100% hand painted icon crafted in canvas on wood with the traditional method of the Byzantine hagiography with gold background.

Virgin Mary Praying

The icon of the Virgin Mary Praying located in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, is the most popular worshiping icon of Eastern Europe. The legend of the Virgin Mary of Aurora (Avgi), known as the Virgin Mary Ostra Brama, goes back to 1386, the year of the wedding of the Lithuanian prince Jagiell with the Polish princess Jadwiga. With their union, the Christian religion became the official religion and at the same time, the two nations were united in one Commonwealth. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, created by the king of Poland and the Great Duke of Lithuania constituted a federal form of monarchy-democracy that elected a nominated leader. On each central gate of the walls of Vilnius that were built in early 15th century, the city residents placed an icon of the Virgin Mary. A century later, the order of the Carmelite monks famous for their loyalty to the Virgin Mary, occupied one of the parish temples at the southeastern gate, close to the Church, known as the Gate of Aurora or in the Lithuanian language as Ostra Brama where they placed the icon of the Virgin Mary. In 1655 after 16 days of fires caused by the Russian army which left Vilnius, an almost destroyed city, the icon of the Virgin Mary remained intact, a fact that increased the faith of the Lithuanian people to the Virgin Mary. In 1711 the chapel where the icon was kept, was completely burned down but the icon was saved by a monk. Twenty years later the new chapel that was built near the gate housed the icon. In 1794 and 1799 the icon remained intact surviving multiple raids by Russians, Germans and Austrians, while from 1671 to 1761 seventeen miracles are attributed to the icon of the Virgin Mary Ostra Brama.