The article recounts the Feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos, commemorating a tenth-century apparition in Constantinople's Blachernae church when the Virgin miraculously spread her protective veil over the faithful during an all-night vigil. It also summarizes lives of associated saints, Apostle Ananias, Venerable Joseph and Kyriakos of Bisericani, and Romanus the Melodist, and traces the feast's influence in Russian and Slavic traditions.
