Icon "Theotokos Hodegetria"

The icon belongs to the Hodegetria type (from the Greek "She Who Shows the Way").

The icon depicts the Mother of God with the Infant Christ; she points to the Child with her right hand and supports him with her left. Christ sits on her arm, blessing with his right hand while holding a scroll in his left.

The Mother of God is shown from the waist up, in a three-quarter turn to the right, while the Child is shown full-length, in a three-quarter turn to the left. The Mother of God wears a blue tunic and a red maphorion bearing the visible star of the Ever-Virgin. Christ wears a white chiton and a red himation, girded with a black belt. Round halos surround the heads of both the Mother of God and the Child.

The background of the icon is brown, covered across the entire field with a relief floral ornament that has since been gilded. Thin strips are set into the panel around the image of the Mother of God and Child to mark the recessed "ark," with relief strips marking the frame. The margins of the frame bear a red geometric ornament. On the reverse are two horizontal rectangular recesses for inset battens.

During the Second World War the icon remained in occupied Kharkiv, and was later taken to Germany. In August 1945 it was returned to Kharkiv from the town of Zehdenick, in the Brandenburg region.