The Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir is an example of the iconographic type of Eleusa (tenderness). The Christ child, snuggling up to the bowed face of his Mother, is embracing her neck with the left hand. This touching composition contains a deep theological idea: Our Lady is a symbol of the soul, which is in intimate communion with God.
According to the legend, the patriarch Luka Khrisoverg sent a gift to the Grand Knyaz’ of Kiev, Yuri Dolgorukiy in the early 12th century. It was a copy of the icon painted by the Evangelist Luke from its living subjects on the board of the table, at which the Holy Family had been having a meal. In 1155 Yuri Dolgorukiy’s son, Andrey Bogolyubskiy was going on a campaign from the south of Russia to the north aiming to create an ownership independent of Kiev. He took this icon with him. Near the city of Vladimir, the horses, who were carrying the icon, suddenly stood up, and all attempts to make them move off were unsuccessful. The Mother of God appeared to the knyaz’ during the prayer and ordered him to leave the icon in Vladimir and found a monastery on this place. Since then, the icon of Our Lady began to be called the Our Lady of Vladimir.