The Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign dates from the 13th century, and is one of the most ancient icons of the Russian Church.

In the 13th century, during the dreadful period of the Tartar invasion of Russia, the devastated province of Kursk was emptied of people and its principal city, Kursk, became a wilderness. The residents of the city of Rylsk, which had been preserved from invasion, often journeyed to the abandoned site of Kursk to hunt. One of the hunters, going along the bank of the river to Skal, which was not very far from ruined Kursk, noticed an icon lying face down on the ground next to the root of a tree. The hunter picked it up and found that it was an icon of the Sign, like the famous one enshrined and venerated in the city of Novgorod. At this time, the icon’s first miracle was worked, for no sooner had the hunter picked up the sacred image than an abundant spring of pure water began flowing from the ground. This took place on September 8th in the year 1295.

The hunter constructed a simple wooden chapel and placed the newly manifested image of the Mother of God in it. The residents of Rylsk began to visit the place of the manifestation of this holy object and the icon was glorified by miracles all the more. Prince Vasily Shemyaka of Rylsk ordered that the icon be brought to the city of Rylsk itself. The people of the city went forth to meet the icon of the Mother of God, and Shemyaka, receiving a miraculous healing, Shemyaka had a church constructed in the city of Rylsk in honor of the Nativity of the All-holy Theotokos. There the miraculous icon was enshrined on September 8th, the anniversary of its manifestation, appointed as the annual feast date.

But the icon was discovered to be missing from the cathedral in Rylsk – and was found at the place of its original appearance. The residents of Rylsk repeatedly brought it back, but each time it returned to its former place. Then, understanding that the Mother of God was well pleased for her image to dwell in the place of its discovery, they eventually left it there in peace. Innumerable pilgrimages streamed to the site and services of supplication were celebrated there by the priest Bogoliub who dwelt at the site of the wooden chapel and struggled there in asceticism.

In the year 1383, the province of Kursk was subjected to a new invasion of savage Tartars. They set fire to the chapel, but it refused to burn, even though they piled up fuel all around it, and so the superstitious barbarians fell upon the priest Bogoliub, accusing him of sorcery. The pious priest denounced their foolishness and pointed out to them the icon of the Theotokos. The malicious Tartars laid hold of the holy icon and cut it in two, casting the pieces to either side. The chapel then caught fire and the priest Bogoliub was carried off a prisoner.

In his captivity, the God-loving elder kept the Faith, placing his hope in the intercessions of the Mother of God, and this hope did not fail him. One day as he was guarding flocks and passing the time by singing prayers and doxologies, emissaries of the Tsar of Moscow passed by on the road.

They heard his singing, arranged to ransom the priest from captivity, and Bogoliub returned to the former site of the chapel. There he found the pieces of the miraculous icon which the Tartars had cast away. He picked them up and straightway they came together, firmly joined though signs of the split still remain. Learning of this miracle, the residents of Rylsk again attempted to transfer the icon to their city, but once more the miraculous image was found in its former place. A new chapel was then built on the original site of the icon’s appearance and here it remained for about 200 years.

The city of Kursk was revived in the year 1597 at the command of Theodore Ivanovich of Moscow. This pious Tsar, who had heard of the miracles of the icon, expressed his desire to behold it, and in Moscow the icon was greeted with great solemnity. The Tsaritsa, Irene Theodorovna, adorned the holy icon with a precious riza. At the command of the Tsar, the icon was set in a silver-gilt frame upon which were depicted the Lord of Hosts and prophets holding scrolls in their hands. The icon was subsequently returned and, with the close cooperation of the Tsar, a monastery was founded on the site of the chapel. A church, dedicated to the Life-Giving Spring, was built above the same spring that had appeared when the icon was first revealed, and the monastery attached to it received the name Kursk Root Hermitage in honor of the manifestation of the icon at the root of the tree.

During an invasion of Crimean Tartars, the icon was transferred to the cathedral church of Kursk, and a copy was left at the Hermitage. Tsar Boris Godunov bestowed many precious gifts for the adornment of the icon and even the pretender, the false Dimitry, who desired to call attention to himself and to win the support of those who lived in the vicinity of Kursk, venerated this icon and placed it in the royal mansions where it remained until the year 1615.

While the icon was absent from the city of Kursk, the miraculous help of the Theotokos did not forsake that city: In 1612 the Poles laid siege to Kursk, but many of the citizens recounted that they saw the Mother of God and two radiant monks above the city. Captured Poles related that they, too, had beheld a woman and two radiant men on the city walls, and that this woman made threatening gestures at those who were conducting the siege. The citizens then vowed to construct a monastery in honor of the Theotokos and to place the miraculous icon in it. The besiegers were quickly put to flight and in gratitude to their heavenly helper, the people of Kursk built a monastery in honor of the all-holy Theotokos of the Sign.

