, Basilio and Constantine maintained an attitude of dignity and prudence that protected their people from the greatest excesses of domination.

In this context of suffering and darkness, the icon of the Mother of God that the princes venerated became the main spiritual comfort of the people of Yaroslavl. Mary's image narrowing her Son in an infinite tenderness gesture - the type Umilenie- He spoke directly to the heart of a people who suffered and found in the mother of God an all-powerful intercessor.

The icon: description and iconography

The icon of the Mother of God of Yaroslavl belongs to the iconographic type of the Umilenie (Ternura), known in Greek as Eleusa and in Latin as Glykophilousa (the one who loves with sweetness). It is, along with the Hodegetria (the one that guides the way), one of the two most venerated Marian iconographic types in the Orthodox world, and the most loved in Russia for its deep spiritual patetism.

In the type icon UmilenieOur Lady holds the Child Jesus, who turns to her and supports her cheek against her Mother's in a gesture of infinite intimacy and love. There is no distance between the two: the Divinity made flesh and humanity in its highest expression - the Mother of God - are founded on a embrace that expresses the fullness of divine love. The Child, although in a child's position, always has the face of an eternal and conscious being: the Son of God who knows the mystery of his incarnation and redemption.

The colors of the icon follow the medieval Russian tradition: the maphorion (manto) of Mary is dark red or granate, which in Orthodox iconography symbolizes divine motherhood and glorified humanity. The interior robe is blue, symbol of the divine and virginity. The Child wears a robe of golden or orange colors, which reflect the increased light of divinity. The golden background of the icon - the assist- represents the light of God, the kingdom of heaven where the Mother of God lives.

The inscriptions in Greek or in ecclesiastical Slavus that flank the figures identify the characters: IC XC (Iesus Christos) next to the Child and MP ΘΥ (Meter TheouMother of God) with Mary. These inscriptions are an essential part of the icon: they are not decoration, but they shape the theological identity of the image.

History of the icon: from medieval splendor to Soviet dispersion

The icon of the Mother of God of Yaroslavl knew centuries of veneration in the city of Volga. The original image, preserved for centuries in the Church of the Sleep (Ushemky Sobor) of Yaroslavl, was a witness to the religious life of the city during the Middle Ages, the times of the Russians and the time of the Tsarist Empire.

With the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the systematic persecution of Christianity in Russia began. The Orthodox Church was harassed, priests imprisoned or executed, monasteries closed and icons confiscated or destroyed. In the 1930s, the Soviet regime closed the church of Yaroslavl's sleep, and the original icon disappeared. There is no secure documentation of his whereabouts: he may have been destroyed, he may have been lost, he may have been hidden among the faithful to save the image of destruction.

However, devotion to the icon survived. As with many venerated icons of Orthodox Russia, the copies performed the function of the original: the faithful who could not access the matrix image venerated the reproductions preserved in clandestine homes, chapels and sacristies. The cult continued in the shadow, fed by the memory of the piety of previous generations and by the indestructible faith of the Russian people.

The restoration and return of the icon (1998- 2003)

The history of the return of the icon to Yaroslavl is one of those narrations in which Providence seems to thread the threads of human events. At the end of the 20th century, when post-Soviet Russia regained its religious freedom, an iconographer-restorer of the city of Murmansk, in the northern end of Russia, discovered one of the oldest copies of the icon of the Mother of God of Yaroslavl.

The state of the image was regrettable: layers of aged varnish, repints of different times and physical damage accumulated by decades of abandonment had almost completely disfigured it. The artist undertook a restoration process that lasted more than two years. Under the successive layers of varnish and repaint the original image emerged: the medieval colors, the pure line of drawing, the unmistakable expression of the Ternure on the face of the Mother of God.

Once the restoration was completed, the iconographer donated the icon to his spiritual godmother. She, in turn, handed him over to a church in St. Petersburg, where he was venerated for a few years. In 2003, in an act that the faithful lived as a providential sign, the icon was solemnly transferred to Yaroslavl and placed in the metropolitan church of San Teodoro, a few kilometres from where the original temple of the Sleep was. The image had returned home.

