MOTHER OF GOD OF KAZAN AND SAINT PROKOPIUS OF USTYUG

In the liturgical calendar of the Russian Church, one or even several miraculous icons of the Mother of God are celebrated daily. This is a feature of Russian Orthodoxy, which was inherited by the local Orthodox Churches that emerged from it. The Kazan Icon of the Theotokos appeared in 1579 in the Muslim metropolis on the Volga, Kazan. An explanation of why this phenomenon occurred in this city and not in any other has never been given. The celebration in honor of the Kazan Icon coincides with the memory of St. Procopius of Ustyug. The saint was German by origin but experienced his true conversion to faith in Northern Russia. He lived a long life, sixty years of which he was a fool for Christ’s sake. The New Year tree came to Russia from the West, where for one of the ancient Christian saints there it, from a pagan symbol, once became a sign of the evergreen tree of the Cross of the Lord. It is even assumed that the birthplace of the Christmas tree was Germany. St. Procopius came from the West. The author of the life of this saint says that he did not have enough clothing but endured the cold with incredible patience. Is it not by chance that Veliky Ustyug, where Prokopios lived and died, became in the popular imagination the birthplace of Father Frost and his New Year tree, this secret nostalgia for the Christmas miracle in the times of communist atheism?

1 In midsummer, the Church celebrates the apparition of the icon of the Theotokos of Kazan. We don’t notice this symbolic and almost biblical coincidence, but this celebration takes place on the third day after the discovery of the relics of Saint Sergius. Both Sergius and the veneration of the Mother of God reveal the distinctive features of Russian holiness. For Mary, no matter what epithets we use to praise her, is “nothing more than” a biblical saint and a saint of the Church of Christ.

2 A distinctive feature of Russian holiness is the daily celebration of the Mother of God in the Church. However, this is not limited to frequent commemoration in divine services, accompanied by hymns of praise and intercessions. In the liturgical calendar, one or more icons of the Most Holy Theotokos, venerated as miraculous, are celebrated daily. This is a distinctive feature of Russian Orthodoxy. In other local Orthodox churches that did not originate from the Russian Church, such as the Greek Churches, there is no such daily practice.

3 When we speak of “Russian holiness,” we obviously do not mean a specific state or region, but a vast cultural and religious ecumene that originated with the baptism of Russia in 988 and endured centuries and trials before acquiring its distinctive and unique characteristics. Just as the Swiss call the French language “French” and would never, even in their worst nightmares, invent a “Helvetic,” or proto-Swiss, origin for French authors, so too will Russian Orthodoxy, wherever it appears, always bear this name. The same applies to history, culture, and holiness.

4 After all, in the Orthodox understanding, history is a sacrament. History is a gift, a creation of God and at the same time the work of human hands. The past is unchangeable; however, it can only be forgiven in Jesus Christ. The visible sign of God’s invisible presence on earth is called a sacrament.

5 On the same day, the Church honors the memory of Saint Procopius of Ustyug. As is well known, this medieval saint came to Novgorod from Lübeck in northern Germany. The celebration of his memory coincides with the feast day of the “great” saint of the ancient Church, the martyr Procopius of Caesarea.

6 This simple “addition” of the commemoration of the “little” Russian Procopius to the day of the ancient great martyr Procopius suggests either that his death date was not recorded or, even more radically, that his real name was unknown. If this is indeed the case, it turns out that after his “sudden” death, people suddenly realized that they didn’t even know the name of this ever-close wanderer. Therefore, they nicknamed him “Procopius” in honor of the saint on whose feast day he died.

7 It is noteworthy that the martyr suffered for Christ in Palestine exactly 1,000 years before Procopius of Ustyug’s exodus, namely in 303 and 1303 respectively. A special symbolism of truly biblical proportions was revealed in the fact that the German wanderer from Lübeck found his “Promised Land,” a spiritual Palestine, in northern Russia.

8 In 1243, he arrived in Veliky Novgorod as a merchant on a ship. There he experienced his conversion, gave away his possessions, and began to live in extreme poverty in the open air. After the Novgorodians started venerating him as a saint, he withdrew to Veliky Ustyug, where he lived on the church porch. The life of the saint recounts the astonishing patience of Procopius, who braved unbearable cold. How could one forget the now popular non-religious tradition that considers Veliky Ustyug the birthplace of the Russian Father Frost?

9 Procopius was a holy fool in Christ and lived a life of asceticism for sixty years. He is believed to have been the first Russian holy fool to be canonized. The first Russian holy fool was a German, a representative of a people who, for the Russians themselves, have always been a symbol of calculation and reason.

10 In 1290, his prophecy and prayer saved the city from a terrible fire and a devastating natural disaster caused by a meteorite impact. Procopius warned the inhabitants in advance.

11 In 1914, the Russian artist Nicholas Roerich painted the painting “Procopius Prays for Unknown Sailors.” The basis of this painting is the legend that the saint sat on the riverbank, praying and blessing passing ships and their passengers. In doing so, he may have remembered himself, who once, in his youth, set out for unknown lands and found his true wealth—poverty, and in it, Christ.

12 Apparently, Roerich himself, completely fascinated by Hindu religiosity, as he imagined it, was unaware or had paid no attention to the fact that Procopius was German. A few years earlier, in the summer of 1908, eight days before the Procopius commemoration, the Tunguska meteorite had collapsed. As the Russian Empire entered the First World War, anti-German sentiment was rising throughout the country, and the world was heading for disaster., there was no longer a saint who, as benevolent as a small sun of God, the fraternal beggar Procopius, could have warned and blessed. The war was followed by the Revolution. The Great Orthodox Empire ceased to exist, the Church entered a period of persecution, and the most important copies of the miraculous Kazan icon shared the fate of the suffering people and were lost forever.