Today the Holy Church celebrates the appearance of the miracle-working image of the Mother of God in the city of Kazan.

The finding of the Kazan Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God happened in 1579 after a terrible fire destroyed part of the city. After a nine-year old Matrona saw a vision of the Mother of God in a dream where She directed to go to a burnt home ordering to recover Her icon buried in the ground underneath it. When Matrona woke up and told about the dream to her parents, they brushed off her words as nonsense. The Mother of God appeared three times to the young girl asking again and again to act as she was told.

Frightened by this experience, Matrona, with her mother’s help, started digging at a location pointed by the Queen of Heaven and found an icon untouched by fire. The miracle took place on this day 442 years ago. The newly found icon was ceremoniously transferred to the church and we pray before our eager Intercessor ever since: “As thou art the great Queen and Mother of the King of the all-exalted hosts in heaven, stretching forth thine all-pure hands, thou dost intercede for

us with supplication; and on earth, as a mighty helper, thou abidest with thy servants in spirit and in thy divine icon, and dost gladly save and deliverest from all temptation them that piously confess thee to be the Theotokos.”

The Diveyevo monastery solemnly celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Kazan Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God. It is known from the monastery’s history that the Queen of Heaven bestowed it a special protection through Her holy icon of our Lady of Kazan.

The Kazan Church was the one Venerable Alexandra, the founder of the community, has initially built at the site of her vision of the Mother of God in the village of Diveyevo having also brought an exact copy of this miracle-working icon.

On the eve of the feast, the Lesser Vespers services with the singing of the akathist were held at the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery’s Kazan churches at the spring and in the monastery proper followed by the Vigil service in the Trinity, Kazan, and Annunciation Cathedrals. The feast day was marked by four Divine Liturgy services and a general partaking communion by the sisters.

After liturgy, the faithful walked in a procession at the Holy Kanavka.