Life-giving Spring

The Mother of God of the Life-giving Spring or Life-giving Font (Ancient Greek: Ζωοδόχος Πηγή, romanized: Zōodóchos Pēgḗ, modern pronunciation: [zo.oˈðoxos piˈʝi]; Russian: Живоно́сный Исто́чник, romanized: Zhivonósny Istóchnik, IPA: [ʐɨvɐˈnosnɨj ɪˈstotɕnʲɪk]) is an epithet of the Holy Theotokos that originated with her revelation of a sacred spring (Ancient Greek: ἁγίασμα, romanized: hagíasma) in Valoukli, Constantinople, to a soldier named Leo Marcellus, who later became Byzantine Emperor Leo I (457-474).

[9] The traditional account surrounding the feast of the Life-Giving Spring is recorded by Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos, the last of the Greek ecclesiastical historians, who flourished around 1320.

Leo took pity on him, led him to the pathway, seated him in the shade and began to search for water to give the thirsty man.

Then take the mud [from the stream] and put it on the blind man's eyes.... And build a temple [church] here ... that all who come here will find answers to their petitions.

In 1547 the French humanist Petrus Gyllius noted that the church no longer existed, but that ailing people continued to visit the spring of holy water.

Construction was completed on December 30, 1834, and the Ecumenical Patriarch, Constantius II consecrated the church on February 2, 1835, celebrating with 12 bishops and an enormous flood of the faithful.

The Pühtitsa Convent is located on a site where, according to a 16th-century legend, near the local village of Kuremäe, a shepherd witnessed a divine revelation of the Theotokos near a spring of water that is to this day venerated as holy and is famous for many miracles and healings.

[14] In the 9th century, Joseph the Hymnographer gave the title 'Life-giving Spring' (Zōodóchos Pēgḗ) to a hymn (Theotokíon) for the Mother of God for the first time.