St. Igor of Kiev

Joyous feast! С праздником! Today we commemorate the Holy Great Prince Igor of Kiev. St. Igor came to lead Rus' during a time of great internal division within its royal family, and only served briefly as great prince before his overthrow and banishment to a monastery. The Saint embraced the monastic life and was eventually tonsured to the great schema.

After a short time in the monastery a mob of his family's opponents sought St. Igor out, dragging him out of the monastery church during the Divine Liturgy and murdered him. When the Saint's body was later recovered and taken to St. Michael's Monastery the candles near it lit of their own accord. The Saint was buried at another monastery on the outskirts of Kiev.

In 1150 St. Igor's relics were translated to the city cathedral of Chernigov, whilst the wonderworking Igorov Icon before which he had been praying prior to his martyrdom was enshrined in the catholicon of the Kiev Caves Lavra. More on his life can be found here. May St. Igor's blessing and prayers be with us all!

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Visits Bukovina

Patriarch Kirill (Gundyayev) of Moscow, accompanied by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, has begun a pastoral visit to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in northern Bukovina. The patriarchal delegation was welcomed to the region by Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovskiy) of Chernivtsi and Bukovina, who with the rest of the clergy and faithful of the Chernivtsi diocesan administration were exhorted by Patriarch Kirill to never forget "Great [and] Holy Rus.'" More (in Russian) here and here.

St. John of Rila

Joyous feast! Today we commemorate one of the great lights of Bulgarian Orthodoxy, our Holy Father John of Rila. St. John was born in the late 800s in the vicinity of the current Bulgarian capital, Sofia, and at a young age was orphaned and became a cowherd. Even as a youth he worked miracles, once rescuing a calf from the Struma River by causing its waters to part by his prayers.

As a boy the Saint left his village, becoming a monk in an unknown monastery and pursuing a life of extreme asceticism on a hill and then in a cave alongside his nephew St. Luke. After twelve years of laboring in the cave St. John withdrew to the Rila wilderness, where he settled in the hollow of a tree to fast and pray, eating only grass when he needed food until God caused beans to grow nearby for the ascetic to eat.

The Saint was eventually discovered by nearby shepherds when their sheep led them to the monk's tree and soon they began to bring him the sick and possessed, who were healed through St. John's prayers. Fleeing the celebrity he attained through the healings St. John took refuge on a rock crag that was difficult to access, dwelling there for seven years under the open sky.

Despite his flight from the world the reports of St. John's holiness continued to spread, reaching even the Bulgarian imperial court and bringing a number of monks and novices to Rila, where the Saint eventually accepted them as his disciples and allowed them to build a monastery with a church in the cave where he had previously lived.

St. John shepherded the Rila Monastery until his repose on this day in 946 at the age of seventy. Before his death he wrote one of the most celebrated pieces of literature in the old Bulgarian language. Through both his holy life and his prayers St. John did much to strengthen the Orthodox Faith amongst the newly baptized Bulgarians.

St. John's relics remained at the Rila Monastery until their transfer to Sofia in the face of an invasion of Bulgaria by the East Roman Empire. At some point one of the Saint's hands was translated to Russia, to the city of Ryl'sk, which was named after the place of St. John's ascetic struggles, and he soon became as beloved amongst the Russians as he was amongst his native Bulgarians. The main part of the Saint's relics were later translated back to Rila from the new Bulgarian imperial capita, Turnovo, in 1469, where they remain to this day.

More on St. John's life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Vladimir the Equal-to-the-Apostles of Kiev

Joyous feast! С праздником! Today we commemorate Grand Prince Vladimir of Kiev, known as 'the Equal to the Apostles' for his baptism of all of Rus' in 988 following his own conversion to the Orthodox Faith. Although the son and grandson of the pagan Grand Princes Igor and Svyatoslav of Kiev, St. Vladimir was also the son and grandson of Orthodox Christian women - Grand Princess Malusha and Grand Princess St. Olga the Wise.

At his birth St. Vladimir was named by his mother 'the peaceful ruler' (Volodymyr in old Slavonic and modern Ukrainian). Despite his Orthodox ancestry St. Vladimir was strongly pagan, at the time of his succession to his father in Novgorod (Rus' having been divided between Svyatoslav's three sons) fiercely campaigning against his Orthodox brother Grand Prince Yaropolk of Kiev in 1978 and overthrowing him to become the sole ruler of Rus'.

