The Abalakskaya (Abalatskaya, Abalatskaya-Znamenskaya) icon of the Mother of God is Siberia’s most venerated holy image. Its name is derived from the Tatar village of Abalak, 30 km away from Tobolsk.

The legend of the Abalatskaya icon tells of the appearance and many miraculous healings from the icon. In 1636, the pious widow Mary had a vision of the Mother of God of the Sign icon, the Venerable Mary of Egypt and St. Nicholas. The icon told Mary to build a church in the name of the Icon of the Sign on Abalatsky kirkyard, with side-altars in the name of the Venerable Mary of Egypt and St. Nicholas. But Mary did not immediately believe the dream. The visions had repeated four times until Mary, fearful, told about her dream to people and Archbishop Nectarius. The church was founded in the same year; in 1637, and the protodeacon of the Tobolsky church Matfei Martynov painted an icon that would later become venerated as wonderworking.

The Abalatskaya icon didn’t survive. The icon was encased in a wooded frame depicting Feasts of the Mother of God. The Abalatskaya icon is small in size – 27.0 х 22.5 cm, the icon frame is 108 х 80 cm. Many copies of the icon were made in the 17th – 19th centuries in Siberia and were venerated as wonderworking.

The Abalatskaya icon of the Mother of God belongs to the iconographic type known as the Mother of God of the Sign. The Mother of God is portrayed frontally, with raised arms and the Infant Chirst sitting on her knees; the image is complemented by small figures the Venerable Mary of Egypt and St. Nicholas.

The icon is commemorated on December 10 (November 27, O.S.) and August 2 (July 20, O.S.).

Zhanna G. Belik,

Ph.D. in Art history, senior research fellow at the Andrei Rublyov Museum, custodian of the tempera painting collection.

Olga E. Savchenko,

research fellow at the Andrei Rublyov Museum.

Bibliography:

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