Consolation of all the Afflicted  (with Coins)

 

During a thunderstorm on July 23, 1888, lightning hit the chapel of a glassworks in the environs of St.Petersburg, causing a fire. The Icon of the Mother of God "Consolation of All the Afflicted" fell to the floor and to its paintwork stuck a dozen copper coins scattered from a broken poor box. On December 6, 1890, the first miraculous cure occurred in the chapel: Nikolai Grachev, a 14-year-old youth, was cured of a many-year-old disease accompanied with fits and paralysis of arms and legs. In the next year, a certain Vera Belonogina was cured of a chest disease and throat condition. The icon helped cure people of other faiths such as Lutherans and Roman Catholics as well. In 1898, a big cathedral dedicated to the icon was built not far from the chapel and into that cathedral the holy image was temporarily brought for the duration of divine services on the feast days of the icon. Icons of this type are decorated with coins, either painted or real ones that are fit into the surface of the icon panel. Feast day: July 23/August 5.