Boyany Icon of the Mother of God Convent

The convent of the Boyany Icon of the Mother of God stands in the village of Boyany in the Chernivtsi region. Archaeologists date the village's beginning to about the twelfth century, on the trade road from Galicia to Moldavia, and its first written mention to 1523¹. The church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, beside which the house later arose, was built here in 1898 by Romanian Catholics of the Greek rite; later it became Orthodox^{1, 8}.

In 1991 an image of the Mother of God with the Infant Saviour was painted for the church¹. During the evening service of 18 December 1993, the eve of the commemoration of St Nicholas, the icon began to stream tears. The parish priest of Boyany at that time, Archpriest Mykhailo Zhar - afterwards Bishop Longin of Banchény - saw it: in his words, at first «the eyes of the Mother of God were filled with tears and shone brightly», and by the end of the service the tears ran down to the very foot of the icon^{1, 5}.

On 4 October 1994 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church examined the report of the Archbishop of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna on this event in the church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in the village of Boyany, together with the written testimony of eyewitnesses, and resolved to recognise it as a miracle, to name the icon the Boyany icon - «after the place of its manifestation» - and to establish its feast on 12/25 September³. Since then, as the house itself writes, the veneration of the icon has been blessed throughout Ukraine, and from the mid-1990s a cross procession has walked each year from Chernivtsi to Boyany¹.

In 1995 a monastic community was founded at the church; at first it existed as a sisterhood of the Boyany Icon of the Mother of God and as a skete under the spiritual care of the house at Banchény^{1, 8}. In 1997-1999 a three-storey block was raised with its own church of the Boyany icon¹, consecrated in 1998⁸, and on 28 December 1999 the sisterhood received the status of a monastery⁸; in 2000 a chapel of the Nativity of Christ was built at the house¹. By the beginning of 2003, besides the church of 1898 where the icon is kept, the grounds held a bell tower and two cell blocks⁸.

On 22 November 2000 the Holy Synod, upon the death of the superior of the house, Hegumeness Kheruvyma (Moleshtianu), appointed the nun Serafyma (Zaiets) superior and raised her to the rank of hegumeness⁴. By the end of the 2000s about 100 sisters lived at the house⁸, and in 2014 there were 122⁵.

Two akathists have been composed for the Boyany icon: in 1995 in Romanian, by Archpriest Adrian (Akostakiia), and in 1997 in Church Slavonic, by Onufriy, who afterwards became Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church⁶. The icon is regularly taken out for veneration; twice it was received by Bulgaria - in 2008, and a second time from 25 May to 2 June 2019, when at the invitation of Metropolitan Gabriel (Dinev) of Lovech it stayed in the Lovech diocese of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church⁶. The house keeps a book in which healings prayed for before the icon are recorded¹. The sisters care for the children of the orphanage in the village of Molnytsia attached to the house at Banchény¹, and for the sick children who live at the Banchény monastery⁵.

The monastery's patronal feasts are the Nativity of the Theotokos on 8 (21) September and the day of the Boyany Icon of the Mother of God on 12 (25) September². On 25 September 2014, the feast of the icon, the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church celebrated the Divine Liturgy here, concelebrated by Archbishop Meletii of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna and Bishop Longin of Banchény, with more than 80 clergy of Bukovyna praying⁵. On 25 September 2024 the patronal liturgy at the house was led by Metropolitan Meletii of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna⁷.