This sermon was delivered by the Holy Hieromartyr Archpriest John Vostorgov in 1908, not long after the terrible 1905 revolution in Russia.
Today we honor the feast of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God.
Why does this feast day, which would seem to be local according to its name, a celebration of only one city, nevertheless is a solemn feast of all the people of Russia? Why do Russian Orthodox people all across the face of the earth participate in this celebration, regardless of whatever huge distance they may be from the city of Kazan?
There is a ready answer in the words of the apostle to Christians: Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. (1 Cor. 12:27, 26).
Therefore, as children of our great and common fatherland, and as members of the same ecclesiastical body, we must naturally rejoice in everything that the Lord sends for the benefit and joy of our holy Church and our homeland.
Yet in the history of the appearance of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, in the wondrous acts of God’s power manifested through it for the benefit of our fatherland, and in the profound, purely formative influence of this holy icon on the Russian national soul and the history of our people, there is something more, something dear to the heart of every son of Russia; there is a lofty patriotic meaning.
When our ancestors, at the dawn of their historical statehood, were enlightened by the Christian faith, Western Europe had long been Christian. But the truth of Christianity had gradually been obscured there by human rational thinking and institutions. The Church of Christ was becoming worldly, and in the errors of the Roman popes—who reached for the sword and the crown, for the splendor of the earthly power of ancient and proud Rome—the Kingdom of God and Heavenly was increasingly turning into an earthly and human kingdom.
The uncorrupted truth of the Apostolic Faith was preserved in the East, in ancient Byzantium. But the countries of the Orthodox East at that time were already struggling and losing strength in their fierce battle with the advancing darkness of fanatical Islam. One by one, the lamps of the ancient churches were extinguished; one by one, the Orthodox kingdoms fell. Byzantium itself was visibly and irreversibly declining; the ancient Orthodox lands of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, Georgia, and later Bulgaria and Serbia, bowed before the dreadful flood of fanatical Islam. They were increasingly losing the ability to enlighten other tribes and nations around them, who were sitting in the darkness of ignorance of Christ's truth. Meanwhile, the field for preaching, the harvest for Christian labor, was vast and boundless.
At this late hour in history, the Lord raised up a new lamp of the right faith in the far north, in the young Russian principality, among the Russian people—a people young, gifted, full of strength and energy. Divine Providence, calling us, the Russian Slavs of Central Europe, into the fold of the Church of Christ, pointed to our country’s unique geographical position at the border of Europe and Asia, West and East, and to its ethnic makeup, to assign us a great task: to carry the precious treasure of pure and true faith to the little-known East and North of Europe, and beyond, into the then-unknown and mysterious lands bordering Asia; to fight the darkness of paganism and spreading Islam, to enlighten the many wild tribes of alien peoples, and to bring them into participation in the Kingdom of God and the life of enlightened humanity.
Truly, this was the only task of its kind in human history—a great world mission given to Holy Russia. Our ancestors, often consciously, sometimes semi-consciously, grasped it with a spiritual instinct and began to fulfill it directly from the time of St. Vladimir the Great. Remarkably quickly and firmly, in the first two centuries after the Baptism of Rus’, Christianity began to spread among the pagan tribes of what is now central and northern Russia, despite numerous and severe obstacles from outside and within, and despite the extreme scarcity of the Russian Slavs, bearers of the faith, who were almost submerged in a sea of surrounding foreign tribes.
But when Christianity had already spread from the banks of the Dnieper and Lake Ilmen1 to the farthest reaches of northern and eastern Europe, and the Russian Church was about to take the Gospel message into the depths of Asia, a great calamity befell Russia in the thirteenth century, one that would bind Russian life and temporarily slow down Russia’s great mission of Christian enlightenment.
This calamity was the Mongol yoke—a heavy and universal martyrdom endured by the Russian people. Through this long-suffering trial, Holy Russia was to atone for the sin of its disunity, feuds, and strife, to purge and temper itself within these fires, to recognize the absolute necessity of unity in faith and political solidarity, to forge and uphold the truth of autocracy and sovereign rule, and to learn the futility and harm of popular rule. At the same time, it was entrusted to hold back the invasion of wild barbarians into Europe, to defend and preserve for the world the treasures of Christian European civilization. This is an eternally unforgettable contribution of the Russian people to all humanity.
