This icon of the Mother of God “Kazan” with a strange half-erased inscription in Latin on the back: “Eta ikona budet hranit was wsu schizn” adorns the Sorrow Church in St. Petersburg. One of the parishioners told her amazing story.
— One day an old woman entered the temple and clasped her hands when she saw the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. — “How did this icon come to you? I gave it to a German soldier! — she was surprised. “I recognized it by the characteristic dents on the frame.” I explained that the icon was given to the temple by the German consulate located in our city several years ago. The woman burst into tears, said that her name was Vera, and told how at one time the Orthodox shrine of their family ended up in Germany.
“I fled from my native village, which found itself in the very center of the fighting. I wanted to leave with my sister and my three children even earlier, but my mother was seriously ill and could not bear the journey. “I’ll come later,” I promised my sister, sending her and the children near Ryazan, where our aunt lived in a collective farm village. A month later, my mother died, having managed to bless me with the family icon of the Mother of God “Kazan”. My late grandfather used this icon to bless my mother before her wedding, and my mother blessed Sasha and me 15 years ago, although my husband was a Komsomol member. Now the icon lay in my skinny duffel bag as a refugee. And I myself sat under the canopy of one of the station warehouses and watched the crazy dance of snow whirlwinds. I couldn’t think about anything anymore, I just tried to push my hands deeper into the narrow sleeves of my demi-season coat. Cold and hunger were all I felt. Then the train rolled up, thundering, the doors of the carriages opened, and the Fritzes, standing in ranks, began to pass long boxes to each other. “Weapons have been brought,” an indifferent thought flashed. But another one immediately gave a painful injection: “To the front! To where my Sasha is fighting! They will shoot at him and other Russian soldiers from these machine guns… Those damned ones!”
Surprisingly, the German patrols did not pay attention to me — a lonely woman, emaciated from hunger. I don’t even remember the last time I ate: I traded my watch, wedding ring, and my mother’s earrings for food a long time ago. I felt the brass frame under the frosty fabric of the bag. “Intercessor Most Holy Theotokos! — she whispered with numb lips. — Save and preserve my children, sister Nadya. Save and protect my husband, the servant of God, the warrior Alexander.”
“What? Bad?» — was heard right next to my ear. I raise my head: a German soldier is standing next to the bench. There was sympathy in his voice, and I replied: “Bad.” The German sat down next to him. He put his thick backpack on the ground, rummaged in it for a while, then extended his hand: “Nimmt!” It was a square piece of bread with a pink streak of lard on it. I accepted the treat and dug my teeth into it. The German took a thermos from his backpack and poured steaming tea into the lid: “Heiss! Gut! He was probably on guard here at the station. He looks about twenty years old, blue-eyed. The face is simple. And his hair is probably blond, like my eldest son Andreika’s, but you can’t see it under his hat.
The German pointed his hand at the locomotive, then at me and, wrinkling his face funny, apparently trying to find the word, asked: “Talleko?” — «Far! Now you can’t get there!” I suddenly began to tell him that I was hoping to get to my aunt and how I was left without everything. And she concluded: “And I have children there. Kinder. Understand?» I pointed with my hand from top to bottom — small, small, smaller. The guy nodded: “O ja, Kinder!” — “But I can’t get there. And don’t get there. I’ll just freeze.» I didn’t even immediately realize that I was crying. The German again reached into his backpack and pulled out a heavy package: “Here. Take». He opened the package and, touching its contents, licked his finger: “Gut!” There was salt in the package. Salt, which was now worth more than gold. In exchange for salt they gave bread, milk, whatever… There were at least three kilograms in the bag. And now he just took it and gave it to me, a completely unfamiliar Russian woman. Seeing my stunned face, the guy smiled and said something. I didn’t understand. Then he stood up, screwed on his thermos, put it in his backpack and, waving his hand, walked away.
“Wait! — I rush after the soldier. “Here, take it, please.” I hand him the icon. “Was ist es?” “This icon will protect you all your life,” I say firmly. He didn’t understand. I repeat again: “This icon will cherish you all your life.” The soldier took a chemical pencil out of his pocket, salivated and, turning the board over, asked to say it again. And while I spoke slowly, syllable by syllable, he wrote on the board in Latin letters: “Eta ikona budet hranit was wsu schizn.” We never met again… And I, having exchanged warm clothes, felt boots and bread for salt, got to Ryazan. In 1945, my husband Sasha returned from the war.”
Having listened carefully to the excited woman, I happily recounted what we had learned from representatives of the German embassy, who handed over the Kazan Icon to our church. That German soldier went through the entire war. His comrades died before his eyes; once the truck in which he was traveling exploded, but he managed to jump out a moment before the explosion. The rest died. At the end of the war, a shell hit the dugout, which he also left in an instant. The invisible power of the Russian icon reliably guarded it. And then he understood and overestimated a lot in his life, and his soul opened up to prayer. He returned home, got married, raised children. He placed the icon in a beautiful icon case in a place of honor and prayed in front of it all his life. And when he became old, he ordered his eldest son, after his death, to take the gift of a Russian woman to the Russian consulate: “This icon lived in Russia and must return there. Let them transfer it to Leningrad, a city that withstood the blockade, dying of cold and hunger, but did not surrender.”
So in the mid-nineties, in one of the newly opened churches in St. Petersburg, where Archpriest Alexander Chistyakov was then rector, a small icon of the Mother of God “Kazan” appeared with a strange Latin inscription on the back.
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