Our Lady Derzhavnaya

Our Lady Derzhavnaya is a Russian Orthodox icon, believed to date from the 18th century, that depicts the Virgin Mary wearing the scarlet robes of a monarch along with an Imperial crown, sceptre and globus cruciger, the regalia of sovereign authority. It was originally kept in the Ascension Convent near the Moscow Kremlin, then moved to the church of the village of Kolomenskoye in 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia, where it was subsequently forgotten. On March 2, 1917, the same day Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, a peasant woman named Evdokia Adrianova reported a dream in which the Virgin Mary instructed her to find the icon; once located and cleaned, its royal imagery came to light. Believers took the icon's appearance on the day of the abdication as a sign that the Virgin had assumed Russia's crown, and it remains one of the most revered icons both inside Russia and among Russian emigre communities. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/