„The Healing Spring” Icon
„The Healing Spring" is a holiday celebrated by the Orthodox Church on Good Friday and is known in the popular calendar as "Little Fountain" or "Expensive Friday". Celebrated every year on different dates, this holiday is dedicated to the Mother of God and is meant to show the role of the Virgin Mary in the work of saving people.
The church painting is full of symbols, which the iconographer knows how to discreetly capture, both by color and by placement in the worked scene. The most well-known way to depict the feast of the "Healing Spring" is to present the Mother of God with her hands raised in prayer, with a chalice in front of which stands the Savior Christ as a child, blessing with his right hand.
The Mother of God is represented with outstretched hands as if inviting all people to come and find relief from their suffering. The colors used for clothing are red - a symbol of divine sacrifice, white - a symbol of purity, and blue - the color of the sky.
The fountain or the spring on which the Virgin Mary stands is shaped like a chalice, a cup. The chalice is a rather strong symbol represented in Christianity: it is found in most churches, being used in the communion of believers.
Around the fountain, you can see people who embodies a multitude of sufferings: either they are lame, they are blind, or they have other forms of helplessness. They are near the spring and are touched by water taken from it.
In the past, people did not have access to school education, being deprived of the ability to read. Thus, coming to church, seeing the icons, observing the details and learning from the illustrated scenes all that was needed to know about biblical events or Christian traditions.
The icons were in fact an illustrated Bible, a kind of teaching material for the illiterate. The icon of the source of Healing demonstrates to people that by believing in the effects of Jesus' sacrifice with which the Holy Mother stands, and by accepting communion with the Body and Blood of the Lord, they can be healed of enduring suffering, both physical and spiritual.
Therefore, many of the churches built after the 11th century have, as their main holiday, the source of healing. We mention in our area Nucet Monastery and Izvorul Tămăduirii Church (The Old Market).
