Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia announced the discovery of the miraculous Kazan Icon of the Theotokos of the XVI century, which had long been considered lost. He made such a statement before the beginning of the liturgy in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin on the Day of National Unity and celebration of the Kazan Icon, two clergymen held the shrine in front of the Patriarch in their hands.
"The examination concluded that this image belongs to the very era in which the miraculous image was created. And since this icon is, as it were, an exact, exact copy of that created icon, it is quite obvious that two identical icons could not have been created at that time and that we are talking about a miraculous image, the very image before which both Minin and Pozharsky prayed. This event can be attributed to historical events. I did not immediately decide to say all this in the temple, but then I realized that it was impossible to conceal this story, our people and the whole world should know about it," the Patriarch said.
Russian Russian Icon of the Theotokos is one of the main Russian shrines associated with the most important events in the history of the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church. She appeared in Kazan in 1579, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The lists of icons have become widespread, many are known as miraculous, but the original image itself was considered to have disappeared. According to the primate of the Russian Church, in recent years the icon has been kept in the patriarchal residence in Peredelkin among other icons in a warehouse.
According to church legend, the icon miraculously appeared in 1579 after a terrible fire in Kazan. The image accompanied the militia of Minin and Pozharsky in 1612, Peter the Great prayed in front of him on the eve of the Battle of Poltava.
In 1904, the icon was stolen from the Kazan Bogoroditsky Monastery. According to the main version, voiced later by the kidnappers themselves during the trial, they committed a crime for the sake of a precious salary, and the image itself was cut up and burned in a furnace.