Inscription in Church Slavonic: Казанская ПРЕПОДОБНЫЙ Богородицы

Inscriptions in Greek: MP ΘY, Mother of God; IC XC, Jesus Christ

Feast Day: 21st July, 4th November

Our icon closely follows the iconography of the Kazanskaya. The Virgin gazes at the onlooker with her head inclined to her left, towards the Christ-child. Christ is standing before the Virgin. The Virgin of Kazan or Kazanskaya is a variant of the celebrated Byzantine Hodegetria. The oldest Russian variation of the Hodegetria is the Virgin of Vladimir, and over the centuries various versions of this icon arose, often linked to geographical locations in Russia such as the Tikhvinskaya, Smolenskaya, etc. The intimate close-up of the head and arms makes the icon especially direct. The eyes of the Virgin are wide open in sorrowful contemplation and she is not looking at Christ but addresses her gaze to the person praying in front of the image.

In Russia, the Kazanskaya, the Tikhvinskaya, and the Vladimirskaya derive from the Umilenie type. The Kazanskaya it was widely venerated in the 16th and 17th centuries especially as an image for personal prayer in home chapels or monastic cells.