Life Giving Spring Mother of God | Silver and gold foiled icon on thin pressed wood | Large XLG icon 15.7" x 13"
Quantity
On Bright Friday, the first Friday after Easter, the Life-Giving Spring is celebrated. The Life-Giving Spring is all at once a title given to the Mother of God, an actual miracle-working spring near Constantinople, and an Icon of the same name.
The icon principally shows the miracle-working spring, located outside the Golden Gate of Constantinople, amid a grove of trees. Over-time the spring was not taken care of, became choked with plants, and was forgotten. It was later in the 5th century that the spring was rediscovered by the future-emperor Leo Marcellus, at the prompting of the voice of the Theotokos. A church dedicated to her as the Life-Giving Fount was built, protecting the spring until it was destroyed 1000 years later during the Turkish invasion. Nevertheless, the spring still survives today, underground now and accessed by descending stone steps.