The Uncovering of the Venerable Relics of the Monk Sergei of Radonezh
Commemorated on July 5
The Uncovering of
the Venerable Relics of the Monk Sergei of Radonezh: The relics of the Monk
Sergei (+ 1392, Comm. 25 September) were uncovered on 5 July 1422 during a time
when the Monk Nikon (+ 1426, Comm. 17 November) was hegumen. In the year 1408,
when Moscow and its surroundings suffered invasion by the Tatar horde of
Edigei, the Trinity monastery was devastated and burnt, and the monks headed by
the hegumen Nikon hid themselves in the forests, saving the icons, sacred
vessels, books and other holy things connected with the memory of the Monk
Sergei. In a vision by night on the eve of the Tatar incursion the Monk Sergei
informed his disciple and successor about the coming tribulations and foretold
in consolation, that the vexation would not be prolonged but rather that the
monastery, arising from the ashes, would flourish and grow even more.
Metropolitan Philaret wrote about this in the "Life of the Monk
Sergei": "In semblance to this, that it suited Christ to suffer, and
through the cross and death to enter into the glory of the Resurrection, so
also doth it become everyone, that wouldst be blest by Christ in the length of
days in glory, to be tested by one's own cross and death". Going through
its own fiery cleansing, the monastery of the Life-Originating Trinity was
resurrected in the length of days, and the Monk Sergei himself rose up, so that
forevermore his holy relics should dwell within it.
Before the beginning
of construction of the new temple in the Name of the Life-Originating Trinity
upon the spot of the former wooden one (which was consecrated on 25 September
1412), the Monk Sergei appeared to a certain pious layman and bid him inform
the hegumen and the brethren: "Why do ye leave me such a while in the
grave, covered over by ground and in the water, constraining my body?" And
herewith during the construction of the cathedral, when they dug the ditches
for the foundations, the undecayed relics of the Monk Sergei were uncovered and
brought up, and all were astonished, that not only the body, but also the
clothing upon him was undecayed, although round about the grave there actually
stood water. Amidst a large throng of the devout and the clergy, in the
presence of the son of Dimitrii Donskoi – the prince of Zvenigorod Yurii
Dimitrievich (+ 1425), the holy relics were brought up from the ground and
placed temporarily in the wooden Trinity church (at this spot is located now
the church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit). With the consecration in 1426 of
the stone Trinity cathedral the relics were transferred into it, where at
present they remain.
All the threads of
the spiritual life of the Russian Church converge towards the great Radonezh
saint and wonderworker, and through all of Orthodox Rus' the graced
life-creating currents extend outwards from the Trinity monastery founded by
him.
Naming a church for
the Holy Trinity within the Russian land began with holy Equal-to-the-Apostles
Ol'ga (+ 969, the account about her is under 11 July), who erected the first
Trinity temple at Pskov. Afterwards there were erected similar churches in
Great Novgorod and other cities.
The spiritual
contribution of the Monk Sergei in the teaching of theology about the Holy
Trinity is quite significant. The monk had profound insight into the secret
mysteries of theology with the "mental eyes" of the ascetic – in
prayerful ascent to the Tri‑Hypostatic (i.e. in Three-Persons) God, and
in the spiritual experience of communion with God and God-likeness.
"Co-heirs of the
perfect light and contemplation of the Most Holy and All‑Sovereign
Trinity, – explained Saint Gregory the Theologian, – are those which become
perfectly co-united in the perfection of the Spirit". The Monk Sergei knew
experientially the mystery of the Life-Originating Trinity, since in his life
he became co-united with God, he became a communicant to the very life of the
Divine Trinity, i.e. he attained as much as is possible on earth to the measure
of "theosis" ("divinisation", "obozhenie"), becoming
a "partaker of the Divine nature" (2 Pet. 1: 4). "Whoso loveth
Me, – saith the Lord, – that one wilt keep to My word; and My Father wilt
love him, and We shalt come unto him and make abode with him" (Jn. 14:
23). Abba Sergei, in everything observing the commands of Christ, belongs to
the rank of holy saints in the souls of whom the Holy Trinity "hath made
abode"; he fashioned himself into "an abode of the Holy
Trinity", and everyone with whom the Monk Sergei associated, he elevated
and brought into communion unto the Holy Trinity.
