The Protection of the Holy Mother of God

The monasterial church is today dedicated to the holiday of the “Pokrov”. The word “Pokrov” has a complex meaning. First of all “pokrov” is a cloak or shroud, but it also means protection or intercession. The sources do not mention which holiday of the Holy Mother of God the temple was dedicated to in the Middle Ages, and they only mention the “Mother of God of Petrus”, i.e. the “Mother of God of Leštije”.

The holiday of the Protection of the Holy Mother of God (1^st/14^th October) was established in the memory of the event which happened at the beginning of the 10^th century in the church of Vlahern in Constantinople. During the wake, in the fourth hour of the night, St. Andrew the Fool for Christ and his disciple Epiphanius saw the Holy Mother of God followed by many saints, amongst which were St. John the Forerunner and St. John the Baptist. The Mother of God prayed on her bent knees for a long time for the people who stood there, watering with tears Her divine and immaculate face… When She ended the prayer, She spread Her “omofor” (omophorion – a large shawl), glowing as a lightning, large and awesome, which She wore on Her immaculate head, with Her immaculate hands above the people thet stood there, and Holy Andrew and Epiphanius gazed at it for a long time as it lay above the people, glowing as a lightning… It is interesting that this holiday began to be celebrated not in the Byzantine church, where the event had happened, but in the Russian church in the 12^th century (Andrey Godfearing is believed to have initiated the celebration).

In these hard times, when our hardships and dangers multiplied as our sins did; when the very words of our Lord are being realized, and peoples rise against peoples, and kingdoms rise against kingdoms, and there is famine and death and the earth quivers in the world (Mt. 24.7); when we face the invasion of aliens, wars among ourselves and mortal diseases – the Immaculate and most Holy Mother of God gives us for our protection Her “Pokrov”, to save us unharmed from all that by Her “Pokrov”.

All this is above anything the purpose of the monastery in Lešje, of the “Pokrov” of the Mother of God, Her protection and support which She always provides for all those who pray to Her, the miserable ones, the sick from mental and physical ailments, particularly those ill from sinning, ones enslaved in passion and ones who seek inner peace. 

We thank You, God Almighty, “that is, was and forever comes” (Rev., 1,8)