Orthodox Kazan

Kazan is a unique city with the history of more than 1000 years, where different religions exist side by side. Now this is the centre of both Islam and Orthodoxy. After the city was conquered by Ivan the terrible in 1552 and the Kazan Khanate was destroyed, Kazan Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church was established here as a centre of Christianization of the peoples of the Volga region. At that time a lot of churches and monasteries were built in the city, some of them still exist.

Cathedral of the Annunciation was built soon after Kazan was captured. It is situated on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin. So long as the part of the Cathedral’s necropolis remained intact, so the cathedral is considered a unique place. Beneath the altar of the Cathedral there was a temple consecrated in honor of All the Saints in 1896. The temple was the shrine of the pontiffs of Kazan, which contained seven interments. Before the Revolution the reliquary of St. Gury of Kazan was kept in the Cathedral, found at the side-chapel in honor of St. Boris and Gleb in 1841 during the reconstruction. On the eastern wall of the cell there was an ancient fresco of the 16th century. That was an image of the Savior “Not-Made-By-Hands”.

The Cathedral of St.Peter and Paul ‘s decoration, fanciful forms and bright coloration attracts a lot of tourists. The temple is a monument of the 18th century and it performs the so-called Russian or «naryshkin» baroque style. It was built by sponsorship of the merchant Mikhlyaev in memory the Peter I’s visit of Kazan before he left for the Persian campaign. This cathedral was visited by all Russian emperors and empresses, starting with Catherine II, by statesmen, public figures and writers, such as Alexander Pushkin for example. French writer Alexander Dumas described this temple in his works. One of the main shrines of the cathedral is the miracle-working icon of the Mother of God of Seven Lakes that was given by the church of miracle-workers of Yaroslavl.

The most famous church in Kazan in the historical and cultural Orthodox world is the Exaltation of the Cross Church, situated on the territory of the former Bogoroditsky Monastery. Here you can see the Kazan Icon of Mother of God, found in 1579 by a 10-year old girl and in 2004 returned by Vatican to the Kazan Diocese by the 1000th Anniversary. It is believed that this icon is miraculous and that it helped the resistance of Minin and Pozharsky to drive the Polish invaders from Moscow in 1612 and to win Napoleon’ army during the Patriotic War in 1812. When the Icon was returned to Kazan, the city again became the center of pilgrimage of Russia. Now we can see that many churches and monasteries are restored in Kazan, preserving their historical look, new hotels are built all over the city for pilgrims and tourists.