Boyany, Chernivtsi Province, Ukraine, September 25, 2024
Bancheny Monastery (YouTube)
The Orthodox faithful of Ukraine showed their strength of faith again this week, holding a procession in honor of the wonderworking Boyany Icon of the Mother of God despite attempts to block their path.
The prayerful march began yesterday, September 24, in the Diocese of Chernivtsi and Bukovina, headed for the Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery in Boyany, where the feast of the icon is celebrated today.
Video of the procession was published on the YouTube channel of the Bancheny Monastery:
According to His Eminence Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny, this year there were attempts to obstruct the procession by blocking roads to the Chernivtsi Province. However, the faithful proved resilient and managed to reach the monastery to venerate the miraculous and tear-streaming icon.
“I’m very grateful to the pilgrims for whom the roads to the Mother of God of Boyany today were blocked today. You still decided to go on foot and nothing could stop you—not the police, nothing... Because love for God is above all. I would like to ask you now to pray for all of Ukraine, to pray for each other, so that peace would come to us,” His Eminence said after another court hearing (Met. Longin is one of the hierarchs who is being personally targeted by the Ukrainian state).
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The Union of Orthodox Journalists tells the story of the icon:
The Boyany Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is located in the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos of the Boyany Convent in the Chernivtsi Province. The icon was painted in 1991 for the iconostasis of this church.
On December 18, 1993, on the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas, the then-rector of the church, Fr. Mikhail (Zhar) and parishioners noticed that on the face of the Mother of God, her eyes were filled with tears, profusely flowing down the icon. After the end of the church service, Fr. Mikhail closed and sealed the church and reported the incident to the ruling bishop. The next day, the diocesan commission headed by Bishop Onuphry (Berezovsky), now the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, recorded the fact of the manifestation of the miraculous icon.
In the same year, two more miracles associated with the Boyany Icon of the Mother of God were recorded: the healing of a young man, George from the Khmelnytsky Province, who suffered from cancer, and an Orthodox priest Igor from Poland.
On October 4, 1994, the Holy Synod of the UOC officially recognized the icon as wonderworking and named it Boyany in honor of the place where it appeared. The day of celebration of the miraculous icon was set for September 12/25.
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