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This is the most famous and most revered miraculous icon of the [[Theotokos]] on the Holy Mountain. In the 9th century, during the reign of [[Theophilus the Iconoclast]], it was the personal property of a devout widow from [[NicaeaNicea]] in Asia Minor, who kept it and honored it in her private [[chapel]]. The emperor's men who heard of this decided not to carry out immediately the order about icons, but tried to blackmail its rich owner. In the time which they gave her to collect the money they demanded, the widow took the icon and her dearly loved son and, after fervent prayer, took it to the sea and left it on the surface of the waves, so that it should not be defiled by the iconoclasts. The icon stood upright on the water and began to head towards the west, while the widow's son, following her advice, also fled towards the west to escape persecution. Later he became a [[monk]] and died on the north-east coast of Mount Athos near or in the [[Monastery]] of Clement (now [[Iviron Monastery (Athos)|Iviron Monastery]]), and so the [[anchorite]]s round about heard from him the story of the icon.