Saint Ioakim of TărnovoThe eighteenth of January in the Orthodox Church is the feast-day and commemoration of another great mediæval South Slavic holy man, Patriarch Saint Ioakim I of Tărnovo. Saint Ioakim was a stalwart defender of the Orthodox faith in the Bulgarian lands during troublous times, as well as being a firm friend of the poor, the widows and the orphans. He was known in particular for his opposition to the death penalty and his intercessions with the Bulgarian Tsars on behalf of condemned prisoners.
Saint Ioakim [Bg. Иоаким] was born toward the tail end of the twelfth century, and was a ‘native Bulgarian’ according to the hagiographical account. Little appears to be known about his early life, but he committed himself to the monastic life of ascetic struggle, and spent much of his early life on the Holy Mountain of Athos. Stern towards himself but lenient toward others, Saint Ioakim became renowned for his rigorous rule of prayer, fasting and vigils – as well as for his selfless obedience to the Athonite fathers he served, and for the persistence and consistency in applying himself to the struggle against the passions. His humility and piety became renowned on Athos, and monks began to seek him out.
After ‘a long time’, according to the hagiography, Ioakim returned to his native Bulgaria. The hagiography itself gives no reason for this, but later Bulgarian commentators suggest that it may have come from a humble desire to flee vainglory and his own fame as a spiritual elder, or perhaps from a righteous desire to enlighten the land where he was born. He settled in a place called Krasen near the banks of the Danube – which is probably somewhere near Cherven at the source of the Rusenski Lom in northeastern Bulgaria. He established the Church of the Holy Transfiguration, and settled there with three disciples: Diomid, Atanasii and Teodosii.
He was approached by Tsar Ivan Asen II, who was desirous of the counsel of the holy man, and wished to speak with him on the topics of salvation. As a gift the Tsar brought with him a great deal of gold. The hermit Ioakim used this gold to hire workers, and they built a great rock-hewn monastic complex near Ivanovo, which is still standing today, and which is famous for the beautiful frescoes which adorn the inner walls. This monastery Ioakim built so that it could house all of the postulants and seekers who came to him seeking the word of Truth, and here he kept to the rules of prayer and fasting that he had observed his entire monastic life.
According to the Life of Saint Sava of Serbia, on December of the year 1234 the great Saint Sava of Serbia visited Tărnovo, and was greeted with hospitality and enthusiasm by both the Tsar and by Saint Ioakim. Together Saint Sava and Saint Ioakim concelebrated the Feast of Theophany. When Saint Sava fell ill and died some days later, Saint Ioakim himself cared for the saint on his deathbed, presided at the saint’s funeral, and had him interred with great honour in the Church of the Forty Martyrs.
The following pages of his hagiography are sadly no longer extant. These pages deal, perhaps, with the (re)establishment of the Bulgarian Patriarchate in 1235 with its primary see at Tărnovo. This happened at a Church council convoked in Lampsakos in Asia Minor. It was here, perhaps, that Saint Ioakim was proclaimed Patriarch of Bulgaria at Tsar Ivan Asen II’s express request, and with the blessing of ‘the bishops of the whole Bulgarian land’, and was confirmed and granted the omophorion by the Œcumenical Patriarch Germanos II of Constantinople.
As Patriarch, Saint Ioakim ‘blessed and enlightened the whole of the Bulgarian land’. His hagiography also lays particular stress on the fact that he showed ‘mercy to the orphans, gave to the needy and to the poor, visited those in prison; and he offered unceasing prayers at every hour; and saved many who were sentenced to death, and saved many who resorted to him from the wrath of the Tsar’. The hagiography of Saint Sava refers to the ‘honest and holy’ Patriarch Ioakim of Bulgaria. Saint Ioakim came to the end of his earthly life on the eighteenth of January 1246, probably when he was of a very advanced age. He was given to know in advance of his impending death; therefore he gathered his disciples and the clergy around them, exhorted them to uphold the Orthodox faith, begged their forgiveness for any wrong that he had done them, and forgave them all in turn. He reposed peaceably in the Lord. So fondly did his contemporaries remember him, that the thirteenth century had not ended before Ioakim was glorified in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as a saint. Holy hierarch Ioakim, friend to the poor and intercessor on behalf of the guilty and condemned, stand too before Christ our Lord on behalf of us sinners and beseech His great mercy!
Apolytikion for Saint Ioakim of Tărnovo, Tone 4:
In truth you were revealed to your flock as a rule of faith,
An image of humility and a teacher of abstinence;
Your humility exalted you;
Your poverty enriched you.
Hierarch Father Ioakim,
Entreat Christ our God
That our souls may be saved.
Rock-hewn Churches of the Ivanovo, Bulgaria
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