Black Madonna of Częstochowa - Icons and Images for Necklace

Częstochowa "Hodegetria" is depicted usually in royal vestments and crowns. The latter feature owes its origin to the reverential attention of the pope to the Orthodox shrine, which, from the 14th century, In the Yasnogorsk Monastery of the city of Czestochowa, is especially revered in Poland and southwest Russia by Christians of different faiths.

The Mother of God holds in her hand a medallion with the imprint of Christ's Calvary. The Holy Spirit in the image of a dove rests on the persians of the Blessed Virgin. These last images are one of the variants of possible iconography, since lists with no such additions are known.

Another interesting feature of the icon is interesting: its lower edge is sometimes separated by an ornamental border with a keel-shaped or semicircular field in the center - it is an image of the wall of the Garden of Eden with the closed door. In the liturgical poetry, the Mother of God is sometimes likened to "a prisoner's heliport".

This image appears in the form of a prophecy of the Mother of God in the Old Testament. The wise King Solomon in his book The Song of Songs, dedicated to the joy that embraces the human soul during the Divine visit, also writes about Christ's Love for His Church. In this allegorical book, the Lord's Bride, under which the Church or the Mother of God is to be understood, is likened to an untouchable garden: "A locked garden is my sister, a bride, a well, a sealed spring" (Song 4: 12). In the Latin tradition, this image is also present in the church art. For example, in the German painting of the XV century there is an image of "hortus conclusus" (translated from Latin, "the garden is closed").

The relatively small popularity of the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa is due to the remoteness of its location from the central regions of Russia. The image is a Greco-Russian princely shrine no less ancient in origin than the glorified royal icons.

According to the legend, the image was originally kept in Jerusalem by John the Theologian, and in 326 was presented as a gift of St. John the Evangelist. Equal-to-the-Apostles queen Elena, who found the True Cross of the Lord in Jerusalem. Under the empress Pulcheria, the icon was placed with special solemnity in one of the churches of Constantinople, the Slavic lands are delivered to the Holy See. Cyril and Methodius. The back of the image is treated as a turn of the icon board: the wood texture is subtly imitated, horizontal "keys" give the design of the product originality.

Suspended icons have a laconic and balanced composition. On the reverse side - prayer. Since the icon depicts the Holy Spirit and the royal crown, it is appropriate before the image to pray for the enlightenment of the mind and heart to the understanding of Holy Scripture. The closed garden, the wall of which is depicted on the icon, recalls the monastic life, therefore the image can be recommended to monastics and, therefore, prone to contemplation or engaged in intellectual work.