A saving image with a mysterious past: how the icon of the Kazan Mother of God disappeared and was found

Patriarch Kirill said that he had found the original of an icon that disappeared more than a hundred years ago.

November 4th is the day of the miraculous Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. On the eve of the Orthodox holiday, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ held an all-night vigil at the Epiphany Cathedral in Elokhov (Moscow), and in the morning, already in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, he surprised believers with a sensational statement: the original Kazan Icon of the Mother of God has been found! It was believed that the image that saved Russia from the Poles in 1612 was burned more than a hundred years ago. However, the Patriarch is sure that all this time the icon was kept in the Epiphany Cathedral.

The liturgy in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin began with the appearance of the main character “in the flesh.” The clergy carried out the image of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in their arms, and Patriarch Kirill declared that this was the same shrine that had disappeared more than a century ago. According to him, the examination confirmed that this icon was created in the 16th century. For a long time it was considered an exact copy of the famous image, but now they have come to the conclusion that “two identical icons could not have been created at that time and that we are talking about a miraculous image, the very image in front of which both Minin and Pozharsky prayed.”

Here it is appropriate to recall the history of the appearance and disappearance of one of the most revered icons in Rus’. It is believed that she appeared in Kazan in 1579, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The Tsar took Kazan 27 years before this event, and in 1579 the city almost completely burned down. According to legend, the Mother of God appeared in a dream to the 9-year-old girl Matrona, the daughter of a archer of the royal army, who ordered her image to be found in the ashes. The dream repeated itself again and again. As a result, the girl, together with her mother and the priests, who at first doubted the child’s stories, went in search and found an icon wrapped in cloth among the ashes. She was lying in the oven. After this, Muslim Kazan was rebuilt, gradually adopted Russian traditions and stopped looking at Christians with caution.

Several decades after the death of Ivan the Terrible, Russia plunged into troubled times. The struggle for power weakened the state, the Poles decided to seize it and took the Moscow Kremlin. The militia of Dimitri Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin set out from Nizhny Novgorod to liberate the capital from the invaders; along the way they were joined by the Kazan people, and with them the Most Holy Theotokos. Her image is to be carried at the head of the militia. On the eve of the assault on the Kremlin, the militia held a three-day fast and prayed in front of the Kazan image of the Virgin Mary. After the liberation of Moscow, they walked through the Kremlin in a religious procession, carrying the icon of the intercessor in front.

According to the Nikon Chronicle, after the liberation of Moscow, Prince Dimitry Pozharsky left the Kazan image in the Church of the Entry into the Temple of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Lubyanka. From there in 1636 it was moved to the newly built Kazan Cathedral on Red Square.

The icon again helped Russian soldiers in 1812. It is believed that Field Marshal General Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov prayed before her on the eve of the decisive battle with the French. And also that her prayers helped generals Mikhail Miloradovich and Matvey Platov defeat the rearguard of the troops of the French Marshal Davout near Vyazma.

Already in the 19th century, it was not completely clear where the original was located, which, according to legend, appeared to the girl after the fire. Most authors agree that he nevertheless remained in Kazan – in the Bogoroditsky Monastery. And the great military leaders prayed to lists, which became widespread already at the end of the 16th century.

The icon disappeared from the Kazan Mother of God Monastery in 1904. The fact is that even under Catherine II, by order of the empress, the image was dressed in a precious frame. Along with the icon, money was stolen from the candle boxes. The thieves were found – their leader turned out to be 27-year-old peasant Bartholomew Chaikin (Stoyan), he was helped by accomplices. At the trial, Stoyan denied participation in the theft, but the investigation concluded that he burned the stolen icon. Bartholomew was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor, and in 1916 he died in the Shlisselburg fortress. However, even then there were doubts about the conclusion of the investigation.

There are two versions that talk about how the icon survived. The first says that in fact the attacker sold it for a huge sum to the Old Believers. The second version says that the relic was not stolen at all, since the abbess of the monastery, just in case, replaced the image with a copy at night. That is, the thief took away not the original, but a list.

Over the past 20 years, different versions have arisen around the Kazan Icon. For example, there was an assumption that the original is in the Yaroslavl Wonderworkers Church at the Arskoe cemetery in Kazan. However, art critic, senior researcher at the Central Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art. Andrei Rublev Natalya Chugreeva denied this assumption. It turned out that the image dates back to the second half of the 18th century.

Patriarch Kirill, of course, spoke effectively and on time. In the most troubled times, believers turn their prayers specifically to the Kazan Mother of God. However, along with the icon, he did not present convincing evidence that would confirm that this is the same iconographic image. In order for his statement to be tested by the art historical community, more detailed explanations are needed: which experts and by what criteria made a conclusion about the authenticity of the icon. But even if scientific research is presented, doubts will still remain, because the history of the existence of the image is confused and not fully known. For now, we can only say that we witnessed a bright gesture on National Unity Day, which will go down in the history of the new Russia.