The Braslav Icon of the Queen of the Lakes was crowned with Papal crowns

August 22, Braslav / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Metropolitan of Cologne, placed the Papal crowns on the icon of the Mother of God of Braslav, a BELTA correspondent reports. The solemn ceremony took place today in the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where this icon revered by Catholics is located. High-ranking Catholic priests, monks, and thousands of pilgrims from different parts of Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Great Britain, and the USA took part in the ceremony. The image of the Mother of God of Braslav is the first crowned icon in the Vitebsk diocese. The crowns for the icon were made in Krakow, and on February 18 of this year, they were consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Square in Rome. Prayer vigils on the occasion of the placement of the Papal crowns on the icon, which is also called the Mother of God, the Lady of the Lakes, will be held in Braslav throughout the day today. The icon of the Mother of God of Braslav traces its history back to the Basilian monastery founded in the 15th century on the island of Lake Nespish, and is considered the main Christian shrine of the Lake District. The coronation of the icon is a recognition of the miraculous power of the image by the Vatican, and the chronicles of the Roman Catholic Church of 1774 attest to these properties of the Braslav icon. The coronation of images of the Mother of God in the Catholic Church is associated with theological assertions that the Virgin Mary is the Queen of Heaven. Individual cases of the coronation of miraculous icons and sculptures of the Mother of God have been recorded since the 8th century. Since the 17th century, this custom has become an exclusive papal privilege. The first image crowned with a papal crown was the image of the Mother of God in the sacristy of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in 1631. In the history of modern Belarus, six images of the Mother of God have been crowned with papal crowns: the Mother of God of Berestye in 1996, the Mother of God of Budslau in 1998, the icon of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God in Minsk in 2005, the Mother of God of the Congregation in 2005, the image of the Mother of God of Gudagay was crowned in 2007, and the icon of the Mother of God of Trokeli received confirmation of its miraculous power in 2009. -0-