The Radonezh ascetic,
with his disciples and conversants, enriched the Russian and the OEcumenical
Church with a new knowledge and vision of the Life-Originating Trinity, the
Beginning and Source of life, manifesting Itself unto the world and to mankind in
the "Sobornost'" ("Communality") of the Church, with
brotherly unity and the sacrificial redemptive love of its pastors and
children.
In the spiritually
symbolic gathering together of Rus' in unity and love, the historical effort of
the nation became a temple of the Life-Originating Trinity, erected by the Monk
Sergei, "so that by constant attention to It would be conquered the fright
of the hateful discord of this world".
The worship of the
Holy Trinity, in forms created and bequeathed by the holy Hegumen of Radonezh
Sergei, became one of the most profound and original of features of Russian
ecclesiality. With the Monk Sergei, in the Life-Originating Trinity there was
posited not only the holy perfection of life eternal, but also an image-model
for human life, a spiritual ideal towards which mankind ought to strive, since
that in the Trinity as "Indivisible" ("Nerazdel'nyi", Grk.
"Adiairetos") discord is condemned and "Sobornost'"
("Communality") is blest, and in the Trinity as
"Inseparable" ("Neslyannyi", "Akhoristos", – per
Fourth OEcumenical Council at Chalcedon in year 451) coercion is condemned and
freedom blest. In the teaching of the Monk Sergei about the Most Holy Trinity
the Russian nation sensed profoundly its own catholic and ecumenical vocation,
and comprehending the universal significance of the feastday, the people
embellished it with all the variety and richness of the ancient national custom
and people's verse. All the spiritual experience and spiritual striving of the
Russian Church was embodied in the liturgical creativity of the feast of the
Holy Trinity, of trinitarian church rituals, icons of the Holy Trinity, and
churches and monasteries of this nomen.
The theological
insight of the Monk Sergei in transformation was rendered as the wonderworking
icon of the Life-Originating Trinity written by the Monk Andrei (Andrew) of
Radonezh, surnamed Rublev (+ 1430, Comm. 4 July), a monk-iconographer,
monasticised in the Trinity-Sergiev monastery, and written at the blessing of
the Monk Nikon in praised memory to holy Abba Sergei. (At the Stoglav Council
of 1551 this icon was affirmed as proper model for all successive church
iconographic depiction of the Most Holy Trinity).
"The hateful
discord", quarrels and commotions of worldly life were surmounted by the
monastic life-in-common, planted by the Monk Sergei throughout all Rus'. People
would not have divisions, quarrels and war, if human nature, created by the
Trinity in the image of the Divine Tri-Unity, were not distorted and impaired
by Originial sin. Overcoming by his own co-crucifixion with the Saviour the sin
of particularity and separation, repudiating the "my own" and the
"myself", and in accord with the teachings of Saint Basil the Great,
the life-in-common monks restore the First-created unity and sanctity of human
nature. The monastery of the monk Sergei became for the Russian Church the
model for suchlike renewal and rebirth, in it were formed holy monks, bearing
forth thereof features of the true path of Christ to remote regions. In all
their works and actions the Monk Sergei and his disciples churchified life,
giving the people a living example of its possibility. Not for renouncing the
earth, but rather for transfiguring it, they proclaimed ascent and they
themselves ascended unto the Heavenly.
The school of the
Monk Sergei, through the monasteries founded by him, his disciples and the
disciples of his disciples, embraces all the vastness of the Russian land and
threads its way through all the remotest history of the Russian Church. One
fourth a portion of all Russian monasteries, the strongholds of faith, piety
and enlightenment, was founded by Abba Sergei or his disciples. The
"Hegumen of the Russian land" was what people called the founder of
the Domicile of the Life-Originating Trinity. The Monks Nikon and Mikhei of
Radonezh, Syl'vester of Obnorsk, Stefan of Makhrisch and Avraam of Chukhlomsk,
Athanasii of Serpukhov and Nikita of Borovsk, Theodore of Simonovsk and
Pherapont of Mozhaisk, Andronik of Moscow and Savva of Storozhevsk, Dimitrii of
Prilutsk and Kirill of Belozersk – they were all disciples and conversants of
"the wondrous elder", Sergei. Sainted-hierarchs Alexei and Kiprian –
Metropolitans of Moscow, Dionysii ArchBishop of Suzdal', and Stephen Bishop of
Perm, were associated with him in spiritual closeness. The Patriarchs of
Constantinople Kallistos and Philotheos dispatched missives to him and sent
their blessings. Through the Monks Nikita and Paphnutii of Borovsk threads a
spiritual legacy to the Monk Joseph of Volotsk and others of his disciples, and
through Kirill of Belozersk – to Nil Sorsky, to German, Savvatii and Zosima of
Solovetsk.
