Workshop of Dmitry Smirnov. St Petersburg
This ancient image, which is now kept in the Monastery of the Epiphany in Kostroma, was discovered in 1239, when it was found in the forests by Prince Vasily Kostromskoi. At the same moment the inhabitants of Kostroma saw some sort of warrior who looked like the great martyr Theodore Stratilates carrying the image through the town. It is from this that it gets its name, Mother of God of St Theodore. The icon was venerated throughout the entire country and became a protector of the House of Romanov after the events of the Time of Troubles. People believe that it was specifically before the icon of the Mother of God of St Theodore that Michael Romanov, who was in the Ipatyev Monastery in Kostroma, agreed to ascend to the throne. It is for this reason that many members of the tsars’ and emperors’ families considered it their duty to visit Kostroma – the “cradle of the House of Romanov” – and pray to the miraculous icon, and why Russian tsarinas and grand duchesses of foreign origin often received the patronymic Feodorovna in honour of the icon. In Imperial Russia copies of the icon of the Mother of God of St Theodore could be found in most working churches.