It celebrates 5 days after Holy Easter.
The name Zoodochos Pigi tou Balukli or Panagia Balukliotissa refers to a holy Christian shrine located in Constantinople outside the western gate of Silyvria, where there were the so-called “palaces of the springs” where the Byzantine Emperors visited the Spring. It got its name from the Turkish name Balık (= fish) and includes the monastery, the church and the sanctuary.
For the revelation of the Sanctification there are two versions:
a) The first, recounted by Nikephoros Callistos, states that: The later Emperor Leo Thrax or Leo the Great (457 – 474 AD), when he was coming as a simple soldier to Constantinople, he met a blind man at the Golden Gate who asked him water. Looking for water, a voice pointed out the source. By drinking the blind man and the muddy water coming into his eyes he was cured.
When he later became Emperor, the prophetic voice told him that he should build a Church next to the spring. In fact, Leo built a magnificent church in honor of the Virgin in that place, which he named “Pigi”. Callisto describes this great Church in great detail, although the description fits Justinian’s edifice better. Historically, however, it is verified that in 536 AD at the Council of Constantinople, under Patriarch Minas 536 – 552 AD), Zeno also takes part, abbot “of the House of the holy glorious Virgin and Virgin Mary at the Source”.
b) The second, recounted by the historian Procopius, is placed at the beginning of the 6th century and refers to Justinian. Justinian was hunting in a wonderful landscape with lots of green, water and trees. There, as if in a vision, he saw a small chapel, a crowd of people and a priest in front of a spring. “It is the source of miracles” they told him. And he built a monastery there with materials left over from Hagia Sophia. I. Kedrinos mentions that it was built in 560 AD.
