Mother of God - "Joy of all who sorrow"

The icon is one of the widely venerated and frequently encountered images of the Mother of God. Its name is derived from the words of a liturgical hymn – a sticheron in honour of the Mother of God - "Joy of all who sorrow and the Advocate of the wronged.......". The first painting bearing this name was painted in 1683 by Ivan Bezmin, a painter employed at a workshop operating at the Kremlin Armoury. The painting was based on the models of European art, which had a great influence on the Moscow environment in the 17th century. It is not known whether it definitely found its way into Moscow's Orthodox Church in Ordynka, but in 1688, the icon Joy of All Who Sorrow, which originated from the aforementioned church, became the source of the grace of the miraculous healing of Euphymia, the sister of Patriarch Joachim. Since then, Joy of All Who Sorrow icons began to feature the Mother of God surrounded by the sick and needy. Widely venerated and reproduced, the image was popularised in many different variants. In 1711, the sister of Tsar Peter I, Natalia Alexeyevna, with the relocation of the capital to St Petersburg, commissioned a copy of the Moscow icon and placed it in the palace church in St Petersburg. This copy also became famous for its miracles. It was venerated by the tsar's family, aristocrats and simple folk alike. Not only Orthodox but also Christians prayed to it. 

Teresa Bagińska-Żurawska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9243-3967