The original name of the Palaiologina was “Hodeghetria Pantanassa”. Later, to distinguish it from other icons of the same name, it was renamed “Palaiologina”, after the name of its donor “the most pious Kyra Maria Asamina Palaiologina, lady of Moldo-wallachia”, as a small inscription in gold attached to the silver revetment states. Here the Blessed Virgin is represented with an affectionate, but at the same time sad air, as she holds Christ at the age of three.
Tradition ascribes many miracles to the icon, as the older fathers of the Monastery relate. The most striking is the fact that during the fire of 1762, when the entire katholikon of the Monastery went up in flames and nothing could be saved, this icon alone was found unscathed by the fire, on the ashes in the position in which it is now kept – on the first column on the left in the nave, looking to the South.
