Kursk

The Kursk Root (Korennaya) Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign

During the summer, from Friday of the ninth week after Russian Orthodox Easter until September 13th, a true copy of the original(which is in New York) dwells at the original place of her appearance, at the Korennaya (i.e. Kursk Root) Hermitage in Svoboda Village (about 30 km from Kursk, 300 miles South of Moscow). The rest of the year she spends in the Kursk Cathedral of the Sign.

The hermitage on the day that the icon comes home for the summer.

During the Russian Revolution this icon left its home and began a long journey with its Russian Orthodox children into their Diaspora. In 1951, after many years of travel and temporary stops, it came to live in New York. Hence its full story is told under “New York City”

The Lady never stays in New York for long, but constantly travels the world to visit her children, including the ones in Kursk. Meanwhile a beautiful and precise copy of her is venerated in her original home, which seems to be a kind of Russian Orthodox Lourdes with its healing spring where the Mother of God appeared in the form of an icon, plus 7 other miracle working springs on the lower side of the hermitage that was her home for centuries.

Since 1618 to this day, every year (political circumstances permitting) on Friday of the ninth week after Russian Orthodox Easter, the icon of the Sign (or a copy of it when it is in the Diaspora) is solemnly borne in procession from the Kursk Cathedral of the Sign to the place of its original manifestation at the Korennaya (i.e. Kursk Root) Hermitage in Soboda Village where it remains until September 13th. Then it again is solemnly returned to the Kursk Znamensky Monastery for the winter. In the year 2005, 30,000 Russians attended this ceremonies.

The original icon comes to Kursk for a visit from New York. More than 30,000 faithful greet it.

The icon (copy) adorned with flowers, is carried in procession.