The religious procession of several thousand people went along the central avenue Nevsky Prospekt to Kazan Cathedral to attend a service dedicated to the icon.
The icon will stay in Kazan Cathedral until Thursday. Thursday morning it will be carried to the railway station and then by train to the town of Tikhvin (124 miles east of St. Petersburg), Leningrad region (although the city was back named St. Petersburg, the region still carries its original Soviet name).
In Tihkvin the local clergy and believers will meet the Icon of the Virgin Mary of Tikhvin and arrange another procession to carry it to the Uspensky (Dormition) Monastery. The procession will stop near one of the town's churches to praise the Garklavs, the Latvian American family that had been keeping the icon for 60 years before returning it to Russia.
On Thursday an evensong and an all-night vigil will be held in the monastery. In the evening Leningrad region Governor Valeri Serdyukov will give a reception on the occasion.
On the next day, which is considered to be the Icon of the Virgin Mary of Tikhvin Day, a service will be delivered, and a public prayer with a procession will be held.
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II and Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada Gherman are expected to take part in the celebration.
The Icon of the Virgin Mary of Tikhvin is a most renowned Orthodox relic. It was allegedly painted in the 1st century AD by Apostle Luke. Transferred from Jerusalem to Constantinople In the 5th century, it disappeared there in 1383.
According to medieval annals, the icon miraculously emerged over the waters of Lake Ladoga in Russia's northwest and floated in air until stopped near the town of Tikhvin. Local people erected a wooden chapel at the place, dedicated it to the Dormition of Virgin Mary, and christened the miracle-making icon the Icon of the Virgin Mary of Tikhvin.
The icon became nationally worshipped as Prince Vasily came to the monastery in 1526. Later his son Ivan the Terrible had a stonewall monastery built where the icon had miraculously appeared.
As the Nazis occupied the town during WWII, the icon was evacuated to the neighboring city of Pskov. In 1944 it was handed over to Riga Orthodox community. Its head Archbishop of Riga Joann (Garklavs) went to the U.S. in 1949 and took the icon along to put it into the Orthodox Trinity Church in Chicago.
After his death of the Archbishop the icon passed to his adopted son Sergiy Garklavs with the prerequisite that it should be returned to the Tikhvin Monastery when the latter is in proper condition again.
In January 2004 Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II settled the return of the icon to Russia with a delegation of the American Orthodox Church. On June 20 the Icon of the Virgin Mary of Tikhvin left Chicago for Latvian capital Riga, then for Moscow. On June 28 the icon was forwarded to St. Petersburg.
