A reference to the image of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in the first half of the 17th century.
From the book "Russian Meanings: Spiritual and Political Teachings of the X-XVII Centuries. In their historical development" the image of the Mother of God, found in Kazan in 1579, was first manifested in the most beneficial power during the Troubles. The copy from the Kazan icon was brought in 1611 near Moscow to the camps of the first militia. The militia soldiers from Kazan brought with them another list and presented it to the leader of the second militia, Prince D. from. Pozharsky. In 1612, the Kazan icon became the guide of the entire Second Militia, which moved from Nizhny Novgorod to the liberation of Moscow. On the eve of the decisive battle with the interlopers who grew up in Moscow, the Russian army fasted for three days and prayed to the Mother of God for mercy in front of the icon of Kazan. And the victory won in this battle is considered as further evidence of the patronage of the Mother of God of Russia. Since then, the icon of the Kazan Mother of God has acquired a Russian meaning. First, popular admiration arose - immediately after the liberation of Moscow in 1612, when, in the absence of a tsarist force, the militia soldiers "established a festive holiday to celebrate such a wonderful victory." "The palladium of the royal house of the Romanovs, the shield of the capital of the kingdom and the guardian of the throne", that is, the icon became a national shrine until 1636, under Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, when the stone cathedral of Kazan was built on Red Square in Moscow. The cathedral was built at the expense of the royal family, which, as the new chronicle testifies, "began to strongly believe in this image and ordered the celebration to be celebrated twice a year and the procession from the cross." Soon Kazan churches began to multiply throughout Russia. As observations of the chronology of the construction of churches in honor of the Kazan icon showed, until 1611, his veneration initially spread only in Kazan, with separate outlets throughout the Volga region. But rapid growth in the construction of Kazan churches has been observed since the second half of the 1920s. 17th century.