Life Bearing Font of the Mother Of God
(The Life-Giving Wellspring of the Mother of God)
The Orthodox Youth Conference included tours of many of Byzantium's enduring monuments. We visited the monastery of Zoodochos Peghe in Balukli (outside the original City walls). This monastery was built over a miraculous wellspring. It is in the charge of His Eminence Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima. His Eminence was also the expert presider over the Conference proceedings.
In 450 AD, a soldier named Leo encountered a thirsty blind man lost on the road. He placed the man beneath a tree and went to look for water, but heard a voice telling him he need not look elsewhere, because water was there amid the trees. He was told further that within the grove he would find a spring from which he was to take water for the blind man’s thirst and slime to place upon his unseeing eyes. Strangely, the voice called him “Emperor Leo.” He was also ordered to build a temple there to which people might come for healing. He did as instructed and the blind man was healed. In 457 AD Leo did become emperor, and recalling the voice, he had a church erected on the site of the spring, giving it the name Zoodochos Peghe—”The Life-Giving Wellspring.”
In the icon of the “Life-giving Wellspring” Mary is seated with her Child in a chalice-form fountain set in the middle of a constructed pool. Water from the chalice pours into the fountain, and those suffering various ills cluster about to take the life-giving waters. Two angels standing on clouds flank the Mother of God. Each holds a disk on which are the Cyrillic letters “ST”, abbreviating the word Svyat, meaning “Holy”.
About this icon:
Tempera, gold leaf, on wood panel. Mary holding the Infant Christ inside a font, two angels flank them, the well surrounded by many believers who fill their cups and drink from the “Life Bearing Font”. Finely painted. Reverse displays inscription dated 1841 which is just six years after a new temple of the “Life Bearing Font” was constructed in Constantinople. (Date: 1841)
