"The Kykka Icon of the Mother of God"

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The Kikka Icon of the Mother of God (Kikkotissa, Mercy, , ), is one of the most revered miraculous icons of the Virgin in Cyprus. The icon gets its name from Mount Kykkos, located in Cyprus. The authorship is attributed to the Apostle Luke.

The icon came to Cyprus at the end of the I century under Alexei Comnenus and since then has been in the local row of the iconostasis of the Cathedral Church of the Kykki Monastery, the third to the left of the Royal Gates, in a separate proskinitarianium (kiot), decorated with a salary and in accordance with ancient tradition, up to half is hidden by a veil sewn with gold.

Description of the icon
A characteristic feature of the icon is the position of the Christ Child: He does not want to sit still and play in the arms of the Virgin.

The miracle-working Kykka icon has the following peculiarity: it is unknown from what time, it is covered to half with a sewn gold veil, so that no one can see the faces of the Mother of God and the Divine Child.

The icon is unexamined. According to iconography, the Kykk icon is very close to the image of the Mother of God “It is worth eating”.

Reverence
In honor of the Merciful (Kikk) Icon of the Mother of God, two churches were consecrated in Russia (in the village of Starki, Kaluga region, Kaluga diocese, and in the village of Jubilee, Kirov region, Yaran diocese) and the Merciful-Theoditsky convent in the village of Kadom (Ryazan region, Kasimov diocese).

Lists of Kykki icons are in the Nikolsky monastery in Mukachevo, in the Church of All Saints on Kulishki in Moscow, in the temple of Panagia Dexia in Thessaloniki.

A particularly venerated list of the Kikka icon, which appeared in the XVII century, was located in the Moscow Zachatevsky monastery and became its main shrine. After the ruin of the monastery in the 1920s, the miraculous list was transferred to the nearby temple of the prophet Elijah in Obydensky Lane. In 1999, when the monastic life in the Zachatev monastery began to revive, the Merciful Icon returned to its former place.

Prayer before the icon
O Most Holy and Blessed Mother of the Lord, God and Savior of our Jesus Christ, Merciful Mother of God and the Virgin Mary! Approaching Your holy and miraculous Icon, we humbly pray to You, Our Good and Merciful Intercessor: to listen to the voice of our sinful prayers, not to despise the sighs from the soul, to see our sorrows and misfortunes, and truly loving Mati, to strive for the help of us helpless, dull, into many grave sins fallen and inexcusable to anger our Lord and Creator, to see our sorrow and misfortunes, our Precesssor, but our beloved one, to give us His mercy. Ask us, O Lady, from His goodness, bodily health and spiritual salvation, pious and peaceful life, fruit-bearing lands, air of benevolence, rains are good and blessings from above on all our good deeds and undertakings, and as from ancient times you looked mercifully at the humble glorification of the novice of Athoskago, chanted a song of praise before Your Most Pure Icon, and sent to him Argekhani, sangling his hymous angels glorified in heaven