On August 21 / September 3, 1903, while distributing alms to poor monks at the Great Monastery Gate of St. Panteleimon Monastery, Monk Gabriel took a photograph and, when he developed it, in a black and white photograph, to his great surprise, he saw the image of the Mother of God humbly receiving the blessed crust of bread.
Monastic archives show that between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Russian monks distributed alms to the needy on a weekly basis. Every week, from the two southern Russian ports of Odessa and Taganrog, where the Athonite farmsteads of the St. Panteleimon Monastery were located, large and small ships with food and vital materials came to the Athonite pier. They were intended for 3,000 inhabitants of the St. Panteleimon Monastery and 4,000 Russian-speaking brothers who labored in various monasteries, metochas, cells and kalivas of the Holy Mountain.
A crowd of poor Syromachian monks and pious wanderers gathered at the Great Gate of the monastery. There is evidence that about 600-800 people received bread cakes - chereks - from the hands of the monks. On scheduled days, people who were doing nothing, drunkenly and obeying no one began to come to the monastery gates for alms. On August 14, 1903, the monastery received a letter from Kinot, which expressed dissatisfaction with the “useless” and “harmful”, in his opinion, alms. The Higher Sacred Administration of the Holy Mountain demanded that the Hierarchy of the St. Panteleimon Monastery cancel the distribution of alms and find a more acceptable and non-tempting form of help. The message, in particular, said: “Alms given in the Gospel are only pleasing and dear to God when they are given in the mind - to people worthy of alms and in need of it.
Given to people who unworthily present themselves as alms-seekers and who rely only on this visit, and for this reason they live here, then such giving of alms becomes a cause of harm.”
On August 21, 1903, exactly a week after receiving the Kinot letter, the monks of the Russian monastery decided to observe the tradition for the last time and give out alms, and only then read the contents of the letter from Kinot to those present. At this time, as usual, hundreds of needy and wandering people had already gathered at the main port in anticipation of alms. During the distribution of chereks, Hieromonk Gabriel took a photograph in which the image of the Mother of God appeared, humbly receiving blessed alms together with other petitioners. Looking at the unusual photograph, the monks immediately remembered the story of the monk Sebastian, who heard from the porters that “one hermit saw a woman several times while distributing chereks.” Some of the ascetics, who also saw the Wonderful Virgin in reality among the wretched monks and alms-seekers, wanted to tell the gatekeeper about this, but on the very day of photographing, no one saw Her.
The Mother of God invariably provided for those who labored in Her earthly lot. At the behest of the Queen of Heaven, the monastery continued to satisfy the needs of the poor brethren: after fraternal meals in the monastery, they organized meals for the poor, and the cellarer gave them food from the warehouse.
At the end of the 1980s, with the beginning of the restoration of the monastery, the wonderful photograph was reproduced with a brief description of the event and distributed among pilgrims. For the new generation of Russian people who suffered from atheistic propaganda, photography served as a factor of reassurance in the existence of the spiritual world, which was repeatedly confirmed by pilgrims to the monastery.
The celebration in honor of the Painted Image was established by the Council of Elders of the monastery in 2003 with the blessing of Abbot Archimandrite Jeremiah on the 100th anniversary of the appearance for the liturgical perpetuation of the memory of the miraculous event. The name “Image in Light” was born during the preparation of the liturgical sequence (the word “photograph” is a literal translation of the Greek elephant “photography”). At the same time, an iconographic image of the fall was created for liturgical use. Based on chronicle records and surviving oral memories, the historical outline of the event was recreated.
The text of the sequence was approved by the Synodal Liturgical Commission.
In 2011, at the site of the appearance of the Mother of God, a memorial chapel was built, into which a source of water was supplied for performing water-blessing prayers. Cases of relief of physical and mental ailments from drinking water from this source have been recorded.
In the same year, on the first floor of the fraternal Pokrovsky building, a paraklis church was built and consecrated in honor of the Light-Painted Icon.
In 2011, an image of a historical photograph on a marble plaque was installed in the monastery of the Athos Icon of the Mother of God in the village. Chopoviki Zhytomyr region.
A similar marble plaque depicting a photographic image was installed in 2012 at the parish of the Feodorovsky Cathedral in Tsarskoe Selo.
On July 27, 2013, at the next meeting of the Holy Synod in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, it was decided (magazine No. 97) to include in the month book of the Russian Orthodox Church the celebration of the remembrance of the appearance of the Light-painted image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was in the Russian Monastery of St. Panteleimon on Mount Athos in 1903.
In January 2015, the original negative of a photograph from 1903 was found while working with the old photo archive of the monastery. This discovery, which took place more than 110 years later, can undoubtedly be considered a miracle, taking into account all the disastrous circumstances that befell the Russian Svyatogorsk monastery over a century-long period of time. Many negatives were lost in the fires of 1968; some ended up in private collections. There was not even hope of finding this relic after so many years of decline.
According to the abbot of the Russian Abbess of the St. Panteleimon Monastery on Athos, Schema-Archimandrite Jeremiah (Alekhine), “the discovery of the negative - the prototype of the Icon of the Mother of God with Light - is the mercy of the Most Holy Theotokos, testifying that the Abbess of Athos favors the Monastery and accepts the feasible feat of its inhabitants.”
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Sschmch. Equal to the Apostles Cosmas of Aetolia, Athos, Albania († 1779, commemorated August 24)
In the world, Constantine was born in 1714 in Aetolia, Greece. His father was a weaver, his mother was distinguished by piety. He studied first in his homeland under the guidance of Archdeacon Anania Dervishan, and then completed his education on Mount Athos, at the Vatopedi School with such famous teachers at that time as Nicholas (Tsarzulia) of Mezovo and Eugene (Bulgari).
Remaining on Mount Athos in the Philotheevsky monastery to excel in spiritual labors, he was tonsured there to the monastic rank with the name Cosmas, and then ordained a hieromonk.
The desire to guide his Christian brothers on the path of salvation and strengthen them in the faith prompted Saint Cosmas to ask for the blessing of their spiritual fathers and leave for Constantinople. There he mastered the art of eloquence and, having received written permission from Patriarch Seraphim II (and later from his successor Sophronius) to preach the Holy Gospel, he began to proclaim it first in the churches of Constantinople and surrounding villages, then in the Danube principalities, in Thessalonica, in Veria, in Macedonia, in the regions of Himare, Acarnania, Aetolia, on the island of St. Maura (now Lefkada), Kefalonia and other places. He traveled on foot, on a donkey or by ship. His preaching, filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, simple, calm and meek, brought great spiritual benefit to Christians. Like His holy apostles, the Lord Himself helped him and confirmed his word with signs and wonders.
Preaching in Albania, in those remote places where Christian piety was almost lost, among wild and hardened people, entrenched in sins, Saint Cosmas, with the Word of God, led them to sincere repentance and correction.