The celebration of the appearance of the icon of the Mother of God on July 21 (new style) begins with the miraculous appearance of the icon in the city of Kazan in 1579.
The icon is an image of the Mother of God and Jesus Christ, who face people. Christ blesses with one hand, the other hand is hidden under the tunic. According to the iconographic composition, the icon belongs to the type «Hodegetria» (in Greek – «guide»). Unlike older icons of this type, the head of the Virgin is slightly inclined to the left.
The story tells that some time after the conquest of Kazan by the young Tsar Ivan the Terrible, his establishment of the Kazan diocese and the successful spread of Christianity, the Mohammedans began to offer strong resistance. They regarded the fire of 1579, which destroyed half of the Kazan Kremlin and the adjacent part of the city, as the wrath of the «Russian God». It was at this time that the mercy of God was revealed in Kazan to strengthen Orthodoxy through the miraculous discovery of the icon of the Mother of God, which on this occasion received the name Kazan.
The city began to rise from the ruins shortly after the fire. Together with other fire victims, shooter Daniil Onuchin built a house not far from the site of the fire. His nine-year-old daughter Matrona appeared in a sleepy vision of the Mother of God and ordered to get Her icon, buried in the ground under the rule of Muslims by the secret confessors of Orthodoxy. They didn't pay attention to the girl's words. The Mother of God appeared three times and indicated the place where the miraculous icon was hidden.
Finally, Matron and his mother began to dig in the indicated place and found a holy icon. Archbishop Jeremiah arrived at the site of the miraculous discovery at the head of the clergy and transferred the holy image to a nearby church in the name of St. Nicholas, from where, after the prayer service, he was transferred with the procession to the Annunciation Cathedral —, the first Orthodox church in the city of Kazan, erected by Ivan the Terrible. During the procession, two blind men — Joseph and Nikita received healing.
A list from the icon shown in Kazan, a statement of the circumstances of its discovery and a description of miracles were sent in 1579 to Moscow. Tsar Ivan the Terrible ordered to build a temple at the site of the appearance in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, where the holy icon was placed, and to establish a convent.
During the reign of Peter I, the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was moved to the new capital – St. Petersburg. Here, until 1811, she was in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. And then it was moved to the newly built Kazan Cathedral.
In total, there were three equally revered miraculous icons of Our Lady of Kazan in Russia. The first icon was in Kazan in the Bogoroditsky Monastery, the second — icon of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, which was transported by Peter I to St. Petersburg, and finally the third was in the Moscow Kazan Cathedral, and it was given by Prince Pozharsky.
The celebration of the Kazan Icon was also established on November 4 according to the new style.