Even the icon of the Prioress is a copy of an older and especially well-known icon of the Virgin, the Αγιοσορίτισσα, which depicts the Virgin as reaching out to her son. This icon is today found in Konstantinople, in the great 5th century church of the Virgin in Chalkoprateia, only 100 metres west of Agia Sofia. A chapel in the church is dedicated exclusively to a precious relic: the belt of the Virgin, which is safeguarded in a priceless chest known as the Αγία Σορό, which lends its name to the chapel and to the icon. Thus, the name of the icon does not refer to a characteristic or role of the Virgin, but rather to one of her relics.
Other copies of the Αγιοσορίτισσα have also survived. Among the oldest, perhaps dating to the 7th or 8th century, and possibly the closest to the original, is the icon safeguarded in Rome, in the church of Santa Maria del Rosario.
These iconographical relationships contribute to the confirmation of the tradition that the Prioress was originally brought from the centre of the empire by the two founders.
