The icon 'Bread Giver' was created in the women's Shamordino Monastery, founded by St. Ambrose of Optina in the Kaluga region. The icon depicts the Mother of God sitting on clouds with outstretched arms for blessing. Below her is a harvested field with sheaves of rye among grass and flowers.

St. Ambrose commissioned this image to be painted from an icon in the women's Bolkhov All Saints Monastery around 1889. After the icon was created, the elder sent photographs of it to his spiritual children as a blessing from the Mother of God and from himself.

In 1891, the icon manifested its miraculous power in the Shamordino Monastery. At a time when there was famine across Russia due to crop failure, bread was harvested in the Kaluga region and Shamordino. Since then, prayers for help in agricultural work have been directed to this icon, and a temple was built in its honor at Optina Pustyn, erected by the efforts of the brotherhood on the farm.

The temple in honor of the icon of the Mother of God 'Bread Giver' was laid in the Monastery in 1998. A stone from the 'field of shepherds' in Palestine, where angels announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds, was placed at the foundation of the altar. Two years later, on February 6, 2000, the temple was consecrated by Metropolitan Clement on the feast day of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg. The temple, designed in the traditional Russian style and accommodating 100-150 worshippers, became the architectural dominant of the complex. It added grace to the farm, delighting the heart and easing the soul.

The altar of the temple faces the monastery greenhouses, while the western facade faces the granary. Nearby are the cow shed, mill, and brotherly houses. The field season begins here with a prayer service for the start of work, and on October 28, the day of the icon of the Mother of God 'Bread Giver', it concludes with a procession around the temple. By this time, the main harvest has been gathered, and the feast allows the brotherhood and pilgrims to express gratitude to God and His Most Pure Mother for their blessings.

Throughout the year, the brotherhood works in the fields, greenhouses, poultry house, cow shed, stable, and apiary, while spiritual life continues in the temple. Around the clock, except during Bright Week, the Psalter is read with remembrance of the living and the dead, the liturgy is performed several times a week, and a weekly akathist is served with a refrain written by St. Ambrose himself.

The brotherhood of Optina Pustyn believes that their prayers to the Protector of the Christian race do not go unanswered, and the Mother of God helps them in their labors. Since the opening of the temple, they cannot recall a year with poor harvests or significant crop losses.