The icon was glorified in the Bulgarian Zograf monastery on Mount Athos in the 13th century, during the first attempts to impose a union to the Eastern Church (a merger of the Orthodox and Catholic religions). With rare exceptions, the Athos monasteries rejected the union and became victims of armed attacks by its supporters.
Once, an elder, who worked near the Zograf monastery, was reading an akathist in front of this Icon and, after his greeting to the Mother of God: “Rejoice!”, he heard from Her Icon the words: “And you rejoice, elder of God”. Then the Mother of God ordered him to go to the monastery as soon as possible and warn everyone about the coming danger. The elder immediately rushed to the monastery and, when he entered the monastery gate, he saw that his cell Icon, in front of which he had just read an akathist, was already at the door of the monastery. He fell before it in reverent prayer, then took the Icon, and came to the abbot.
Hearing of imminent danger, the weak from the brethren hid in the mountains and abysses, and 26 monks, including the elder and the abbot, locked themselves in the monastery tower. On October 10, 1276, supporters of the union, closing in on the monastery, after unsuccessful persuasion to submit to papacy, set fire to the tower. The monks, who refused to cheat on Orthodoxy, died in the fire, suffered a martyr’s death.
The monks who survived in the mountains found a miraculous image that warned the elder about the danger under the ruins and ashes of the site of a fire after returning to the devastated monastery. Remembering this warning, they called the Icon ‘Foreteller’.
Translated by The Catalogue of Good Deeds
Source: https://azbyka.ru/days/ikona-akafistnaja-zografskaja-predvozvestitelnica
