The icon of Our Lady of the Life-Giving Spring has a multi-figured two-tier composition. At the top of the icon the Virgin Mary is sitting in the clouds with the Christ Child in her arms. Kneeling angels are on either side of her. A bowl of water surrounded by saints and the suffering is at the bottom of the icon.
The story of the appearance of the icon is connected with the legend about a grove of trees, consecrated in honour of the Virgin Mary that was situated not far from the Constantinople Golden Gate. In 450, a young Christian warrior Leo Marcellus met a tired blind man who had lost his way in the grove. Leo took the blind man to a shady place and went to look for water to give the traveller a drink. Suddenly he heard the voice of the Virgin that led to the spring. Leo Marcellus was told to take water from the spring to give it to the blind man and to take mud from the same place and put it on the man’s eyes. The warrior did as he’d been told, and the sight immediately returned to the blind man.
Seven years after the miraculous event, Leo Marcellus ascended the imperial throne. According to his instructions, the waters of the spring were enclosed in a circle surrounded by a stone, and a temple in the name of the Most Holy Theotokos was erected over it.
The name of the icon is also interpreted as the personification of the Virgin Mary herself, who is the Mother of Christ, who gives life, its source, beginning.