ROME - Pope John Paul II will give a revered icon that often hangs in his private chapel back to Russia next month in an effort to sweeten the sometimes sour relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Vatican said Saturday that on Aug. 28, a Roman Catholic delegation that has yet to be named will give the Mother of God of Kazan icon to Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The icon, which appeared in the Russian city of Kazan in 1579, disappeared to the West sometime around the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. It was bought by a Catholic group in the 1970s and was later given to the pope.

It is in the past decade, however, that the icon has become a symbol of division between the Holy See and an Orthodox Church that accuses the Vatican of proselytizing in Russia.

With this latest gesture, the Vatican hopes that the icon, which Russian believers say works miracles, will instead become a symbol of reconciliation.

Handing it over will "contribute to the unity so longed for between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches," said the pope's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

By N.Y. Times Service