Summary
Miljković Bojan, The Icon of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa, from the Hermitage of Saint Sabas in Karyes.
The iconostasis from the Hermitage in Karyes contains the particularly revered icon of the Mother of God, of the Galaktotrophousa type, on the right side of the bema doors. Its origin and commissioner, hieromonk Maxim the Teacher from the Patriarchate of Pee, are described in an inscription in the lower part of the icon frame. The hieromonk left his own testimony in several notes in the manuscripts from which one can conclude that the icon was made during his stay at the Hermitage between 1684 and 1688. While on Mount Athos, and later, he copied books. He died at the monastery of St. Demetrios, Velika Remeta, on Mt. Fruska Gora, in the third decade of the 18th century. A very rare iconographic type of the Mother of God nursing Christ was commissioned by hieromonk Maxim the Teacher. The hieromonk was inspired by a wall painting from the narthex of the Patriarchate of Pee which was made by order of Archbishop Danilo II, ea. 1332. The icon of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa from Karyes was held in the highest regard already a century after it had been finished, which is also the time its first replica was made. The icon itself rests in the most prominent place of the new iconostasis in the renovated church. By the mid-19th century a myth, according to which the icon had been brought from the Holy Land by the founder of the Hermitage, the first Archbishop of Serbia - Saint Sava, was created.
