Diptych Icons of  MARY TSARITSA (QUEEN OF ALL)  and ST PANTELEIMON – THE  PHYSCIAN HEALER Mary, Tsaritsa (Queen) of All.  The icon depicts Virgin enthroned on an Imperial Throne majestically holding the Christ Child and attended by Angels.  Tradition is this icon miraculously appeared the day Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his throne and from that day the Virgin reigns as the Queen of Russia and the whole world. Today this icon is used in Akathist services (supplicating services) and personal prayers asking the Virgin’s intercession on behalf of all suffers of cancer.  This includes the person afflicted as well those who know, love and care for that person.  Cancer’s affects are far reaching as is the Virgin’s love and refuge for the suffering.  The original icon is in Moscow and A copy of the Akathist in English is available from St Paisius Monastery Bookstore, Safford, AZ. St Panteleimon (means All-Merciful) The Great Martyr and Healer.  St Panteleimon is one of the oldest known saints of the Church.  He was born in Nicomedia (around 285AD) to a pagan father and a Christian mother who died when he was young.  He was a raised a pagan studied under the famous physician Euphrosynos and later became the physician to the Emperor Maximian (284-305AD).  He dialogued with some Christian priests but only accepted Christianity after he saw a child bit and killed by a snake he prayed to Christ that if the child came back to life and the snake died he would become Christian.  He then devoted his life to the suffering, sick, needy and indigent – often treating then with prayer.  Jealous physicians told the Emperor of his Christianity and he tried to make the saint renounce his Christianity.  He refused and suffered many tortures – thrown to wild beasts – he was suspended on a tree raked with iron claws – torched and so much more until he was beheaded and milk flowed from his wounds. He is revered both in the Christian East (as the great healer) and the West (patron Saint of physicians).  His feast day in the Eastern Church is July 27th.  Size when its open; 7"x4 3/4"     Closed: 4 3/4"x3 1/2"      Made In Russia.   Boxed