The Smolensk Hodegetria ('Pointer-of-the-Way') was, according to Russian tradition, painted by St. Luke the Evangelist in the 1st century, preserved at the Hodegon Monastery in Constantinople for nearly a thousand years, and brought to Russia in 1046 with the Byzantine princess Anna Porphyrogenita on her marriage to Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich of Chernigov. It was placed at the cathedral of Smolensk.
The icon — Mary holding the Christ Child on her left arm, her right hand pointing to Him as 'the Way' — was credited with the protection of Russia at numerous moments of crisis, most famously the Battle of Borodino (September 1812), when it was carried in procession through the ranks of the Russian army on the eve of the battle against Napoleon. The original icon was lost during the Nazi occupation of Smolensk (1941–43); the great copy of 1602, also venerated, remains at the cathedral and is the principal Marian icon of western Russia.