Icon of the Virgin of Pohonya

Marian devotion

Where is he?

The icon of the Virgin of Pohonya is venerated in Pohonya, in the current oblast of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. OpenStreetMap identifies the locality as a village; therefore the coordinate of this tab has location accuracy and does not intend to point out the exact altar of the icon. The history of the image is attached to a Basilian monastery and the Church of the Sleeping of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Documented history

The Order of San Basilio Magno presents the icon as an unknown author, painted no later than 1650. The history of his apparition is surrounded by legends, but the existence of a venerated image and of the monastery is part of the institutional memory of the place. In 1736 a new church of sleep was built in the monastery, linked by the source to the graces and cures that the faithful attributed to intercession before the icon. The influx of pilgrims and the golden silver and crowns of the second half of the 18th century show the extent of devotion.

The Basilian source states that a spiritual commission led Bishop Atanasio Sheptytsky to declare the icon miraculous. It also retains the reference to a decree of Pius X of 9 June 1908, by which the main altar of the monastic church received four days of indulgence a year. A indulgence and an episcopal declaration on an image document the ecclesial life of the sanctuary; they do not automatically amount to the approval of all the extraordinary accounts related to it.

In 1946 the Soviet authorities liquidated the monastery and in 1950 destroyed the church. Part of the property was transferred to the parish of Pshenychnyky, near Pohonya. The source tells that several copies of the icon were hidden by the faithful and that one of them, preserved in different villages and finally in Dora, was solemnly taken to a chapel of the monastery on May 26, 1996. The search for the original continued until, in 2001, it was recognized as such another very damaged image that had returned from Pshenychnyky; the identification was attributed by the source to restoration specialists.

After the restoration, the icon was blessed by John Paul II on June 27, 2001, according to the Basilian inventory, and returned to the church of the monastery of Pohonya. This fact sheet retains this fact as a documented act of veneration and pontifical blessing, not as a statement of supernatural of each miracle narrated.

Tradition

The community has come to the image to thank and ask for help. The hidden copies during the Soviet persecution and the subsequent recovery of the icon are part of a tradition of fidelity and custody. Marian devotion calls for Mary's intercession before God; it does not make the image an object of worship.

Legend

The stories about the origin of the icon, the graces received and the identification of the original image are transmitted within the religious history of Pohonya. The institutional source presents them in a devotional framework, but here the distinction between the narrative of the sanctuary, the verifiable ecclesial acts and a possible supernatural test is maintained. There is no decree on a Marian apparition in Pohonya in the consulted source.

Ecclesial State

It consists of the Eastern Catholic cult in a Basilian sanctuary, an episcopal statement of the icon as miraculous according to the source of the Order and a pontifical blessing of the image in 2001. There is no pronunciation of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that declares an apparition approved. This is why the fact sheet records an icon of allowed veneration and a monastic history, without attributing to the Church a judgment that does not appear in the cross-cutting sources.

Anecdotes and stories

The destruction of the monastic church and the dispersion of its goods explain the importance to the community of the recovery and restoration of the icon. The memory of the hidden copies is not presented as an automatic argument of miracle: it does witness the decision of the faithful to protect an image they considered precious. Pohonya thus unites pilgrimage, religious persecution, restoration and basic continuity.

Prayer

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for those who come to Pohonya with faith and tiredness. It intercede for communities that have suffered persecution and for those who guard the memory received. Take us to your Son, so that we may learn to live with hope, truth and charity. Amen.

Sources

• Orden de San Basilio Magno: Miraculous Icons, Pohonya Icon of the Mother of God.
• OpenStreetMap, Pohonya village.