The Marian icons of the Yaroslavl: a family of images

The rich Marian tradition of Yaroslavl has produced several icons of the Mother of God that carry the name of the city. Next to the main icon of the Umileniethe Orthodox Church will venerate at least two others:

The Icon of Yaroslavl- Kazan

The Yaroslavl- Kazan icon of the Mother of God shares the June 8 holiday with the main icon. His name suggests a relationship with devotion to the icon of Kazan, Russia's most venerated. This image was popular in the area of the Upper Volga, where devotion to Our Lady of Kazan spread to the cities of the Golden Ring.

The Yaroslavl-Pechersk Icon (Grutas)

The Yaroslavl Grotto icon (also called Yaroslavl-Pechersk) is commemorated on May 14. The term Pechersk (of the grotto) evokes the tradition of icons discovered in caves or underground places, such as the famous icon of the Kyiv Grotto. This type of icons has a special symbolology: the cave, the dark underground space, is in Christian tradition the place where light unexpectedly breaks in; the image found on earth is a sign that divine grace acts by hidden means.

The feast of June 8 and the Orthodox liturgy

The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the icon of the Mother of God of Yaroslavl on June 8 of the Gregorian calendar (May 26 of the Julian calendar, which continues to use the Russian Orthodox Church). The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) includes this holiday in its liturgical calendar.

In the Orthodox liturgy, the commemoration of a miraculous icon has the same structure as the celebration of a saint: the akathistos (hymn of praise for the Theotokos) is sung, the divine liturgy is celebrated, the candles are carried on and the images are venerated. The faithful approach the icon, kiss it and present their requests to it, aware that the icon is not a magic object but an open window to the real presence of the Mother of God.

The troparion (own anthem) of the icon praises the Virgin as the comfort of the afflicted and the hope of the desperate, two attributes that resonate with special force in the historical context in which devotion arose: Russia subjected to the Mongolian yoke, which found in the Mother of God its last and most certain hope.

The Umillennie type and universal Christian spirituality

La Umilenie - Ternura - is perhaps the iconographic type that speaks directly to the human heart. There are no signs of power, no triumph, no liturgical pomp in it: only a embrace between a mother and her son. And yet that embrace is the greatest of the theological paradoxes: the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, embraces and is embraced by a woman created, mortal. Mary's tenderness to Jesus reflects God's tenderness to all humanity.

The spirituality of the icon of Ternura connects with the contemplative Christian tradition of the West. In the Carmelitan, Franciscan and Benedictine mystic, the contemplation of Mary's maternal love is one of the privileged ways to union with God. In the tradition of the Rosary, the joyful mysteries - and especially the Visitation and Nativity - are impregnated with this same tenderness: the mother who visits her cousin, the child who is born and wrapped in diapers, the embrace between the human and the divine.

The ecumenical theologians have pointed out this convergence between the Umilenie Russian and the mystic of the Western Rosary as one of the most fruitful meeting points between Catholicism and Orthodox. Both traditions look to the same Mother, contemplate the same mystery of love and find in Mary the safest way to her Son.

Morocco, the Sahara and the Icon de la Ternura

Hay un hilo de seda que une el icono de Yaroslavl con las tierras del desierto y con el beato Carlos de Foucauld, el ermitaño que exploró Marruecos antes de consagrar su vida a Dios en el Sahara. Foucauld veneraba a la Virgen con una ternura que recuerda a la del icono ruso: la llamaba «Mère du ciel» (Madre del cielo) y la veía como su intercesora más cercana. En su solitario eremitorio en Tamanrasset, rodeado de silencio y arena, la presencia de María era para él tan real como la de la Ternura de Yaroslavl lo fue para los príncipes medievales en el Volga helado.

The Mother of God transcends the geographical, cultural and ecclesial borders. From Yaroslavl to the Sahara, from Moscow to Marrakech, their maternal love reaches all who address it with filial confidence. The icon of the Ternura expresses it with an eloquence that does not need words.