Feast of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the Kremlin's Assumption Cathedral

On November 4, 2025, the feast day of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God (commemorating the deliverance of Moscow and Russia from the Poles in 1612), His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Patriarchal Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. On this day, Russia celebrates the national holiday of National Unity Day.

The miraculous Moscow copy of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, discovered in 2023, was brought to the Dormition Cathedral for the service. Before the service, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill venerated the holy relics of St. Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow, in the cathedral's altar. Then, N.Yu. Chaplin, a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and warden of the Patriarchal Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin, and A.L. Batalov and Abbess Margarita (Feoktistova), the abbess of the Novodevichy Stavropegic Convent in Moscow, presented His Holiness with a new set of hand-made vestments for the relics of St. Peter, created over two years by the sisters of the Novodevichy Convent's gold embroidery workshop using ancient techniques. The face on the vestments replicates the face embroidered on the 1574 shroud, one of the oldest surviving shrouds for the relics of St. Peter, created at the Novodevichy Convent in the chambers of Nun Alexandra, formerly Princess Juliana Dmitrievna Paletskaya, wife of Prince Yuri Vasilyevich, brother of Ivan the Terrible.

At the litany of fervent supplication, special petitions were offered, and His Holiness Patriarch Kirill read a prayer for Holy Rus'.

At the conclusion of the Liturgy, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill performed a hymn of praise and prayer before the miraculous Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.

Then the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed the faithful with a Primate's sermon:

"We must thank the Lord for both the past and the present, and ask Him for the future—that the Lord grant His mercy to our country, our people, strengthen the Orthodox faith in the hearts of our people, protect them from every enemy and adversary, as well as from the various temptations that separate people from God, and thus deprive them of the ability to rely on the power of God.

Once again, I congratulate you on this wonderful feast, on this event. Remembering the heroic pages of the people's and the Church's lives, we cannot help but once again thank the Lord for everything: for what we have lived through as a people, for surviving the most difficult physical conditions during the wars, for preserving the Orthodox faith during times of terrible, unprecedented persecution, and for the fact that we are once again gathered together in this cathedral of all Rus', in the center of our homeland, the Dormition Cathedral, to glorify the name of our Lord and Savior and to thank the Most Pure Queen of Heaven for Her mercy, for Her protection over our country and over all of us.

Happy holiday, my dears! May the Lord and the Mother of God protect you!

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill blessed the special military operation veterans present at the service and presented each of them with an icon of Our Lady of Kazan. He also congratulated Anna Golik, choir director of the Patriarchal Volunteers youth movement, on her name day.

Based on materials from the Press Service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'