The Virgin of Kazan saves Moscow from the Poles

Kazan · Moscow, Russia · 1612

The Time of the Tumours

Between 1598 and 1613, Russia lived one of the most chaotic periods in its history: the so-called Smutnoye Vremya or Time of the Tumours. Illegal Zares, Polish suitors, famine, civil wars and foreign invasions took place without a truce. In 1610, a Polish army occupied the Moscow Kremlin. The Patriarch of Moscow, Hermogenes, was imprisoned by the occupants. From the prison, he managed to send letters to Russian cities by convening a national militia to release the capital.

The Kazan icon and the three-day fast

The icon of the Virgin of Kazan - miraculously found in 1579 after the appearance of a girl named Matrona in a vision - accompanied the militias of Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitri Pozharski in their march over Moscow. Before the decisive assault, the soldiers and the clergy fasted for three whole days, praying before the icon and imploring the intercession of the Virgin.

The liberation of the Kremlin

On 4 November 1612 (new style), the militias took over the Kremlin walls. The Poles, fenced and without supplies, capitulated two days later. Moscow was free. The Kazan icon entered the city in a thanksgiving procession, and Prince Pozharski deposited it in the Church of the Presentation of the Virgin.

In memory of this event, the Tsar Michael I instituted in 1649 the feast of November 4 as a national feast of thanksgiving. In 2005, Russia recovered this date as National Unity Day, the only Russian holiday directly linked to a Marian religious event.

The mystery of the original icon

Kazan's original icon disappeared in 1904 under mysterious circumstances. Different copies - some of great antiquity - are venerated in Russia, Portugal and the Vatican. In 2004, Pope John Paul II returned one of the most venerated copies to the Patriarchate of Moscow, in a gesture of ecumenical approach.

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