"Beautiful peaceful Church in Kazan"

Petar Polajnar

"The new, majestic Orthodox Church in the historic center of old Kazan. Unconditional architectural dominant of this area from now on for many, many years."

Sergey Soldatenkov

"The most important icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Kazan Icon of Our Lady, is stored here. I visited this place when I passed through Kazan in early 2024. For the history and miracles of the Kazan Icon of Our Lady, please see the following excerpt from my travel diary:

"In almost every city in Russia, there is an Orthodox church called "Kazan Cathedral". These churches enshrine replicas of the Kazan Icon of Our Lady. The original of this icon comes from Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, where Russians and Tatars each account for half, and Orthodoxy and Islam live in harmony. Due to a series of miracles in history, the Kazan Icon of Our Lady is the supreme treasure in the Russian Orthodox icon art. As the patron saint of Kazan and even the whole of Russia, the Virgin Mary has been widely respected and loved in Russia for hundreds of years.

According to the Orthodox tradition, the original of the Kazan Icon of Our Lady was introduced to Russia from Constantinople in the 13th century. In the 16th century, Ivan IV Ivan the Terrible led his army to expand the Russian Tsardom and conquered the Kazan Khanate established by the Tatars. Then, in 1579, an unexpected fire caused serious damage to the city of Kazan. One night after the fire, the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream to a soldier's ten-year-old daughter, Matryona, and asked her to dig out a painting of the Virgin Mary from the ruins of her burned home. On July 8, Matryona and her mother found a statue of the Virgin Mary wrapped in woolen silk and intact in the ruins. After Ivan IV learned about this through the local bishop, he ordered the construction of a church at the place where the Virgin Mary appeared to worship the statue of the Virgin Mary. The Orthodox Church also designated July 8 of each year as the Memorial Day of the Kazan Statue of the Virgin Mary.

Since then, the Kazan Statue of the Virgin Mary has been in the Bogoroditsky Monastery (Казанский Богородицкий) established at the place where it was discovered. The statue of Our Lady of Kazan was preserved in the Red Square until 1612, when the powerful Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth invaded Moscow. The local militia brought the statue of Our Lady of Kazan to the front line and miraculously repelled the Polish invaders and liberated Moscow. The Russian commander at the time, Pozharsky, believed that it was Our Lady of Kazan who protected Russia in times of danger. In order to commemorate this feat, he decided to build a Church of Our Lady of Kazan in the northeast corner of Red Square and move the original statue there. During this period, more churches of Our Lady of Kazan emerged on Russian soil, and the There are about ten early replicas of the famous Kazan Our Lady. During the Patriotic War of 1812, Napoleon led his troops to invade Russia and occupied the burned Moscow. The commander-in-chief Mikhail Kutuzov retreated to the defensive position in the rear and prayed to the Kazan Our Lady for a miracle to turn the tide of the war and protect the Russian nation. As a result, the winter of that year was extremely cold and unprecedented. The French army retreated due to supply interruption. Kutuzov then led his army to defeat Napoleon's army, breaking Napoleon's undefeated myth. Unfortunately, the statue enshrined in Bogorod The original Kazan icon of Our Lady of the Temple in the Dietsky Monastery was stolen on June 29, 1904. The thieves sold the priceless frame and the jewels inlaid on it, but the original image is still missing. After the Bolsheviks came to power, the authorities suppressed religion and churches were forced to close one after another. Several ancient copies of the icon were smuggled out of the country and sold by those who abused their power. One of the early copies from the 16th century was sold in Poland and the United Kingdom, and was finally purchased by the Fatima Apostolic Community in the United States in 1970 and moved to the Fatima Shrine in Portugal. In 1993, the icon was rebuilt and sold in the United States. The statue was transferred to the Vatican and has been placed in the office of the former Pope John Paul II. Eleven years later, Pope John Paul II decided to return the statue of Our Lady of Kazan to its original owner and restore the unity of the Eastern and Western Churches. The Pope mentioned: "Russia has been a Christian nation for many centuries. Even though hostile forces have violently attacked the Church and tried to eradicate the name of God from people's lives, that nation has remained deeply Christian and unmoved. In many situations, they have testified to their fidelity to the Gospel with their blood […] Although the divisions among Christians continue to exist, this statue presents a symbol of the unity of believers in the only Son of God. "

On August 28, 2004, the Apostolic Nuncio successfully returned the icon to Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia at the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin in the Moscow Kremlin, and it was finally enshrined in the Bogoroditsky Monastery in Kazan. Therefore, today, the Kazan Icon of Our Lady is venerated by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.""

Yuxiang Yan