The Akathist is dedicated to a rare iconographic image of the Most Holy Theotokos, known as “Seeking the Lost.” Church tradition connects the appearance of the image of the Virgin Mary with the story of a certain Theophilus, who lived in the 7th century in the Byzantine city of Adana in southeastern Anatolia. In Russia, the veneration of the icon “Seeking the Dead” dates back to the 17th century. The icon of the Most Holy Theotokos became especially famous in the middle of the 18th century, when the Mother of God saved the peasant Fedot Obukhov, a resident of the Kaluga province, who was dying from the cold. Lists of icons have more than once saved cities and villages of various provinces of the Russian Empire – Tambov, Chernigov, Kharkov – from epidemics.