The Church venerates
also disciples and co-ascetics of the Monk Sergei, whose memories are not
specifically noted within the "Mesyatseslov" lists of saints under
their separate day. We remember, that the first to arrive for the Monk Sergei
at Makovets was the elder Vasilii the Gaunt ("Sukhoi"), called such
because of his incomparable fasting. Second was the Monk Yakuta, i.e. Yakov
(James), of simple peasant stock, who without a murmur spent long years at the
monastery on errands of drudgery and difficult obedience. Among his other
disciples, there came to the Monk Sergei his fellow countrymen from Radonezh
the Deacon Onisim and son Elisei. When 12 monks had gathered and the
constructed cells were fenced in by an high enclosure, the abba appointed
Deacon Onisim the gate-keeper, since his cell was outermost from the entrance
to the monastery. Under the protective shadow of the Holy Trinity monastery the
Hegumen Mitrophan spent his final years, – he it was who formerly had vowed
the Monk Sergei into the angelic form and guided him in monastic efforts. The
grave of dead and soon blest Starets Mitrophan became the first in the
monastery cemetery. In the year 1357 there arrived at the monastery from
Smolensk the Archimandrite Simon, who resigned his venerable position as head
of one of the Smolensk monasteries, to become a simple obedient of the
God-bearing Radonezh hegumen. In recompense for his great humility, the Lord
granted him to share in the miraculous vision of the Monk Sergei about the
future increase of his monastic flock. With the blessing of the abba, the
Blessed elder Isaakii the Silent took upon himself the deed of prayerful
silence; his silence was more instructive than any words for the monks and
those outside. Only one time after a year of silence did the Monk Isaakii open
his mouth – to testify, how he had seen an Angel of God serve together at the
altar of the Monk Sergei, in making the Divine Liturgy. An eyewitness of the
grace of the Holy Spirit, co-effectualised for the Monk Sergei, was also the
ecclesiarch Simon, who once saw, how an heavenly fire came down upon the Holy
Mysteries and that the saint of God "did commune the fire
unburningly". The Elder Epiphanii (+ 1420) was somewhat later, during the
time of hegumen Nikon, a priest of the Sergiev flock. The Church names him
Epiphanii the Wise for his deep learning and great spiritual talents. He is
known as the compiler of the Life of the Monk Sergei and of his conversant
Saint Stephen of Perm in eulogy to them; he wrote also the "Account of the
Life and Repose of GreatPrince Dimitrii Donskoi". The vita of the Monk
Sergei, compiled by Epiphanii 26 years after the death of the monk, i.e. in
1418, was later reworked by the Monk-hagiographer Pakhomii the Serb, called the
Logothete, who had come from Athos.
To the monk Sergei,
as to an inexhaustible font of spiritual prayer and grace of the Lord, at all
times came in veneration thousands of the people – for edification and for
prayers, for help and for healing. And each of those having recourse with faith
to his wonderworking relics he heals and renews, fills with power and with
faith, transforms and guides upwards with his light-bearing spirituality.
But it was not only
spiritual gifts and graced healings bestown to all, approaching with faith the
relics of the Monk Sergei; to him likewise was given by God the grace to defend
against enemies of the Russian land. The monk by his prayers was with the army
of Dimitrii Donskoi at the Battle of Kulikovo Pole ("Field"), – he
even blessed to go to the military effort his own monks, Aleksandr Peresvet and
Andrei Oslyab. He directed Ivan the Terrible the place for erection of the
fortress of Sviyazhsk and helped in the victory over Kazan. During the time of
the Polish incursion the Monk Sergei appeared in a dream to the Nizhni Novgorod
citizen Kozma Minin, ordering him to gather funds and equip an army for the
liberation of Moscow and the Russian realm. And when in 1612 after a molieben
to the Holy Trinity the militia of Minin and Pozharsky moved on towards Moscow,
a propitious breeze fluttered the Orthodox standards, "as though from the
grave of the Wonderworker Sergei himself".
