Mount Athos is known as the "Garden of Virgin Mary". As the place where the Most Holy Theotokos is honored, as the place where she appears, acts and rests, as "the conceivable and most beautiful Paradise of Theotokos". According to the tradition, Mount Athos was given as a heritage to the Virgin Mary by the Lord himself: "Let this place be a heritage and its surroundings be Paradise, and a port of salvation for those who want to be saved".
The Holy Belt of Theotokos is the only heirloom that is preserved from its terrestrial life and a part of it is kept in the Vatopedi Monastery. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary herself made the Belt of camel hair. After her Metamorphosis and the delivery of the Belt to Apostle Thomas, two poor pious women from Jerusalem undertook the responsibility of its preservation. This continued from generation to generation with gentle virgins coming from this family. The Byzantine Emperor Arkadios transferred the Belt to Constantinople and placed it in a reliquary called \"Agia Soro\".
At the time that Leo the Great (A.D. 457-474) was king, saint Andrew the Fool-for-Christ lived in Constantinople. A night οf vigil in the temple of Our Lady of Blachernae, Saint Andreas, together with his student Epiphanius, who later became a patriarch of Constantinople (520-536 AD), saw the Holy Mother of God clearly visible, coming from the central gate of the temple. On the side of Holy Mother of God was a multitude of angels, and the virgins John the Forerunner and John the Theologian.
The miraculous icon of the Virgin Eleousa was hiding at a depth of one and a half meters under the ground over centuries, and found in a miraculous way. The Holy Mother of God appeared in the eight-year-old Athanasios Syros, while he was playing with other children on a hillside. She appeared to him as an unknown-dressed in black-woman barefoot, to make repentance. Αlthough that the surrounding was dry, it became soft and sank like the dough, with the repentance that this unknown dressed in black woman made. At the three points where the woman worshiped, the place began to produce a sweet sense. However, no one believed what the little Athanasios experienced.
About 450 AD a Byzantine soldier called Leon was in a forest, when he saw a blind man in front of him asking for some water to quench. Leo was willing to search and bring him water. So, he was searching in the forest for a long time to find some source of water but in vain. So, he returned sad. Suddenly, he heard a woman\'s voice telling him: \"No need, Leo, to agonize, to be angry, to be sad, the water is beside you.\" And after a while he listened to the unknown voice commanding him: \"Leo King, take this water and let the blind man drink and quench, and one more thing, smear his eyes with this and you will soon understand who is the voice that is talking to you.\" That\'s what Leo did, and then the blind man found his light. At the same time, Leo\'s eyes were opened, and he realized that the voice that spoke to him was of the Virgin Mary and that the great miracle of the healing of the blind was due to her.
The fact of the incarnation of the Jesus Christ by the Virgin Mary and the iconography of the Virgin Mary with Jesus Christ in Her bosom, gave the name to the homonymous image of \"Land of Non Land\". Of course, this theological fact is revealed in the hymnology of our Church before iconography. Thus, Saint Romanos the Melodus, shares his well-known hymns in the Birth of Christ: \"The one that is not build by material resource and the one that does not occupy space, He is now born and exists and occupies space\".
The miraculous image of the Virgin Mary of Jerusalem is pictured in 1870 AD, in a miraculous way. At that time, there was an hagiographer nun named Tatiani at the Russian Holy Monastery of the Myrrh of St. Mary of Magdalene, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, opposite Jerusalem. One night, as she slept, she saw in vision that an unknown nun had visited her cell, telling her: \"Sister Tatiani, I came to paint m.\" Tatiani replied: \"Bless, sister, but I am a hagiographer and not a painter.\" Then the woman responded: \"Then create a hagiography of me\".
One of the most pious Christian virtues of all Cypriots is the worship of the Virgin Mary, in honour of which, dedicated to the magnificent monastery of Kykkos, which was founded at the end of the 11th century. There, the Byzantines carried the apostolic and miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary, which was named \"Kykkiotisa\". The monastery of Kykkos was chosen as the \"Residence of the Virgin Mary\" of Kykkiotissa, where at times it appears in the visible world through the miracles, assuring her presence among us.
The image of the Virgin Mary with the Seven Spades, four on the left and three on the right, relates to the prophecy of Saint Simeon the Theodochus, recorded by the Evangelist Luke: \"...and the pain, go through your heart, as a stabbing sword...\" (Luke. 2.35). These words refer to the pain that Virgin Mary would have experienced at the time of her separation from her beloved Son when he was crucified in front of her eyes. This icon was in the bell tower of a church near the River Tossen. However, without knowing the reason, the image was face down and served as a simple board. God, of course, did not let that happen for a long time. A resident of the region, Kadickof, who suffered from many illnesses, saw in his sleep that he had to look for an image in the bell tower and pray to the Image to be cured. Indeed, he went to the church, but the people who were there did not pay much attention to him. The man, however, did not leave them and continued to visit the church until the third time the people gave him the permission to search for the icon. Kadickof found the image, cleansed it, worshiped it and he was healed.
The Holy Monastery of Simonos Petra maintains on the island of Lemnos, in the village of Propouli, a historical monastery dependency from the 14th century, which is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. In the sanctuary of Sacred Metochi, built by the Monk of Simonos Petra monastery, Agapios in 1706 AD, the miraculous sacred icon of Virgin of the Vine is kept. Virgin of the Vine is especially loved by all the island\'s inhabitants.
Virgin Mary of Consolation is the most important and famous Byzantine temple in the prefecture of Arta. It was built in the 13th century by Nicephorus the 1st Komnenos Doukas, when the Despotate of Epirus was at its peak. The temple is dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin, while we find evidence that in the 16th century it was the Catholic female monastery.
The icon of the Virgin Mary, called the \"The Inexhaustible cup of Life\", became known to the Orthodox World only in 1878, when a miraculous event occurred. In the Yefremovsky District of Tula province in Russia, lived a retired soldier, called Stephen. This man suffered from alcoholism. He spent all his fortune on alcohol and lived an unpleasant and vulnerable way of life. One night, however, he experienced an unusual dream that shook him a lot. A monk in imposing form appeared in his sleep and said to him: \"Go to Serpukhov in the monastery of Virgin Mary. There, you will find her icon called \" The inexhaustible cup of Life\". You will pray in front of it and your body and soul will be cured immediately. But the man showed reluctance and did not obey these words. The monk, however, appeared again in the man\'s sleep insisting on making this journey. After appearing for the third time, Stephan decides to obey the monk\'s command and start the journey, although his legs were weak due to the paralysis.
The miraculous icon of Vladimir is one of Russia\'s most famous icons and its connection to the Russian people dates back to its beginnings. According to one tradition, it is one of the images of the evangelist Luke, who was in Jerusalem until 450. Then it was transferred to Constantinople and Patriarch Luke of Chrysovergi offered it as a gift to the ruler Yuri Vladimirovic Dolgokruki. He placed it on the women\'s monastery of Visegrad. In 1155 Prince Andrei Vogobulski transferred the icon to Vladimir, where he built a magnificent temple dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin of Vladimir to host this precious and magnificent icon.
