Photo: architectural monuments, temples and places of worship, abbeys and monasteries, other places, Vvedenskiy Tolga Convent, Yaroslavl

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Vvedenskiy Tolga Convent: Appearance of the Icon and Its Miracles

Architectural Monuments • Temples and places of worship • Abbeys and Monasteries • Other places

Tolga Monastery in Yaroslavl was founded in the 14th century on the Tolga River as a friary. Being closed in Soviet times, the monastery revived in 1987 as a convent. The main shrine of the monastery, the Icon of the Mother of God of Tolga, is considered miraculous. The history of the icon itself is also full of wonders.

As legend has it, Bishop Prokhor of Rostov, when travelling about the possessions of his diocese in 1314, stopped on the right bank of the Volga for an overnight stay and saw a miraculous phenomenon: a pillar of fire, in the middle of which there was the image of the Virgin Mary with an infant in her arms, suspended in the air. In the morning he saw the same icon in the forest, also hanging thick in the air. Having considered it a sign, Prokhor ordered to build a wooden church at the site where the icon appeared. People started to visit it to worship the icon. Later a friary was formed around the church, but it was badly damaged during a fire in the 14th century. However, the icon escaped unharmed. It is credited with numerous cases of miraculous healing. It is known that Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who had leg weakness, was able to get out of the chair and go on his own after he had prayed to the icon. The grateful tsar presented the monastery with Siberian cedar seedlings and money for construction of a temple. A grove of those seedlings exists here until now. The icon is also credited with saving from drought and an epidemic of pestilence in the 17th century. Many Russian monarchs, including Catherine II and the last Emperor Nicholas II, came to worship the icon. Reborn in 1987, Tolga Monastery has become the first convent in Russia, which opened after decades of religious persecution.

Vvedenskiy Tolga Convent: Appearance of the Icon and Its Miracles

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