From the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, every year on Friday of the ninth week after Pascha, the icon of the Sign was solemnly borne in procession from the Kursk Cathedral of the Sign to the place of its original manifestation at the Kursk Hermitage, where it remained until September 12. On September 13, it was again solemnly returned to the city of Kursk. This procession was instituted in the year 1618 in memory of the transfer of the icon from Moscow to Kursk and to commemorate its original appearance.

In the year 1812, the Kursk Civic Society sent to General Kutuzov a copy of the miraculous icon of Kursk, setting it in a silver-gilt frame. The commander expressed his gratitude to the citizens of Kursk and his belief that Kursk would remain free, thanks to the protection and intercession of the mother of God.

In March of 1898 a group of anarchists, desiring to undermine the faith of the people, decided to destroy it. They placed a bomb in the Cathedral of the Sign, and at two o’clock in the morning a horrendous explosion rent the air and all the walls of the monastery were shaken. The frightened monks rushed immediately to the cathedral, where they beheld a scene of horrible devastation. The force of the blast had shattered the gilded canopy above the icon. The heavy marble base, constructed of several massive steps, had been jolted out of position and split into several pieces. A huge metal candlestick which stood before the icon had been blown to the opposite side of the cathedral. A door of cast iron located near the icon had been torn from its hinges and cast outside, where it smashed against a wall and caused a deep crack. All the windows in the cathedral and even those in the dome above were shattered. Amid the general devastation, the holy icon remained intact and even the glass within the frame remained whole. Thinking to destroy the icon, the anarchists had, on the contrary, become the cause of its greater glorification.

During the Bolshevik revolution, the icon was removed from the Cathedral of the Sign on April 12, 1918. Search was made for the icon hut without result. The holy object was discovered under the following circumstances: Not far from the monastery there lived a poor girl and her mother who for three days had not had anything to eat. At that time Kursk was controlled by the Bolshevik regime. On May 3, the girl, a seamstress, went off to the marketplace in search of bread. Returning home at about one o’clock in the morning, she passed by a well which, according to tradition, had been dug by St. Theodosius of the Caves. There, on the edge of the well, she beheld a package wrapped in a sack, and when she opened it, in the package she found the sacred icon, which apparently had been left there by those who had stolen it.

At the end of October 1919, when the White Russian Army was evacuating the city of Kursk, twelve monks of the monastery transferred the icon to the city of Belgorod, from which it was again transferred — first to Taganrog and Ekaterinodar, and then to Novorossiisk. During the evacuation, with the permission of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) who was then President of the Higher Ecclesiastical Administration in Southern Russia, the icon was taken aboard the steamship St. Nicholas by Bishop Theophan of Kursk on March 1, 1920, and was transported to the city of Thessaloniki. On April 3, Bishop Theophan took the icon to the city of Pec, the ancient capital of Serbia. For four months the icon remained in Pec, and in September, at the request of Baron Wrangel, it was returned again to the Crimea. A year after departing from the city of Kursk, on October 29, 1920, the holy image again left its native land during the evacuation of the White Army and those Russian people who refused to submit to the Soviet regime. After arriving again in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes, with the blessing of Patriarch Dimitry. the holy icon remained with Bishop Theophan in the Serbian monastery of Yazak on Frushkaya Mountain. From the end of 1927, the icon was to be found in the Russian church of the Holy Trinity in the city of Belgrade.

With the blessing of the Synod of Bishops, Bishop Theophan bore the icon around to various places where the scattered Russians dwelt. During World War II, when Belgrade was subjected to bombardment and other tribulations associated with the war, the miraculous icon became a rampart of hope for all that approached it with sincere prayer.

The steadfast companion of those Russian people who did not accept the satanic authority, this great and ancient holy object, which remained in Moscow during the dreadful turmoil of the 17th century, was removed from Yugoslavia in the autumn of 1944 together with those who again fled the godless regime.

After the Second World War the Icon was taken to Germany, where it remained for five years, comforting the Orthodox flock all over Western Europe, wearied by the tribulations of the War. Then it was taken to America. Initially it was kept at a hermitage, but later it was moved to the purpose-built Orthodox Cathedral of the Mother of God of the Sign in New York City. Many believe that if this Cathedral and the area around it were spared in the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, it was because of the presence of the Icon there.

Today the Icon is taken from Orthodox parish to parish all over the world and its fame is international. It is known for countless miracles, healings and for assistance in misfortunes. It was before this icon that the bedridden St.Seraphim of Sarov received complete healing. St John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco passed away before this same icon. How we should venerate this great and remarkable icon! It is a wellspring of the miraculous grace of God, granted willingly at the intercessions of His most-pure Mother, who is the Mother of all faithful Christians. For seven centuries faithful people have prayed before the miraculous Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God and received help according to their faith.