Mount Athos is known as the "Garden of Virgin Mary". As the place where the Most Holy Theotokos is honored, as the place where she appears, acts and rests, as "the conceivable and most beautiful Paradise of Theotokos". According to the tradition, Mount Athos was given as a heritage to the Virgin Mary by the Lord himself: "Let this place be a heritage and its surroundings be Paradise, and a port of salvation for those who want to be saved".
This icon was given by the fathers of the Lavra of St Sabbas to St Sabbas, Archibishop of Serbia, during a visit, thus fulfilling an old propecy of St Sabbas the Sanctified.
The name of the icon comes from the Greek word “Πυροβοληθείσα” that means "the Shot" and derives from a tragic event that occurred in 1822 A.D. when the Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi was seized by Turkish guards. At that time, a Turkish soldier desecrated the icon of the Theotokos by firing his weapon at it, wounding her right hand. Moments later, this sacrilegious soldier lost his mind and took his own life by hanging himself from an olive tree across from the entrance of the Monastery.
This icon is in the “docheion” (store for liquids – oil, wine) of Monastery and about it the following miracle is narrated: when the Blessed Gennadius of Vatopedi had the task of “docheiares” (in charge of this store), a time came when he had to tell me the Abbot that the oil supply had finished and they would have to withhold oil from the brethen so that the last vessel could be kept for the needs of the church, but the Abbot replied that he was not to concern himself, but to continue to deal out the oil freely, as before.
It is told of this icon that it was damaged by the knife of a malcontent deacon-monk and ecclesiarch (in charge of the church, verger), who because of his tasks, supposedly, always arrived late at the refectory. On one of these occasions, the trapezares (responsible for the refectory) was angry and refused him food. The disturbed and enraged thoughts of the ecclesiarch turned against the Theotokos, who, although he served her, had not concerned herself even for his food. From the wound which he inflicted, blood flowed and the face of the Virgin turned pale, while the deacon was blinded and fell to the ground, driven out of his senses by the voice of his consiousness. He remained in this state for three years. Then thanks to the prayers of the Abbot and the brotherhood, the Thetokos appeared to the Abbot and told him that the monk was cured.
Tradition tells of this icon that the original expression on the faces of the figures and position of the bodies of Christ and the Blessed Virgin changed when the following strange miracle occurred: when pirates had secretely landed on the shore of the Monastery and were hiding, waiting for the gates to open in the morning in order to launch an attack, the Abbot, who had remained behind alone after the end of Matins in order to continue his prayer, heard these words from the icon of the Blessed Virgin “Do not open the gates of the Monastery today, but go up on the walls and drive away the pirates”.
In front of this icon the vigil of the Saturday of the Akathistos Hymn was held from a very early date. After the end of this vigil, and in front of this icon, it happened on one occasion that the weary first cantor of the Lavra, and former chief musician of the Palace, St Ioannes Koukouzeles, had started to doze in his stall when he saw the Blessed Virgin before him.
The icon was painted to commemorate the words of the Theotokos to the founder of the Monastery St Athanasius the Athonite to the effect that she would thereafter be responsible for the material sustenance of the Monastery and that no one else could have the title of “oikonomos” (steward) at the Lavra, because she would be the “oikonomissa” there.
