Our Lady of Kazan, Russia

Our Lady of Kazan

Russia

Our Lady of Kazan, also called Mother-of-God of Kazan (Russian: Казанская Богоматерь tr. Kazanskaya Bogomater), was a holy icon of the highest stature within the Russian Orthodox Church, representing the Virgin Mary as the protector and patroness of the city of Kazan, and a palladium of all of Russia, known as the Holy Protectress of Russia.

According to legend, the icon was originally acquired from Constantinople, lost in 1438, and miraculously recovered in pristine state over 140 years later in 1579. Two major cathedrals, the Kazan Cathedral, Moscow, and the Kazan Cathedral, St. Petersburg, are consecrated to Our Lady of Kazan, and they display copies of the icon, as do numerous churches throughout the land. The original icon in Kazan was stolen, and likely destroyed, in 1904.

The "Fátima image" is a 16th-century copy of the icon, or possibly the 16th-century original, stolen from St. Petersburg in 1917 and purchased by F. A. Mitchell-Hedges in 1953. It was housed in Fátima, Portugal from 1970 to 1993, then in the study of Pope John Paul II in the Vatican from 1993 to 2004, when it was returned to Kazan, where it is now kept in the Kazan Monastery of the Theotokos.

According to tradition, the original icon of Our Lady of Kazan was brought to Russia from Constantinople in the 13th century. After the establishment of the Khanate of Kazan the icon disappeared from the historical record for more than a century.

Metropolitan Hermogenes' chronicle, written at the request of Tsar Feodor in 1595, describes the recovery of the icon. According to this account, after a fire destroyed Kazan in 1579, the Virgin appeared to a 10-year-old girl, Matrona, revealing the location where the icon lay hidden. The girl told the archbishop about the dream but she was not taken seriously. However, on 8 July 1579, after two repetitions of the dream, the girl and her mother recovered the icon on their own, buried under a destroyed house where it had been hidden to save it from the Tatars.

Other churches were built in honour of the revelation of the Virgin of Kazan, and copies of the image were displayed at the Kazan Cathedral of Moscow (constructed in the early 17th century), at Yaroslavl, and at St. Petersburg.

Russian military commanders Dmitry Pozharsky (17th century) and Mikhail Kutuzov (19th century) credited invocation of the Virgin Mary through the icon with helping the country to repel the Polish invasion of 1612, the Swedish invasion of 1709, and Napoleon's invasion of 1812. The Kazan icon achieved immense popularity, and there were nine or ten separate miracle-attributed copies of the icon around Russia

On the night of June 29, 1904, the icon was stolen from the Kazan Convent of the Theotokos [ru] in Kazan where it had been kept for centuries (the building was later blown up by the communist authorities. Thieves apparently coveted the icon's gold frame, which was ornamented with many valuable jewels. Several years later, Russian police apprehended the thieves and recovered the frame. The thieves originally declared that the icon itself had been cut to pieces and burnt, although one of them eventually confessed that it was housed in a monastery in the wilds of Siberia. This one, however, was believed to be a fake, and the Russian police refused to investigate, using the logic that it would be very unlucky to venerate a fake icon as though it were authentic. The Orthodox Church interpreted the disappearance of the icon as a sign of tragedies that would plague Russia after the image of the Holy Protectress of Russia had been lost. Indeed, the Russian peasantry was wont to credit all the miseries of the Revolution of 1905, as well as Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, to the desecration of her image.

The revered copies of the Kazan icon that existed in different regions of Russia were numerous and diverse.

Thus, one of the venerated copies of the Kazan icon was kept in the camp of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky’s Russian voluntary corps during the war against the Polish and Swedish invaders between 1611 and 1613. A special annual commemoration of the Kazan icon of the Theotokos was instituted for October 22 in gratitude for the deliverance of Moscow from the Polish usurpers. Initially it was celebrated only in Moscow, and in 1649 it became a nationwide festival.

It was at the same time that the first church in honor of the Kazan icon was built in Kolomenskoye.

In the eighteenth century, the Kazan icon was held in great esteem by both Peter I “the Great” and Catherine II the Great. Thus, it was under Peter I, in 1721, that one of the venerated copies was transferred to St. Petersburg; earlier, in 1709, on the eve of the Battle of Poltava, Tsar Peter prayed with his army in front of the Kazan icon, and they were victorious. In 1768, Catherine II adorned the cover of the original icon at Kazan with a diamond crown as a token of her reverence for the relic.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Kazan icon became one of the most revered icons inside Russia. It was cherished by the entire Orthodox population. At that time one couldn’t find a single believer who didn’t know about the original Kazan icon or its copies.

You can find Kazan icons of the Mother of God in most churches of Moscow, first and foremost in the Kazan Cathedral in Red Square. It was restored in 1993. It holds a revered copy of the Kazan icon.

A modern Kazan icon of the Theotokos can be found in the lower part of the Patriarchal Cathedral of Christ the Savior (called the Church of the Transfiguration). Parishioners of the main capital’s cathedral often pray in front of this icon.

Among the numerous relics of the Church of the Holy Prophet Elias in Obydensky Lane you can find one Kazan icon of the Theotokos. It also houses a particle of the Cincture of the Blessed Virgin. The church is open daily from 7:00 AM till 10:00 PM.

The capital’s Theophany Cathedral (commonly called Elokhovo Cathedral) has a copy of the miracle-working Kazan icon which was formerly kept at the Kazan Cathedral in Red Square.

At the Church of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God on Lyshchikova Hill, visitors can venerate a copy of the Kazan icon along with the relics of the New Confessor Priest Roman Medved, who reposed in the late 1930s in Maloyaroslavets (the Kaluga region) after numerous arrests and exiles.

There is a unique Kazan icon painted on glass at the Church of St. Poemen the Great in Moscow.

The St. Nicholas Church at Bersenevskaya Embankment near the Kremlin is very interesting. It holds long services and maintains some Old Ritualist traditions. One of its relics is a much revered copy of the Kazan icon.

Of course, this list is incomplete. Indeed it is difficult to find a parish church of Moscow which doesn’t have a copy of the Kazan icon of the Theotokos!

The Kazan icon is a half-length (or head to shoulders) version of the icon of the Theotokos of the Hodegetria (“She who shows the way”) type. On it the Infant Christ sits on Mary’s arms, blessing with His right hand and holding a scroll or a book in His left hand.

On the Kazan icon the Virgin Mary is depicted bust-length, in typical garments, slightly inclining her head towards the Christ Child. The Savior looks directly at us; He is depicted waist-length, with His right hand in a gesture of blessing.