On Saturday, December 19, the feast of St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, a unique icon of the great wonderworker, known as “the Shot,” was blessed in Moscow State University’s Church of St. Tatiana.
The peculiarity of this icon of St. Nicholas is that a flattened bullet is inserted into it.
The bullet is one of the 40 that were shot at the icon of St. Nicholas that hung over the gates of the St. Nicholas Tower of the Moscow Kremlin during the anti-Bolshevik revolution of November 1-2, 1917, reports Foma.
The flattened bullet was found and removed from the layer of plaster by restorers who began to restore the painting with the icon of St. Nicholas in the 2010s.
During the work, the specialists removed the layer of painting from the 18th century, leaving the layer from the 17th. It was a miracle that the painting was not destroyed in the 1920s, but only covered over with a layer of brick.
When the bullet ended up with Fr. Igor Palkin, the idea of painting a special icon arose, which was realized in the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of Mozhaisk—the defender of the Church—shot during time of revolutionary turmoil. The icon was painted in the Tsargrad workshop under the direction of Dmitry Trofimov.
During the 14th-century siege of Mozhaisk by the Mongols, the locals prayed to St. Nicholas, who appeared to them holding a sword in his right hand and the city of Mozhaisk in his left. The Mongols retreated at the terrible sight, and the grateful citizens erected a wooden monument to St. Nicholas as he had been seen in the vision, which became a popular motif for Russian icons and high-reliefs.
One of the features of the new icon is that in those places where, judging by old photos, there were bullet holes, 8-point brass stars with holes were installed.
orthochristian.com