Join us this Thursday, Jan. 28 at 6:00 p.m. at St. Sava Church in Merrillville, Indiana for our weekly Akathist prayers (Click here to learn more about the Akathist prayer services at St. Sava Church).
This week we offer praises for The Icon of the Mother of God.
The Icon of the Mother of God, “She who gives suck”
This week’s Akathist is dedicated to The Icon of the Mother of God, “She who gives suck.” This is the name given to the Icon of the Mother of God that St. Sava of Serbia brought from the monastery of St. Sava the Sanctified near Jerusalem and placed in his hermitage at Karyes on the Holy Mountain.
In that way the prophecy, made 800 years previously by St. Sava the Sanctified, was fulfilled – that one day a Serbian priest called Sava would come and would be given the Icon and his staff. When Sava of Serbia visited the community of St. Sava the Sanctified, the monks called to mind the prophecy of their founder and gave the icon and the staff to Sava.
vThe icon was placed at the right – hand of the Royal Doors in the hermitage, and the staff in a cell which receive the name “Pateritsa” (the name used for a bishop’s staff, the fathers rod”, also situated at Karyes.
