Hodegetria Icon

Hodegetria (“she who points the way”) icon with the Theotokos (the god-bearer, Mary) holding child Jesus. Mary points toward Jesus as the way; Jesus' right hand is raised with index and middle fingers pointed in a blessing. There are starburst images on Mary's right shoulder and on the forehead area of her mantle; she has a frontal gaze with her head tilted slightly toward Jesus. Letters at the top in Greek MP-OY (Mater Theouo/Mother of God), and over Jesus figure IX-XZ, which is a widely used Christogram, the traditional four-letter abbreviation of the Greek words for ""Jesus Christ,"" the first and last letters of each of the words ""ΙΗSΟΥS ΧΡΙSΤΟS.”

The icon of the Hodegetria was the famous protectress of the city of Constantinople. Her iconographic type is widely disseminated throughout the Orthodox oikoumene reflecting the miraculous nature of the now lost original.

Considered a prayer in picture form and a spiritual door, icons began as simply an image and became an essential part of Orthodox services and personal devotion and veneration.

According to F. Lanier Graham, during the 19th century, this icon was part of the domestic altar of his Great-Grandmother Mary Theodora Browne Lanier and then part of the domestic altar of Grandmother Alberta Benton Mankin Lanier.

Gift of Graham in honor of Jane Daggett Dillenberger. At her memorial service in 2015 this icon, which Professor Dillenberger dearly loved, was named the "Jane Daggett Dillenberger Madonna."