To the period of the
Time of Troubles and the Polish incursion belongs the heroic "Trinity
sitting-tight", when many a monk with the blessing of the hegumen Saint
Dionysii repeated the military holy deed of the Sergiev disciples Peresvyet and
Oslyab. For one and an half years – from 23 September 1608 to 12 January 1610
– the Polish laid siege to the monastery of the Life-Originating Trinity,
hoping to plunder and destroy this sacred bulwark of Orthodoxy. But by the
intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God and through the prayers of the Monk
Sergei, "with much disgrace" they fled finally from the walls of the
monastery, pursued by Divine wrath, and soon even their leader Lisovsky
perished a cruel death on precisely the Monk Sergei's day of memory, 25
September 1617. In 1618 the son of the Polish king, Vladislav, came right up to
the walls of the Holy Trinity monastery. But being powerless against the grace
of the Lord guarding the monastery, he was compelled to conclude a peace-treaty
with Russia at the monastery village of Deulino. After this a church was
erected in the name of the Monk Sergei.
In the year 1619 the
Jerusalem patriarch, Theophanes, visited the Lavra amidst his journey to
Russia. He especially wanted to see those monks who in time of military danger
made bold to put over their monastic garb the chain-mail coat and with weapon
in hand to go up onto the walls of the holy monastery, warding off the enemy.
The Monk Dionysii the hegumen (+ 1633, the account about him is under 12 May),
in speaking about the defense, presented to the patriarch more than twenty
monks.
The first of them was
Athanasii (Oscherin), very up in years and with the yellowed greyness of an
elder. The patriarch asked him: "Didst thou go to war and lead
soldiers?". The elder answered: "Yes, holy Vladyko, it was made
necessary by bloody tears". – "What is most proper for a monk –
prayerful solitude or military exploits before the people?" Blessed
Athanasii, making poklon, answered: "Every thing and every deed has its
own time. Here on my head is a Latin signature, from a weapon. There are six
more memorials of lead in my body. Sitting in the cell at prayer, could I
indeed have found suchlike inducements towards moaning and groaning? I did all
this not at my own pleasure, but for the blessing of the service of God sent
us". Touched by the wise answer of the humble monk, the patriarch blessed
and hugged him. He blessed also the other soldier-monks and expressed his
admiration to all the brethren of the Lavra of the Monk Sergei.
The deed of the
monastery, during this grievous Time of Troubles for all the nation, was
recorded by the steward Avraam (Palitsyn) in "An Account about the
Happenings of the Time of Troubles", and also by the steward Simon Azar'in
in two hagiographic collections: "Book about the Miracles of the Monk
Sergei" and the "Life of the Monk Dionysii of Radonezh". In the
year 1650 Simeon Shakhovsky compiled an akathist to the Monk Sergei, as
"valiant voevoda (military-leader)" of the Russian land, in memory of
the deliverance of the Trinity monastery from the enemy siege. Another akathist
in existence to the Monk Sergei was compiled in the XVIII Century, and its
author is considered to be the Moscow metropolitan, Platon (Levshin, + 1812).
In the times
following, the monastery continued to be an inextinguishable torch of spiritual
life and church enlightenment. From its brethren one after the other were
chosen for service many famed hierarchs of the Russian Church. In the year
1744, for its service to the country and the faith, the monastery was entitled
a Lavra. In 1742 within its enclosure was established the religious seminary,
and in the year 1814 the Moscow Spiritual Academy was transferred there.
And at present the
Domicile of the Life-Originating Trinity serves as one of the primary centres
of grace of the Russian Orthodox Church. Here at the promptings of the Holy
Spirit are done the acts of the Local Councils of the Russian Church. At the
monastery is a place of residence of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and
All Rus', which carries upon it the special blessing of the Monk Sergei, in the
established form, "Archimandrite of the Holy Trinity Sergiev Lavra".
The fifth of July,
the day of the Uncovering of the relics of holy Abba Sergei, hegumen of the
Russian Land – is a crowded and solemn church feastday at the monastery.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
