Wood icon, "Our Lady of Pochaev", miniature, 7x10cm

Manually painted wood icon of the Virging Mary of Pochaev. Miniature measuring 7x10 cm. Original artwork.

The first record of a monastery at Pochaev, in Volhynia, dates to 1527. Local tradition, however, claims the beginning of a monastery three centuries earlier, when several monks established a monastery during the Tatar invasions. According to this tradition, the Theotokos appeared to the monks in a column of fire and left her footprint in the rock upon which she stood. The rock and footprint became revered by the local people for the curative properties of the water that issued from it.

During the sixteenth century the monastery prospered. A stone cathedral was built, and the monastery hosted an annual fair. In 1597, the monastery expanded further through a gift of land by a noblewoman, Anna Hojska (Goiskaya). She is also credited with the establishment of the famous printing press shop at the monastery that supplied Orthodox theological literature in Galicia and Volhynia.

She also gave the monastery a miracle working icon of the Theotokos traditionally known as ‘’Our Lady of Pochaev’’. This icon that helped to cure her brother from blindness had been given to Anna by a Bulgarian bishop who passed by.

During this period, the area was the setting of growing persecution of the Orthodox on the part of Roman Catholics and Uniates.