It cost Russia great labor to endure and ultimately throw off the oppressive Mongol yoke, so that it might again freely pursue its primary and essential global mission, which Providence had set before it. Finally, more than 200 years after the Mongol invasion, the cherished desire of our princes, bishops, and the entire Russian people was fulfilled: the Tatar horde, repeatedly defeated by Russian warriors, withdrew from our borders, weakened, and fell apart… and Rus’ became free!
And immediately, our movement to the East with the Cross and the Gospel resumed. But on this path, as a barrier to this movement, lay the once-terrifying and powerful Tatar Kazan kingdom.
On the great Feast of the Protection of the Mother of God, October 1, 1552, during the Divine Liturgy, at the proclamation of the Gospel words, and there shall be one fold, and one shepher” (Jn. 10:16), the once-formidable Kazan fell, and the Russian people gained an unhindered path into Asia.
Was this eastward movement and the overthrow of the kingdom of unbelievers pleasing to the Lord? Was the Russian people an instrument of God’s providence in this matter? Did they fulfill the divine mission assigned to them?
As if in response to these possible questions, besides the already notable circumstances of the conquest of Kazan, a new sign was granted from above.
The Lord wondrously revealed the icon of the Mother of God in Kazan, under whose protection the very conquest took place—an icon given to free Russia, a sign of Heavenly blessing for the Russian people in their historical mission to enlighten the East, to penetrate the depths of Asia, in their service to their calling for the world.
Time and again, this miraculous icon of the Mother of God brought and manifested God’s mercy in times of national calamity, and it rightfully became a revered icon throughout Russia. Each time, at decisive moments in Russia’s life, in preserving her integrity and independence, the Russian people received, as it were, a renewed confirmation of their historical mission.
There was a dark time, truly a “time of troubles” in Rus’, when the ruling line of St. Vladimir had ended, and when the Poles, having seized more than half of Russian lands, finally entered her very heart—Moscow—and settled there. The crown of Russia was even being offered to the Polish prince Władysław, and his father, Sigismund, a fanatic servant of the Roman pope, who sought to unite Russia with Poland, and never hid his intentions to introduce Catholicism into the Russian lands.
The purity of the Russian people’s faith, the fundamental pillars of their religious and national identity, and therefore their historical mission, were in grave danger.
O Mother of God, save the Russian land! This cry burst forth from the hearts our nation’s finest sons.
And the Mother of God heard their prayers. She came to captive Moscow in the form of Her Kazan Icon, leading the Russian army. Before Her, the brave Minin and Pozharsky poured out their supplications; Russian people looked to Her gracious help, knowing how extremely difficult it would be to take the city by force, as it had now become a stronghold of their enemies. The Russian army, hastily assembled, was disordered, untrained, small in number, and not entirely unified in spirit…
Then, in a vision, Bishop Arseny, held captive by the Poles, saw St. Sergius, the great intercessor for his beloved holy Russian land. St. Sergius declared that the Lord, through the intercessions of the Mother of God, would defeat Russia’s enemies on the very next day.
This prophecy came true. Indeed, on the following day, October 22 (November 4), 1613, the Moscow Kremlin was captured, the enemy was expelled, and Russia was freed. It would soon have a Tsar once more—a native Russian from the newly royal line of the Romanovs.
From that time on, the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God became the family icon of the Russian royal Romanov dynasty, and likewise, a cherished icon of the entire Russian people. Her feast day is not only a church holiday but also a state holiday, though this is little known among us; Her churches, both near the Kremlin in Moscow and in Petrograd, are among the most revered by the people, and are churches of the royalty as well.
In these churches, before the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, our Tsars appear on significant days of their lives; they first come to venerate her after their weddings, seeking Her blessing, as do the heirs to the throne.
Once more, during a dark time in Russian history, during the time of the French invasion, this miraculous icon appeared among the ranks of the Russian army.
Thus, it became not just the local, Kazan icon, but a pan-Russian, universally revered icon. Even today, it is commonly found in traditional Orthodox Russian homes as a sacred inheritance and blessing from ancestors, passed down from generation to generation. To this day, this icon blesses every new family union… For centuries, it was carried annually from Kazan over a vast area, through lands surrounded by non-believers and heretics. It demonstrated God’s power to the enemies of Christianity; it united Russian people and baptized foreigners, and affirmed the strength of Christ and Holy Russia in the eastern Volga region.
