The icon of Our Lady of Kazan belongs to the iconographic type of Hodegetria (She who shows the Way). The iconographic scheme of the Hodegetria is the following: the figure of Our Lady is represented frontally, half-figure, she is pointing to the Infant Christ with a slight inclination of the head, directing believers to Christ, for He is the Way, the Truth, the Life. Infant Christ is blessing either Mother or spectators with one hand and holding a scroll in his other hand.
The finding of the icon of Our Lady of Kazan took place after a terrible fire that had destroyed the half of Kazan in 1579. The Mother of God appeared in a dream to the 10-year-old Matrona Onuchina and pointed to the place where the icon was located. Presumably, this image is a copy of the ancient icon, painted by the Evangelist Luke himself, that had been kept in Blachernae Church of Constantinople.