Zelensky meets with Pope, gifts him “wartime” icon of the Mother of God

Zelensky and Pope Leo. Photo: Zelensky’s Telegram channel

On May 18, 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Pope Leo at the Vatican following the Pontiff’s inauguration.

Zelensky wrote on his Telegram channel that “for millions of people around the world, the Pontiff is a symbol of hope for peace. The authority and voice of the Holy See can play an important role in bringing this war to an end.”

He expressed his gratitude to the Vatican, in the person of Pope Leo, “for its willingness to serve as a platform for direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia,” and stated Ukraine’s readiness “for dialogue in any format that leads to real results.”

Zelensky also presented the Pontiff with an icon of the Mother of God painted on boards from an ammunition crate. According to the president, the crates were brought from near Izium.

He emphasized that the icon “is about our children – those who have suffered from the war, those who were deliberately abducted and deported by Russia, and those who are longed for back home in Ukraine.”

Zelensky did not specify the icon’s title, saying only that it depicted “the Mother of God with the Child.”

Images of the Mother of God with an uncovered head are not typical in Orthodox iconography. It can be assumed that the icon presented by Zelensky belongs to the Western Rus’ (Belarusian-Ukrainian) iconographic tradition of the 16th–17th centuries, most likely of the “Tenderness” (Eleusa) type.

As previously reported by the UOJ, Zelensky earlier gave Pope Francis an “icon” featuring an empty space where the Christ Child would traditionally be depicted.

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