St.Abraham of Rostov
Posted on October 16, 2018 by admin No comments
Born: unknown (10th century) Galich, Russia
Died: around 1045 to 1074 Rostov, Russia Venerated in Eastern Orthodoxy
Canonized: 1547-1549
Feast: October 29 (November 11 in Gregorian calendar)
Saint Abraham of Rostov, Archimandrite of Rostov, in the world Abercius, was born in Chuhloma which is in Kostroma region and near the railway node Galich in tenth century. The same version was included in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron.
Life of the Saint
He was very ill as a child and suffering from unknown disease. Being a pagan he was in pray to the Christian god for his healing and recovered from his illness. He decided to be baptized and to become a monk in Valaam and with the new name Abramius (Abraham) settled at Rostov on the shore of Lake Nero in Rostov lands.
Abraham set himself a hut near Lake Nero, in the land, where the local pagan Finno-Ugric tribes (apparently ves’ and meria) worshiped the stone idol of Veles, which caused superstitious fright in the whole neighborhood. His legend sais of his wonderful vision of the Apostle John the Evangelist, who gave him a staff, crowned with a cross, for the destruction of the idol. In commemoration of the Theophany of the holy one the monk erected a church in the name of the Apostle John the Evangelist; the second church was founded at the place of the pagan temple and was dedicated to Theophany. He preached the Gospel in his area. Convinced of his preaching, many pagans were baptized.
Abraham founded the monastery of the Theophany in Rostov around the church. At the petition of the Rostov princes Avraham was ordained to the rank of archimandrite of the monastery of the Theophany.
His death and veneration
Reposed in deep old age and was buried in the church of the Theophany by his disciples.With the grandson of Monomakh, the Grand Prince Vsevolod Georgievich (1176-1212), the incorruptible relics of St. Abraham were found. According to Golubinsky the general church canonization of the Monk Abraham was held already by the time of the Makaryev Sobors of 1547-1549. The divine service devoted to Abraham of Rostov, compiled in the imitation of the like to the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, was first mentioned in the manuscript collection of the 15th century.
In 1551 Ivan the Terrible during his military campaign against Khanate of Kazan made a pilgrimage to the Abraham Monastery before the battles. He took the staff of the saint and upon successful defeat of Kazan khans he returned it back and ordered construction of the stone Cathedral of the Theophany in 1553- 1555.
His feast days are: October 29 (November 11) (new style) – finding relics – in the Synaxis of the Kostroma saints, May 23 – in the Synaxis of Rostov-Yaroslavski Saints and in the Synaxis of the Karelian Saints – May 21 (dates are given according to the Julian calendar).
Years of life and activity
The legend of the saint indicates 1010 as the date of his death, but most historians recognize this date to be wrong. So, still Nikolay Karamzin indicated, that Abraham was acting in Rostov during or after Andrey Bogolyubsky (c. 1111 – 1174). The activity of Abraham in Rostov dates from 1073–1077 years according to Vasily Klyuchevsky; Macarius Bulgakov refers it to (?)-1045 years, Andrei Titov – the end of the XI – the beginning of the XII century, Filaret (Gumilevsky) – the beginning of the XII century.
Evgeny Golubinsky was skeptical about the very fact of the existence of Abraham, apparently considering him a single person with Abraham Galitzki and referring his activity to the last quarter of the fourteenth century (according to the legend, the latter lived the same years as Yury Dmitrievich, born in 1374). Arseny Kadlubovsky does not consider Abraham to be the founder of the Theophany Monastery, and also relates his life to the fourteenth century.
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