English: For a long time the icon was an ancestral sanctity of the Byzantine emperors. According to the most wide-spread story, in 1472 the icon was brought to Moscow by Sophia Paleologue, who became the spouse of the Grand Duke of Moscow John III. There exists another story in which the icon passed to the Grand Duke of Moscow from the Dukes of Galicia, who had once received it as a donation from Byzantine empe­rors. Ine­rors. In 1495 Grand Duke of Moscow blessed his daughter Helen with this icon when giving her in marriage to Alexander, Grand Duke of Lithuania. After the death of Helen the icon was placed over her sepulchre at the Church of the Most pure Virgin Mary in Vilnius. In August 1915 the icon together with the relics of the Holy Martyrs of Vilius was evacuated to the Donskoy Monastery of Moscow. Its subsequent fate is unknown.