Russian Church celebrates feast of Our Lady of Kazan Icon
MOSCOW, November 4 (RIA Novosti, Ivan Korzun) – The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates on Wednesday an icon of the Mother of God particularly popular in the country.
The Russian Orthodox Church leader, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, congratulated followers on the feast of the icon of Our Lady of Kazan and called on priests to help people open their hearts for divine grace. He also led a procession that started from the Kazan Cathedral on Red Square in downtown Moscow.
Kirill called for unity today, when Russia celebrates People’s Unity Day. “Our nation is multiethnic… Neither religious nor ethnic differences divide people. They are divided by sin and the loss of moral guidelines,” he said.
November 4 commemorates a popular uprising that expelled the Polish-Lithuanian occupation force from Moscow in November 1612, and more generally the end of the Time of Troubles and foreign intervention in Russia in the Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618). The day is a Russian national holiday.
The icon of Our Lady of Kazan is one of the Russian Church’s most venerated icons of the Theotokos. It represents Mary as the patron of the city of Kazan, the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, and is considered to have protected Russia for centuries.
A copy of the image apparently brought from Constantinople in the 13th century became popular in Russia since its discovery in Kazan in the 16th century. It was brought to Moscow in 1612 to help people led by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and merchant Kuzma Minin liberate the city through Mary’s intercession.
The icon is also honored by Roman Catholics.
