Virgin of tenderness

At the beginning of the year we want to contemplate an icon that we have mentioned in the past on Nuovo Progetto, but which still has something to tell us. Yes, it is indeed her, perhaps the most "famous" Byzantine icon of Mary, the most remembered and loved of her, for the extreme beauty of her face and the sweetness of her gestures, which still speak to our contemporary hearts. It dates back to the beginning of the 12th century, created by the hand of an anonymous Byzantine iconographer, and has become part of the history and faith of Russia since it was transferred from Constantinople to Kiev in 1130. She already arrives with the reputation of being miraculous for having protected Constantinople from the Turkish invasion, and she begins to be venerated by the Russian people, who attribute miracles of healing to her. Twenty years later she was brought to Vladimir (from which she takes her name) and since then her reputation as a bringer of miracles to those who pray before her grows. And she is "used" for prayer not only by the faithful of the people, but also by the armies, by the rulers, by the political authorities of the following centuries, to ward off the dangers of invasions and hostile enemies. Surviving numerous lootings and fires over the centuries. Today it is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

It has recently been discovered through careful documentary studies that this "strength of faith" even convinced Stalin who, faced with the Nazi threat, put aside his aversion to the Christian faith and put the icon on a military plane that flew over Leningrad besieged by Hitler's army, as a prayer of blessing and protection. Indeed, the city did not fall, Moscow was spared and the German army then suffered the great defeat of Stalingrad.

This Mother of God of tenderness, or more precisely of mercy, hides her strength right here. In the love that she bears to that Child, in the love that that Child gives her, in the certainty that the strength of this love can do everything, can do the impossible, can defeat death, can forgive any sin, can resurrect from death to a new life can bring peace. Perhaps this is precisely what we need most today: to believe again in the invincible strength of love, in the indomitable power of tenderness, the tenderness of a Mother, which is the tenderness of God.


Chiara Dal Corso
NP January 2024