Milk of the Virgin

Nikifor Callistus Xanfopul in his book "Church History", written in the XIV century, describes that in the Khalkopratiyskoy church the Belt of the Most Holy Mother of God was kept with the milk of the Virgin Mary. ^[1] In “The Tale of the Holy Mount of Athos” - a description of the Athos monasteries, compiled in Moscow in 1560–1562, it is told that the St. Athanasius Lavra kept: hair from the beard of Jesus Christ, milky Virgin, diapers of Jesus Christ, with which Mary swaddled the infant Christ, the blood of John the Baptist ^[2] . In Georgia, where the tomb of the Georgian kings is located, a particularly revered cross reliquary was kept in the Gelati Monastery in 1650, inside of which were: the milky tooth of the Virgin Mary (when she was 7 years old), the hair of the Virgin Mary (when she tormented them at the Crucifixion of Christ), and Mleko Virgin ^[3] .

Among the Orthodox, there was the following description of the origin of the “milk of the Virgin”: when Christ was born in the Bethlehem cave, milk flowed out of the nipples of the Virgin Mary’s breast to the ground, and where it flowed the land became white (milky-colored), boiled and became like cheese. Every year on Christmas Day, the land in this place boils like a key, the Jerusalem Patriarch comes on this day, performs divine liturgy, collects this land, dividing it into parts, and then on each part of this land on one side make an image of the Virgin Mary with the Infant Christ, and on the other makes the inscription: "Mleko the Most Pure Virgin". After that, it sends “the milk of the Virgin” as a gift to the Orthodox prince and kings. In the annex to the text of Domostroi it is stated as follows:

Vyzhilskogo vyzhdeniya holy bricks on the way of life pechatayuⷮ oⷣnꙋ stranꙋ oⷠraⷥ prchⷭ҇tye btsⷣy with prevѣchnyⷨ mlaⷣntsoⷨ and ꙁ drꙋgꙋyu poⷣpіⷭ҇ mammalian prchⷭ҇tye btsⷣy ¯ vꙁimayut and posylayuⷮ pravoslavnyⷨ tsr҃em and kn҃ꙁeⷨ and sv҃titeleⷨ and prochim pravovѣrnyⷨ lyudeⷨ healing. ^[four]

The Mother of God of the Virgin was a fairly revered relic, which by status stood after a particle of the Tree of the Cross of the Lord, it was often placed in golden crosses. For example, nun Martha blessed her grandson, Tsar Alexei, with a gold cross, in which the first place was occupied by Mleko the Virgin, and only six particles of relics followed in importance. When Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was born, his grandfather Patriarch Filaret , like his wife Xenia, blessed his grandson, but with another cross, in which there was a particle of the Holy Cross tree, Mleko the Virgin and eight relics ^[5] .

The Spiritual Regulations of 1721, Peter the Great , were directed against the cult of the Virgin Mary, which said:

On the relics of the saints, where some will appear to be hesitant, to search: much more and about this is dirtied. For example, foreigners are suggested: the holy first-martyr Stephen’s body lies in Venice on the outskirts, in the Benedictine monastery, in the church of St. George, and in Rome in the country church of the Holy Lawrence; there are many nails of the cross of the Lord, and many of the Most Holy Theotokos of Italy, and other similar ones without a number. But do we not have such idleness?

Among Catholics, the relic of the “Mleko of the Virgin” was very widespread. Jean Calvin in his 1543 essay. A treatise on relics did not even list all the churches and monasteries where this relic was put up for worship, he limited himself to saying that the milk of the Virgin was so great that the Virgin Mary should have been a cow ^{[ 6]} . Unlike in the East, where the “milk of the Virgin” was presented in a cheesey consistency, in the West “the milk of the Virgin” was exhibited for worship in a liquid consistency, it was poured into various bubbles and bottles, after which the flask with the “milk of the Virgin” was exposed for worship and worship . In detail, in which churches and monasteries of the West there were bubbles with the milk of the Virgin described in the second volume of the book of 1821-22: "A Critical Dictionary of Relics and Miraculous Images"; de Plancy names Rome, Padua, Provence, Toulon, etc., among these places, the author also did not list all the places, since there were a lot of them ^[7] .

The Milky Crib in Bethlehem is connected with the milk of the Virgin Mary ^[8] . According to legend, the Holy Family hid here from the soldiers of King Herod during the beating of babies. Here, Maria fed the Baby with milk, a drop of which fell on the cave floor, and the cave stones became white. Locals collect and use this “milk” as a medicine, considering it to be healing and miraculous.