Pope's Russian icon to be returned to Orthodox

Published: 2004-07-12

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Although he had hoped to deliver it personally, Pope John Paul II will send a Vatican delegation to Moscow in late August to give the Orthodox patriarch a Russian icon that has been kept in his private chapel for 11 years. "A few weeks ago, the Holy Father communicated to the patriarch of Moscow his desire to give the sacred icon of Our Lady of Kazan to the Russian Orthodox Church," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls announced July 10. The spokesman said that since 1993, when the Blue Army USA of the World Apostolate of Fatima gave the icon to the pope, "it always has been his deep desire" to give it to Patriarch Alexei "so that once again it could be venerated by the Russian people." A Vatican delegation, whose members will be announced later, will deliver the icon to the patriarch Aug. 28, the feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary according to the Orthodox calendar.

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