"She Who Makes the Grain Thrive"

I really enjoy the blog Icons and their Interpretations and their post on the Multiplier of Wheat icon. I've posted on it before (see here).

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The inquirer came across a Marian icon showing Mary on a cloud, arms outstretched, above a field of grain. The icon type that describes is a rather recent Russian type called Спорительница хлебов — Sporitel’nitsa Khlebov. The first word means a female who causes something to advance or thrive; the second part refers to bread and to grain crops. So we can loosely translate it as “She Who Makes the Grain Thrive.” The name is found variously in English as “She Who Ripens the Grain,” “Provider of Bread” “Provider of the Bread of Life,” “Multiplier of Bread,” and so on. But the essence of the name indicates that Mary makes the grain thrive, which means people will have an abundant harvest and much bread...

Complete post here.