Thousands join cross procession to Boyany Monastery in Bukovyna

Religious procession in honor of the Boyany Icon. Photo: UOJ

On September 24, 2026, a traditional cross procession to the UOC’s Boyany Convent took place in Bukovyna, drawing approximately 2,000–3,000 faithful from the Chernivtsi-Bukovyna Eparchy, a UOJ correspondent reports.

The prayerful procession set out from the outskirts of Chernivtsi early in the morning. Carrying icons and church banners, the pilgrims are making the approximately 10-kilometer journey in unceasing prayer to reach the Boyany Monastery in time for the festal service at the monastery’s Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.

The annual procession is dedicated to the commemoration of the wonderworking Boyany Icon of the Mother of God, whose feast day was established by the Holy Synod of the UOC on September 25.

The icon was painted in 1991 for the iconostasis of the church in Boiany. On December 18, 1993, the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas, the church rector, Fr. Mykhailo (Zhar), and parishioners noticed that the eyes of the Mother of God had filled with tears, which streamed abundantly down the icon.

The miraculous phenomenon was documented by an eparchial commission headed by Bishop Onuphry (Berezovskyi), now the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

That same year, healings attributed to the icon were recorded involving a young cancer patient named Heorhii from Khmelnytskyi Oblast and an Orthodox priest named Ihor from Poland. On October 4, 1994, the UOC Synod officially recognized the icon as wonderworking.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the faithful in Rivne Oblast held a cross procession to Derman Monastery.

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