MOTHER OF GOD (POKROV)

Day 155: October 14

The Protection of the Mother of God (Pokrov)

Saint Andrew of Constantinople, known as the Fool in Christ or the Fool, stood out for his innocence and his spirit of prayer and penance in the midst of 10th-century Byzantium. The account of his life, written shortly after his death, offers certain guarantees of authenticity. Of Scythian origin and Slavic nationality, he was a slave in the house of a rich man, learned Greek, and was promoted to the position of notary. He

soon showed signs of dementia. His master had him locked up in the church of Saint Anastasia. After three months, having failed to improve, he was abandoned to a life of wandering. He suffered bouts of involuntary or feigned amnesia due to a desire for humiliation, devoted himself to prayer and works of charity, and lavished his counsel on both children and adults.

One night, as he was about to finish his doxology at Blachernae, Andrew was suddenly transported into ecstasy amidst the crowd. He clearly saw with his own eyes a Lady, very tall in stature, advancing from the royal gates, surrounded by a harmonious procession. On her right and left, the venerable Prodromus (the Forerunner John the Baptist) and the Son of Thunder (John the Evangelist) supported her with their hands; a numerous procession of saints, dressed in white, accompanied her…

When the procession reached the ambo, Andrew turned to his disciple Epiphanius and asked, "Do you see the Mistress and Lady of the universe?" He replied, "Yes, I see, my spiritual father." And before their eyes, bending her knees for a long time, the Lady prayed, letting tears flow down her divine and immaculate face. Having finished her prayer, she approached the sanctuary and began to pray again for the people surrounding her. Then she removed her glittering veil and, spreading it with imposing majesty, held it stretched out with her pure hands and covered all the people below. For a considerable time, those extraordinary seers contemplated him stretched out above the crowd and radiating divine glory all around.

The icons of the Pokrov give two different interpretations of the veil: according to the first interpretation, the veil, very large, is spread by the archangels Michael and Gabriel. This is how it is represented in the icons of Novgorod . The other interpretation, followed by the Moscow school, shows the Virgin in prayer, who herself holds the veil suspended with her arms raised above the assembly of the faithful.

What is the meaning of the spread veil? Is it the “maforion” (veil or large cloth) of protection? Is it the curtain ready to conceal from sight the furtive vision of the «habitual miracle»?

Since the Council of Ephesus (431) onwards, the Church has not ceased to proclaim the close relationship existing between the divine motherhood of Mary and her role of help as mother of Christians. The theme of the Pokrov is therefore based on a long Christian tradition. To see in the veil of the icon a simple allusion to the «habitual miracle» therefore seems completely insufficient. One can also notice that the veil is lowered but not raised, that the angels' hands suggest stretching it but not holding it back. The veil appears like a roof; it spans the heavens and protects the assembly. It represents the power and protection of the Virgin; it is both symbol and reality.

The act of covering someone with one's own clothing, in the East as in the West, was a natural sign of protection , independent of any social convention. Adoption occurred in Byzantium and Russia by covering the adopted child with a cloak. In the West, at Chartres, during the time of Charles the Bald, a veil attributed to the Virgin was venerated: tunics were cut from it and sold to pilgrims. And when Saint Bonaventure, the doctor of Marian devotion, founded the brotherhood of the Recommended around 1270, he prescribed depicting the brothers beneath the folds of the Virgin's cloak (pallium). Since then, this image has spread throughout Western art. Mary is the refuge of the world, tectum mundi. It is possible that the fame of the Blachernae relic transformed the Byzantine maforion into a large, solemn cloak. The same idea of ​​protection is thus expressed by slightly different symbols: sképé, pokrov, pallium, profoundly human symbols that make present a truly Christian reality, because it arises from the heart of every baptized people.

Today, we the faithful joyfully celebrate your feast, sitting in the shadow of your coming, O Mother of God; and with our gaze turned toward your venerable icon we tenderly exclaim: “Cover us with your venerated mantle and deliver us from all evil, praying to your Son, Christ our God, to save our souls.”

St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"Since everything depends on our acceptance and cooperation with grace, it is important to know that God wants us to depend on the Virgin Mary in the transmission of his grace, and consequently, our acceptance and cooperation with grace greatly on our union with Mary"

(Ascension, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, New Jersey, 1997, p. 374)