Our Lady of Kazan

One of the most venerated icons in Russia, the Kazanskaya is a Hodegetria-type icon showing the Theotokos gesturing toward the Christ Child. The icon was miraculously discovered by a young girl in Kazan in 1579 after the city's fire.

The Kazanskaya icon is associated with Russia's deliverance from the Polish-Lithuanian invasion in 1612 and became a national symbol of Russian Orthodoxy.