Silver-plated Icon of the Dawn Gate Mother of God

The icon is currently located in Vilnius, Lithuania. The Ostra Brama Mother of God is venerated by both Orthodox and Catholics. There are a couple of legends that explain the origin of this icon. According to the first, it was brought to Vilnius by Lithuanian Grand Duke Olgirdas after defeating the Tatars and conquering the Crimea. He brought it to his wife, who gave the icon to the Holy Trinity Monastery. Another version says that the icon was sent to Olgirdas by Emperor John Paleologus when he adopted Christianity. Another legend says that the Dawn Gate icon was brought by the daughter of Grand Duke Ivan III of Moscow, Helena. In the 15th century, the new Gates of Dawn were built and the icon was placed there in a kyot. In later years, fearing for the icon during the Union of Brest, it was placed in one of the Orthodox churches. It was then forcibly taken by the Uniates and placed over the Gates of Dawn, and it was the Uniates who took care of it. The Basilian monastery then took over the Roman Catholic monastery along with the icon of the Mother of God. The Basilians tried to recover the icon, but their attempts were in vain. In 1812, it was damaged during the Napoleonic War. It was put up for restoration in 1829. It turned out that, after the removal of the risk dating back to the Baroque period, there was a prayer written in Orthodox Slavonic on the icon: ‘More venerable than the cherubim and incomparably more famous than the seraphim’. According to later research, the creation of the icon dates to the 15th or 16th century.