The Mother of God of Hodigitria

Kazan Icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria The image of the Mother of God of Kazan is distinguished by the characteristic half-figure depiction of Mary with Jesus and is one of the numerous variants of Hodegetria - the Guide, see S.12677MŁ. Reproduced in numerous copies, including household-use icons like the S.12770MŁ described here, it enjoys unfading popularity among Orthodox Christians in Russia. The revelation of the icon was associated with the propagation of Christianity in the expanding Russian Tsardom. The city of Kazan is located in the middle Volga basin, where, since the 7th c. lied Volga–Kama Bulghar. It was conquered by Tatar tribes in the 13th c., who, after the disintegration of the Golden Horde, created the Khanate of Kazan, known as Tatarstan. Its closest western neighbour was Vladimir-Suzdalian Rus, known as the Grand Duchy of Vladimir in the 13th-15th c. After the capture of Kiev by the Mongol tribes in the 13th c., Vladimir remained the seat of the grand dukes of Rus and the metropolitan of Kiev. It was a vibrant centre of Christianity, in contrast to Kazan - a vibrant centre of Islam. After the joining of the Vladimir-Suzdalian Rus with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible - the first on the Moscow throne - fought against the Khanate of Kazan and captured the city of Kazan in 1552, annexing it to Muscovy. In the face of Islam's domination in Tatarstan, the orthodoxy brought from Moscow spread with difficulty. On top of that, in July 1579, in the house of the Strelets Daniel Onuchin, a fire broke out and consumed Kazan in a matter of hours. The Muslims interpreted this event as the wrath of the 'Rus god' directed at the Orthodox. In this depressing atmosphere, on the 8th of July (July 21 in the Julian calendar) 1579, an icon of the Mother of God with Christ was found in the charred remains of the Onuchin house. Its further history is described under S.12773MŁ. Teresa Bagińska-Żurawska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9243-3967