The Serbian emperor Stefan's icon from the Hilandar monastery

Abstract

The Story of the miracle-working icons of the Hilandar monastery, written down in 1558/9 in Moscow, contains an interesting legend about the processional icon of the Mother of God Abramiotis(s)a with Christ and the representation of the Prophet Elijah on the background, still kept in the treasury of the Serbian monastery on the Holy Mountain. According to the legend, this icon, which was taken from Bitolj by the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan, played the decisive role in the Serbian conquest of Serres in 1345. This Mother of God with Christ belongs to the rare Pelagonitissa type and it used to have revetment. To judge by its later copies, the icon was held in high reverence on the Serbian Court and later in the Hilandar monastery where the legend says the Serbian imperial couple brought it on the occasion of their visit to the Holy Mountain in 1347/8. On the basis of its style, the icon can be dated around the middle of the 14th century and it is a copy of the older and now non-existent Mother of God from Bitolj. However, the iconographic type was in existence also independently of Pelagonia, and it is safe to assume that its sources were probably in Constantinople. The unique epithet of the Hilandar icon also points to the Capital, or, more precisely to the monastery tSv AppocuiTrov, as the place of origin. In the second half of the 9th and in the 10th century, this monastery treasured a venerated icon of the Mother of God which was considered as Acheiropoietos. Nothing is known about the appearance of this icon, unless the Hilandar icon, dealt with in the present paper, represents its replica. The miracle-working icon of Pelagonitissa from Bitolj was probably treasured in the city cathedral, i.e. in the seat of the Pelagonian bishopric, dedicated to the Virgin, up to the Ottoman conquest and subsequent destruction of the town in 1385.