04 — The Protection of the Theotokos

The single most consequential thing in Andrew’s Life: the vision at the Blachernae church of the Theotokos spreading her veil in protection over the people at prayer, and the great feast — the Protection, Russian Pokrov, 1 October — that descends from it. This is one of the collection’s two critical both-sides sections.

Tradition: Byzantine vision; Russian Orthodox feast

The vision is Byzantine, but the feast is overwhelmingly a Slavic — above all Russian — creation, traditionally established under Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky in the twelfth century. Why a Byzantine vision that the Greeks did not raise into a great feast became one of the most beloved feasts of Rus’ is a genuine historical question, and the transfer — including the role of Bogolyubsky — is presented here on both sides. The feast is set within the wider circle of Marian commemorations in The Protection and Other Feasts.

Files

File Description
the-vision-at-blachernae.md The vision as the Life narrates it: the Blachernae shrine, the Virgin’s veil, the exchange with Epiphanios
the-pokrov-feast-and-its-slavic-flowering.md Why the vision became a great Russian feast; the Bogolyubsky tradition, both-sides on the transfer

See Also