About the Ilyin-Chernigov and Chernigov-Gethsemane icons of the Mother of God.
Commemoration:
Ilyin-Chernigov icon: April 16 old style/ April 29 new style.
Chernigov-Gethsemane icon: September 1 old style/ September 14 new style.
Many healings of mental illness and demonic possession happened from Chernigov icon. St. Ambrose of Optina suggests in one letter to bring a mad person to this icon.
The Ilyin-Chernigov Icon of the Mother of God was painted in the year 1658 by the iconographer Gregory Dubensky, (Gennadius in monasticism). Tears flowed from the icon for eight days in 1662, from April 16-24.
In this same year Tatars descended upon Chernigov and devastated it. At midnight they burst into the Trinity monastery, went into the church, overturned all the icons and grabbed all the utensils, but the wonderworking icon and its ornaments remained untouched.
An invisible power held back the impious from the holy icon. Previously, the Queen of Heaven had not permitted the enemy to enter the cave of St Anthony of the Caves, where the brethren of the monastery had hidden. The Tatars fled, as though terrified by a vision.
The miracle of the Mother of God and Her Chernigov Icon was described by St Demetrius of Rostov (October 28 and September 21) in his book, THE BEDEWED FLEECE [Runo Oroshennoe]. Later on, St John of Tobolsk (June 10) also wrote about the Chernigov Icon.
A wonderworking copy of the Chernigov Icon of the Mother of God, in the Gethsemane skete of the Trinity-Sergiev Lavra, was glorified in the year 1869 (September 1).
Images of Ilyin-Chernigov icon: http://pravicon.com/icon-134
http://ocafs.oca.org/FeastSaintsViewer.asp?FSID=101121
24 miracles (by the number of hours in a day) from Ilyin-Chernigov icon of the Mother of God (based on the book of Saint Dimitry of Rostov “The bedewed fleece”).
Miracle 1.
In the reign of the Great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich, Autocrat of All the Great and Small and White Russia, when the archbishop throne in Chernigov was held by the Right Reverend Father Lazarus Baranovich, the Orthodox Archbishop of Chernigov, Novgorod and the entire North, in the year 1662 Anno Domini, in the month of April, in the monastery of Elijah the Prophet (the Ilyin monastery), under the hegumen Zosima, from the 16th day to the 24th, the icon of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary was weeping in the church. All the people of the city of Chernigov watched this miracle with great horror.
Miracle 2.
Also in the year 1662, when the icon of the Mother of God was weeping, the Saracens (Muslims), by God's allowance for our sins, quietly crept up, captured many villages in the neighborhood of Chernigov. The monks of that Ilyin monastery, unaware of the barbarian invasion, sat in their monastery, and one night it was announced about the Tartars. Then they all went to the church and hid in the cave of our Saint Father Anthony.
At midnight, the Tatars attacked the monastery, and broke into the church, where there was a miracle-working icon of the Most Holy Mother of God, decorated with silver plates, according to the custom. The godless committed a lot of blasphemies: they threw down all the icons from their places to the ground, took all churchware...
But they did not touch the icon of the Mother of God which was standing at the local place of the iconostasis, nor the silver plates on it. Possibly as once for Prophet Elisha, so here the Lord God smote the heathens with blindness, so that being blind with their spiritual eyes, they would not sight with the bodily eyes either at the icon of the Mother of God, which we, looking at, see as the true Mother of God.
The power of God forbade them: let they not touch the Mental Kiot with unworthy hands.
And the heathens not only did not touch the icon, but also could not enter the cave where the monks were hiding, even though they attempted to do it so many times with lit splinter and drawn swords, however, they, being driven away, returned, as if thrown back by someone. It was the power of the Immaculate Virgin, protecting the monks, what prevented the Saracens from entering the cave.