Russian Icon depicting the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" with coins, Early 20th century

This Marian icon is closely linked to the celebrated miraculous event that occurred in Saint Petersburg on July 23, 1888. On that date, a violent lightning strike hit the glass chapel in the Shlisselburg district, causing a devastating fire that razed the building to the ground. Amidst the rubble, the icon of the Mother of God remained miraculously intact; the explosion of the charity box, caused by the lightning bolt, projected eleven small copper coins (the typical groshiki) which remained inexplicably and permanently embedded on the surface of the panel and on the Virgin's cloak. Furthermore, according to the chronicles of the time, the painted surface, previously blackened by time and smoke, appeared prodigiously brightened and renewed.The episode, rapidly renamed "the miracle of the coins," aroused an intense wave of popular veneration and an incessant influx of pilgrims, also attracted by numerous accounts of miraculous healings. The event codified a celebrated and successful variant of the traditional iconography of the "Joy of All Who Sorrow" (Vseh skorbyashchikh Radost), precisely named "with coins" (s groshikami). The composition shows the full-length Virgin, surrounded by the sick, the poor, and supplicants assisted by angels, bearing witness to her role as the supreme comforter and intercessor. The pictorial representation of the small coins scattered around the Marian figure constitutes the visual memory and the identity core of this specific St. Petersburg prototype. The cult, officially commemorated on August 5, survived the Soviet requisitions and the dramatic events of the Second World War unscathed, continuing to represent a steadfast spiritual point of reference for the Orthodox community.