Case file · Folklore / legend
The legend of Stalin's visit to Matrona
A story spread in post-Soviet Russia that Stalin visited the blind holy woman Matrona of Moscow in 1941 and that she told him Moscow would not fall; an icon showing the meeting appeared in 2008 and was condemned by Church officials.
1941 CE · 55.73, 37.68 · status: hoax
The account
Matrona Nikonova (1881–1952), blind from birth, was believed to heal and foretell; she was canonised in 1999 and her relics in the Intercession Monastery draw huge queues. The Stalin meeting is absent from her early Life and is considered an invention.
The sceptical view
No evidence exists for the meeting; the Moscow Patriarchate called the icon contrary to Church teaching.