In our own time, during the Russo-Japanese War, in the struggle in the Far East, Russia once again stood in its historical global mission. This mission was to carry the light of Christianity, the Cross, and the Gospel throughout the grand historical movement of the Russian people. Alas, this light began to dim within us; the Cross and the Gospel were scorned and betrayed by Russian people. Faith declined, and piety weakened. Once again, discord and strife appeared, authority weakened and respect for it diminished, as did reverence for the treasure of Tsarist autocracy, which had always been a saving force in the difficult days of Russian life. Soldiers went to war and mutinied; agitators flooded the troops with inflammatory pamphlets…
Just as the events of the war unfolded and the fateful battles approached, which would determine the outcome, instead of a surge in faith, instead of an inspiration in prayer, instead of a spirit of repentance—the holy icon was stolen in Kazan… There was no general outcry, no public lamentation heard… There was a trial. The criminals were judged as if they had stolen a neighbor’s cow or household furniture.
In heavy foreboding, many believers felt their hearts sink; it was clear to every perceptive soul, capable of discerning the signs of the times, that God’s judgment over us was not sleeping, and that through many tribulations we must regain the strength of spirit and the power of our former dignity. And these tribulations truly came.
We saw them and endured them—the vile triumph of unbelief, blasphemy, depravity, betrayal, lies, mutual hatred, murder, theft, disrespect for authority, and rebellion against it. And instead of calling it by its rightful name—a satanic movement—people called it a “liberation movement.”
You all remember how it gathered momentum and marched on with its brazen head held high. It especially developed in the First State Duma, filled with the fresh poison of rebellion and bloodshed, directly rising against God, the Church, the Tsar, and the unity of Russia. This was a gathering of Russia’s traitors who appeared in the Duma under the name, “the best people.”
Practically the same criminals from the prisons sat in the Second Duma as well, but the First Duma held a special significance. It inspired fear, intimidated the authorities, and managed, amid general cowardice and confusion—which always accompanies the decline of faith—to present itself as “untouchable.” People feared dissolving it. Everyone seemed bound by fear and indecision, while the Duma members, mockingly called, “the best people,” fought against the Tsar, screamed like brutes at ministers, cursed at the representatives of authority like the lowest drunkards, called the people to rebellion, sought to sever the people’s connection with the Tsar, to deprive them of faith, insulted the Church, the military, the Tsar, and the Russian people, promising independence to all non-Russians within Russian tsardom.
Exactly a year ago, on July 8, the feast day of the Patroness of the Royal House—the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God—our Tsar resolved to raise a punishing hand against this godless and demonic assembly. The Duma was dissolved. It raged, it fumed, and it responded to its dissolution with the disgraceful and criminal Vyborg Manifesto, calling for rebellion, but it had to perish and scatter. The strength of this assembly proved false, while the strength of the Tsar once again manifested itself in all its historical truth. It is understandable, then, why there was such joy among Russian patriots and monarchists here, in this very hall, when during a meeting everyone learned of the Tsar’s decision, how all prayed with tears before the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, and at that very time resolved to place a lampada before it in the Kazan Cathedral in Moscow. In these coinciding events, we saw a sign of God’s mercy, of the coming resurrection of Russia, and her deliverance from the looming clouds of national blindness.
Under the banner of Orthodoxy, with the Heavenly protection and blessing of the Mother of God, we will carry out our service on all paths of life. The Mother of God will save the Russian land, lighten the labor of the divine mission given to her. The image of the Mother of God may have been stolen, but no one can steal Her gracious help. And just as Her icons—copies of the Kazan Icon—remain, so will the mercy and protection of the Mother of God remain with us, if we are worthy of it through our faith and way of life. We only need to remember where our strength and calling lie: in Orthodoxy. By remaining faithful to holy Orthodoxy, Rus’ will not perish. This child of God, born of such great tears and prayers, our people, will not perish if they remain obedient children before God.
Rise, then, O Russian people, in the spirit of faith and piety. Embrace the awareness and duty of your calling, and your sorrows and misfortunes will vanish. The pledge of this hope is the miraculous image of the Mother of God, who once blessed those who, like us, believed and hoped, awaiting the deliverance of Russia from dire tribulations. Their faith was not in vain, and their hope was not put to shame!
From: Archpriest John Vostorgov. Complete Works, published in 1998 by “Tsarskoe Delo”.
