The Kazan Cathedral is near the State Historical Museum on the corner of the Red Square and Nikolskaya Street. The cathedral is devoted to the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, which is one of the most venerated in Russia, along with the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God.
As is known, the Mother of God revealed the location of the icon to a nine-year-old girl Matrona. It was discovered in one of the burnt houses of Kazan. The day of the finding of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God falls on July, 8. Eventually, they began to venerate the icon as a miracle-making one and not only in Kazan but also all over Russia.
The Kazan Cathedral was specially built to keep the copy of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, which was brought in Moscow by Dmitry Pozharsky in 1612.
The first records of the Kazan Cathedral date back to 1625, but then it was a small wooden church. The first stone cathedral was built in 1636. In spite of its small size, the cathedral was one of the most important churches in Moscow.
Later the cathedral was completely rebuilt two times. In September 1918 the miracle-making copy of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God was stolen from the cathedral. The last reconstruction of the cathedral took place in 1925. As a result, the cathedral was returned its original appearance. However, ten years later it was decided to pull down the cathedral. It was restored only in 1995.
