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The Mozdok Icon of the Mother of God, North Ossetia–Alania, Russia
Commemorated on April 19, May 2
At the time Christianity became the state religion of Georgia, the numerically small Ossetian people was still serving the forces of pagan darkness. The Ossetians are one of the offshoots of the great Alan tribe, which was the dominant power in the Caucasus from the 8th through the 10th Century. It had its own Christian pastors and its own metropolitanate within the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Under attack by external enemies and by civil strife, the Alan civilization fell apart, and the clans went their own ways. Those who went farther into the hills quickly forgot Christianity, and turned to the worship of forces of nature – fire, water, stones, and holy trees. Georgian Church historians report that their bishops were unstinting in pursuing missionary activity among the various tribes. However, some of the tribes had such a strong sense of national identity that from those who spoke a different language they would accept neither their language and protection, nor even the Faith in the True God. There were people who lived in places that for most missionaries were simply inaccessible. Little clans' isolated existence prevented them from accepting the culture of neighboring tribes, and their neighbors, not knowing the language of the mountain hermits, had difficulty bringing the Gospel to peoples sitting in darkness.
In the 12th Century, relations between the neighbors were restored: over the years, hurt Alan tribes that had been driven into the hilly ravines overcame their pain and offense at their neighbors, and extended their hands in friendship. At the time, at the beginning of the 13th Century, the famous Queen Tamara ascended the Georgian throne. She was the daughter of an Ossetian princess named Budjukhana, who was a pagan (as Tamara also was at first).
As often happens in the case of mixed marriages, Tamara was quite a well-rounded individual: she quickly overcame the narrowness of a pagan world-view, and received the light of Christianity, which was so brilliant on her Georgian (i.e. her father's) side. On the other hand, not being a full-blooded Georgian, she was also able to transcend personal national interests and narrow Georgian political considerations: her first husband was [the Russian] Prince George, son of Andrei Bogoliubsky.
Tamara began to concern herself with missionary activity among her Ossetian kinsmen as well. She would send them clergy, divine service books, and liturgical vessels. For the church of Ossetian Aul Maryamka in the Kuratinsk District, she sent a gift of a copy of the Iveron Icon of the Theotokos made by her personal court iconographer from the Greek original Iveron Icon. By way of Queen Tamara, the Ever-Virgin Theotokos, who had expressed the desire that «the light of knowledge of God might shine forth in ancient Ossetia, sent her Icon to it and glorified the Icon through many miracles.» Apparently, the church was a wooden one, and the place was susceptible to fires. However, «on three occasions the church burned, [but] the people found the Icon on the hill near the church, unharmed.»
On one occasion, the burning of the church turned out to be prophetic: Soon «a storm of cruel suffering and woes decimated the Ossetian land, when the impious Tatars swept across it with fire and sword.» The hand-made church's bursting into flame presaged the conflagration and woes suffered by the Church in the Ossetian land, woes it endured in the attacks by Chengiz Khan and Tamerlane. Soon thereafter, the Turks and Persians decided to divide between them the «skin of the still-living bear»: who would get the hills of Ossetia, hills which to this day are famous for their mineral resources?
However, the Mother of God pointed to a different [fate]: She, patron of a Caucuses unharmed by fiery conflagration, indicated that people who would run to the grace-filled protection of her miraculous Icon, «would move to a new place of habitation – under the protection of Russian power.» How many towns and villages became new places of habitation over the course of many years, from the mid 13th to the 18th Centuries? Thus did they wander back and forth, moving from place to place.
In 1763, pursuant to «the highest ukaz,» the fortified town of Mozdok was created, «as a place to live for the newly-baptized hill-dwellers.» By 1764, a school had already opened in the town – thanks to efforts by members of the Caucasus Mission, created in 1745 by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna.
In 1793, Empress Catherine II established the Mozdov-Madjar Vicariate of the Astrakhan Diocese. Archimandrite Gaius (Bartashvili-Takaov), a zealous missionary, was assigned to be its first bishop. His authority also extended over the town of Kizlyar. The bishop was «of bright visage» [i.e. brilliant], and quite educated (he translated the Greek classics into Georgian). Through God's Providence, he was fated to welcome and take into his hands the great holy treasure of the Caucasus – the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, which was to become known as the «Mozdov» Icon.
From somewhere out of the hills, descendants of the ancient dwellers of Maryamka Aul in Kurtatin District, moved farther and farther away from their oppressive pagan and Muslim neighbors. On their wagon was an icon of the Mother of God. On their way, they encountered the newly-erected fortress of Mozdok, and stopped there for the night. During the night, their wagon was illuminated by a heavenly light, and in the morning, although the oxen harnessed to the wagon were lashed with whips, they could not take a single step: «Seeing that thy Icon, O Mother of God, would not move from the spot, the people of the town of Mozdok were touched to realize that this demonstrated thine abundant good will toward them, and indicated thy holy will.» People from throughout the district, along with their bishop Gaius, gathered together to pray, received the Icon, and installed it in the chapel. In 1797, the Icon was transferred to a church built to house it; the church was immediately designated a cathedral. However, two years later, the Holy Synod dissolved the diocese.
Many miracles wrought through this Icon have been recorded.
To this day, one may see a multitude of pilgrims in Mozdok on Mid-Pentecost and on the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, the two days on which the Mozdok Icon of the Theotokos is commemorated.
Source: http://www.stjohndc.org/
Source: http://www.stjohndc.org/