Talk:Our Lady of Kazan

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Hello,

I have been doing research on the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan for many years and have found minor errors in your Wiki article. I also added more specific details.

1) Pope John Paul IIdid not credit the Kazan icon for saving his life. He credited Our Lady of Fatimafor saving his life, since the assasination attempt occured on May 13th, 1981, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. The Pope went to Fatima one year later in thanksgiving.

2) The icon was aquired by the Blue Army of Our Lady of fatima and taken to their international headquarters, Domus Pacis, in Fatima. It was enshrined in the Russian Byzantine Catholic chapel of the Dormition. You can see this for yourself at www.bluearmy.com

3) When the icon was taken to the Vatican, it was placed in his private study, not in his bedchamber. It was placed near his desk.

Origin
Surely no one believes that it was created ex nihilo to be discovered in the 16th Century. Are there no theories as to its true origin, and how it came to be in Kazan? ~ MD Otley (talk) 16:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * One of the linked web sites says that it is of Byzantine origin. However, this article is confusing, as it states that the icon was destroyed after 1904, yet it has been restored to Kazan by the Pope. No explanation is given along the way as to why the icon in papal possession was the original icon. The article needs rewriting (if my work web filter didn't block religious sites, I'd do it myself). Iacobus (talk) 02:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The confusion was caused by an "experienced" editor who shoved a sentence into the article which effectively made nonsense of the narrative. This is now fixed. The icon given to the Pope was not the original. It was the one that had been kept at Fatima and dated to the 1700s. Old and venerated copies carry some of the mystique and the power of the original image. Amandajm (talk) 05:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Is this thing a rip-off of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa? This painting was first seen in the late 1500s, while the one in Poland was there since at least the 1380s? Two hundred years' difference??? Kochamanita (talk) 05:33, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No, the resemblance is superficial, at best. ~ MD Otley (talk) 12:58, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

What exactly is venerated?
This article was full of confusion. The image itself was referred to as "she". The feast day was described as being the image's feast day. This is nonsense.

The "she" that is venerated and commemorated in feast days is "Our Lady of Kazan". This is one of the many names that the Virgin Mary is known by. The matter of sacred significance is not the object itself, but that Our Lady appeared to a child in Kazan and gave her an image, through which she, the Virgin as protector of the city, could be invoked. The image represents the Virgin Mary. I do not mean simply that it is a picture of Mary, but that it was (by tradition) given by Mary so that she could be invoked through it. The article persistently describes the icon as if it is the icon that was venerated and worked wonders. This is not the case. (Although to the simple-minded it might seem that way). It is always the sacred person (God, Jesus, the Blessed Virgin or a Saint) who is being invoked, through the image. Simply put, it wasn't the image that protected the city against Napoleon's troops, it was the Virgin Mary, whose image was used in the invocation.

Likewise, churches are not built in honour of the image. They are built in honour of the Virgin Mary who appeared at Kazan, and gave the image.

The actual provenance of the image is another matter. Because it has been destroyed, the only assessment of its age can be made by comparing the styles of the earliest copies. Amandajm (talk) 05:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Roman Catholics do not venerate icons, it is the Eastern Orthodox Church that venerates icons. 74.192.45.152 (talk) 04:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That is very ignorant of you, that is completely false75.73.114.111 (talk) 10:29, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There are some differences in the practice of veneration between the two churches.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 14:46, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Sense
This article contains the phrase "suggesting that while it was a copy of the original icon, it was nevertheless the original icon carried by Pozharski in 1612". Okay, if it's a copy of the original, how can it be the original? Please fix.2604:2000:C682:2D00:8CA0:E28F:1102:E850 (talk) 17:33, 8 April 2018 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson