In honor of the Glorious Mistress of our Mother of God and Blessed Mary
The state icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary is inextricably linked with the Russian people and the Romanov imperial family.
It used to belong to the Ascension Monastery in Moscow, which (before Napoleon's conquests in 1812) entrusted it to the Ascension Church in the village of Kolomensko. It appeared in the same village some hundred years later, on the very day of the dethronement of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II Romanov, on March 2. 1917
How did it all come about?
The pious villager Evdokija Andrijanova heard a voice in her dream on February 13 (the year of the Tsar's murder), which said to her: "There is a large black icon in the village of Kolomensko. You need to take it, arrange it and pray."
Two weeks later (at the end of February 1917), Evdokia had another dream. In it, she saw a white church in which a woman was sitting.
When she then went to the village of Kolomensko to confess and take communion, she saw the Church of the Ascension and immediately recognized it from the dream she had. Priest Nikolay Likhachev was the priest. Eudokia told him about her dream and asked for advice. Father Nikolai showed her all the old icons of the Mother of God that were in the temple and on the iconostasis, but in none of them did Evdokia recognize the figure she had seen in her dream. Soon the elder of the temple found an old icon in the basement - among boards, waste and sawdust; it was big narrow and black. After repairing it, they discovered that it depicted the Holy Mother of God with the Godchild, sitting on a throne with authority, a scepter in her hands and an imperial crown on her head. The signs of this imperial authority are the reason why the icon is named Državna/Deržavnaya.
Since the pious Eudokia did not understand the dream, the Virgin Mary appeared to her in a dream and told her: "Now I myself have taken the state and the scepter into my own hands, and with the State Icon I am sending my special grace and power." That icon does not save from temptation, because they are needed to awaken the spiritual side in people, but whoever prays with faith in front of that icon during the temptation, he will be saved."
The news that on the day of the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II Romanov, a new icon miraculously appeared, traveled all over Russia, and the very appearance of the icon attracted many believers to the village of Kolomensko. The date of the discovery of this icon was understood by the people as the day of the proclamation of the new, Mother of God's rule over Russia.
With the blessing of Patriarch Tikhon, the service to this miraculous icon and the Akathist were written, which was composed of parts from all previous Akathists written in honor of the Most Pure, and was called "Akatist Akathist". During communism, those who composed these services were shot, and many believers who kept the image of the State Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary were arrested.
A few days after the first mention of Tsar Nicholas II and his family at the Liturgy (July 17, 1990) with the blessing of Patriarch Alexei II, the icon was transferred from the historical state museum (where it resided during communism) to the temple of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Kolomensko, where has been resting for twenty-seven years.
The date of its celebration is March 15 according to the new calendar, or March 2 according to the old calendar.
 
Wonders
Through this icon, the Mother of God helps everyone who fervently prays to her in every trouble, in the dangers of schism and heresy; They pray to her for peace, beneficial arrangement and preservation of the state.
On the day the icon was found in Kolomenskoye, a healing spring of water was also found that appeared from the ground, on a steep place leading to the Moscow River.
After the revolution, during the years of persecution of the Church, the icon did not stop manifesting various miracles, strengthening and comforting the faithful people. Among the miracles performed by the icon is the one that happened in 1925. Namely, on the day when a ceremony was celebrated in her honor, Vladimir Vorobyov, the elder of the temple of St. Nicholas, in the Plotinki neighborhood, was released from prison.
 
Education
Cleared of many years of dust, the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven emerges from the narrow black background, sitting majestically on a throne in red imperial porphyry on a green base, with a crown on her head, holding a scepter in her right hand and a scepter in her left, while the Christ Child sits on her knees Christ.
Imperial porphyry, its very color, as well as the dominant position of the Mother of God on the throne, symbolizes not only the continuous rule (which is by the blessing of the Most High) but also the suffering that will spread throughout the earth; blood, death and fear, which will come and reign around, and which will befall Russia in the coming decades.
The background on which the image of Her is depicted, is completely covered with darkness; dense darkness in which light springs exclusively from the Creator, the God-child Christ and His Most Reverend Mother.
Above her head, the Lord of hosts blesses the Child and her - the Mother of God's authority is from the Most High, she was blessed by Him, chosen and appointed by Him; She is the Empress of Heaven, mother, protector of the land of Russia and the throne of the Russian emperors.
She sits with authority on the throne, her gaze clearly fixed on the viewer. On his head he wears an imperial crown, very similar in shape to the crown worn by Russian emperors from the Rurik dynasty for centuries