St. Vladimir continued to reign as a pagan until the late 980s when Emperor Basil of the East Romans appealed to Rus' for help in putting down a rebellion against his rule. When St. Vladimir demanded in return that Basil's daughter Anna be sent from Constantinople to be his wife the reluctant emperor agreed on the condition that the grand prince be baptized, and so St. Vladimir was baptized as Basil and married to Anna in the Crimean city of Chersonessus (today Korsun) in 988.

After his return from the Crimea St. Vladimir ordered the baptism of his capital and of all of Rus'. The inhabitants of Kiev consequently went down to the Dnieper River and were baptized there by Metropolitan St. Michael of Kiev and the city's clergy. After the country's baptism pagan idols, temples, and shrines were torn down, often being replaced by churches and, later on, monasteries. In Kiev itself St. Vladimir built a church dedicated to his patron, St. Basil the Great, on the site of a temple to the god Perun, whilst at the place of the martyrdom of some of Kiev's Orthodox he built the Church of the Tithe dedicated to the Dormition.

So it was that Rus' was baptized and transformed into the largest of the nations belonging to the Orthodox Catholic Church. Thanks to St. Vladimir's influence leaders of the Bulgar Turks living on the Volga, the Pechenegs, and even the distant Norwegians were also converted to Orthodoxy during his reign. Having labored throughout his life to unify Rus' as an Orthodox nation, St. Vladimir reposed on this day in 1015 after ruling for 37 years.

May St. Vladimir's blessing and prayers be with us all! More on his life can be found here.

St. Olga the Wise

Joyous feast! С праздником! St. Olga the Equal-to-the-Apostles, was the wife of Grand Prince Igor of Kiev and grandmother of Grand Prince St. Vladimir of Kiev. Already during Grand Prince Igor's reign Orthodoxy was becoming widespread in Rus', although neither Igor nor the Saint embraced the Faith at that time. After her husband's death St. Olga became the regent for her son Grand Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev. During her regency St. Olga regularly traveled throughout Rus' to ensure the peace and development of the realm.

In 954 St. Olga, having entrusted the government to Svyatoslav, left at the head of a large diplomatic mission to Constantinople. Awed by the beauty of the city and its many churches, St. Olga accepted baptism at the hands of Patriarch Theophylact under the name Helena, with Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrigenitus becoming her godfather. Despite this close spiritual relationship the emperor refused St. Olga's request to have a metropolitan elected for the Orthodox Church in Rus' and she left the imperial city in disappointment.

Despite her failure to have a shepherd sent to Kiev for the Orthodox there, upon her return from Constantinople St. Olga set about energetically strengthening the life of the faithful in Rus' by sponsoring the construction of a number of churches, the most famous amongst them the future Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom. During this time paganism also rallied, with some of those newly baptized being martyred and a bishop sent to Rus' from the Church of Rome being chased out of the country.

St. Olga ultimately died in sorrow in 969 having served in effect as co-ruler with her son and having failed to have Rus' converted en masse to the Orthodox Faith. Her funeral was served by Kiev's clergy, after which she was buried in one of the city's churches. Her relics were soon glorified by miracles and after the Baptism of Rus' St. Olga became even more widely venerated throughout newly Orthodox Rus'.

More on St. Olga's life can be found here. May her blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Michael of Kiev

Joyous feast! С праздником! St. Michael was the first Metropolitan of Kiev elected by the Church of Constantinople after the conversion of St. Vladimir and Rus' in 988, arriving in Rus' in 989 with other clergy sent to continue the Christianization of the country. Some chronicles say that the Saint was a Syrian, but others claim him to have been a Bulgarian or Serb.

Metropolitan Michael was zealous in preaching the Gospel, traveling throughout Rus' to baptize and teach his young flock and everywhere founding churches and schools. The Saint was gentle, but also strict and is remembered in some chronicles as 'the Initiator' for his work in implanting Orthodoxy in the hearts of the people of Rus'.

St. Michael reposed in 992 having only served three years in the Kiev cathedra and was buried in the city's Church of the Tithe. More on the Saint's life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitan Visits Transdniestria

Metropolitan Ahafangel (Savvin) of Odessa of the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church has traveled to the internationally unrecognized Transdniestrian Republic on the territory of eastern Moldova to serve the reburial of an imperial Russian general in the republic. During his time in Transdniestria Metropolitan Ahafangel met with the Transdniestrian president, praising him for ensuring "that the friendship between the peoples of Kievan Rus' should be eternal and unshakable." More here.