Holy Martyr Abraham of the Volga Bulghars

Saint Abraham of Bolgar

Today, the calends of April, is the feast-day in the Holy Orthodox Church of another Turkic martyr for the Christian faith, Saint Abraham, a Volga Bulghar (that is to say, the ancestors of today’s Tatars and Bashkirs) merchant who was convicted of apostasy of Islâm and executed for his faith in the year 1229. His relics were primarily venerated in Vladimir, where they were translated on the fourth of March the following year.

Abraham [or Avraamii, or ’Ibrâhîm] was from the state of Idel Bolgar, the polity of the Volga Bulghars. He lived, in fact, in the city of Bolgar, which had been the main capital of the Volga Bulghars from the eighth to the tenth centuries – though by Abraham’s time, most of the administrative functions of the Bulghar khans had been transferred to the settlement of Bilyar. At first, Abraham was a devout and sincere Muslim of the Hanafî school, noble-minded and generous-hearted. He inherited great wealth from his parents; his father was also a wealthy merchant. It is said of him in his hagiography that even before his conversion:

Although having many possessions, he gave to poor beggars [money], the hungry food, the thirsty drink, the naked clothing; he visited the sick, and met all sorts of needs among the needy.

Although mercantile pursuits are not particularly compatible with the spiritual life (or indeed, with morality in general), and pecuniary securities seem more to stifle the longings of the spirit than to satisfy them, they do not seem to be a barrier to one who sees and seeks beyond the temptations of worldly riches. This Abraham seems to have been one example, and the more of his own wealth he gave away, the more the Lord multiplied his treasure in heaven. Abraham also studied the Scriptures on his own, and grew dissatisfied with the faith in which he had been raised. Curious about other faiths, and having been in contact with merchants from the petty duchies of Rus’ bordering Idel Bolgar – that is to say, the Principalities of Vladimir-Suzdal and Murom – he gradually came to be convinced of the truths of Christianity. He asked his friends among the Rus’ merchants to bring him to a priest to be baptised.

Once he took baptism, Saint Abraham, who was taken with a fiery passion for his newfound faith, for the purposes of asceticism began to wear heavy iron bands around his wrists. Unlike, for example, Saint ’Abu al-Tiflîsi, our Bulghar saint went through no period of secrecy as a confessor of Christ, but instead began to profess his belief openly among his people. He redoubled his gifts to the poor, needy and sick; and he began to preach Christianity openly in the great bazâr in the middle of the town of Bolgar. His fellow-tribesmen were amused with him at first, and some of them went to the bazâr to debate with him on the merits of Islâm.

At length, they grew bewildered and frustrated with him: how could such a man, they wondered, blessed with every lawful benefit in the world by the grace of God, turn his back on the faith of his youth and the faith of his people? They brought his family to exhort him and plead with him to renounce Christ, but he would not. When this failed they began to threaten him, and then to beat him – and this they did so harshly that not a single part of Saint Abraham’s body that they did not wound or bruise. They delivered him up to a magistrate in Bolgar, and before him too, Abraham boldly confessed the risen Christ. The magistrate lost no time in convicting Saint Abraham of apostasy, and sentencing him to death. Then his countrymen took him outside the city to a spot on the bank of the Volga on the first of April, and had him quartered and then beheaded with the sword. Thus the martyr received his heavenly crown.

The same merchants of Rus’ from Vladimir and Murom who had brought him to be baptised, had also witnessed his execution, and were granted leave to take the severed body of Saint Abraham. They did this and they laid him in an Orthodox cemetery nearby. At once the tomb of the holy Bulghar martyr began to show signs of divine favour, and he began to be venerated locally as a saint. Not even a year later, on the ninth of March, it so happened that emissaries from the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal made a successful bid to have the relics of Saint Abraham translated from his tomb in Bolgar to Vladimir.

When the saint arrived in Vladimir, Saint Yuri II Vsevolodovich, the third son of Vsevolod III ‘the Big Nest’ and the prince of Vladimir, came out with his wife Agata and his son Vsevolod, along with Bishop Mitrofan and all the assembled clergy, to meet the relics. These relics were interred in the Princess Monastery of the Holy Assumption in Vladimir, with great ceremony and celebration. It is said in the akathist to his memory, that his relics gave off a sweet fragrance when they were borne up. It is a testament to the universality of the faith, and its precedence over national, cultural and political forces, that a Bulghar – who at the time on account of the border violence between the Bulghars and the Rus’ was counted a bitter enemy among all but the Rus’ merchants – could be met with hospitality and love and reverence by everyone in Vladimir from the prince to the peasantry.

From his reliquary in the Princess Monastery, the Lord granted that the prayers and intercessions of Saint Abraham would work many wondrous healings. The Bulghar martyr showed a particular affection and care for children and infants down the centuries. Parents would bring to him infants who were born feeble, or young children who were sick or even on the brink of death, and the children would leave his relics living, healthy and happy. He was also known to restore the sight of those afflicted by blindness, and the iron fetters that he wore were able to heal those suffering from mental illnesses, when they put them on. He is held in particular reverence by the majority-Orthodox Chuvash people as well as the minority of Bashkirs and Tatars who confess Christ – all of whom claim descent from the Bulghars of the Volga.

The veneration of Saint Abraham was largely a local affair to Vladimir for the first few centuries after his martyrdom. Only starting in the latter half of the 1600s did Saint Abraham’s cultus take on a broader national importance. In 1711 his relics were transferred from a small outer chapel to the main altar at the Church of the Assumption in the Princess Monastery; in 1785 a large procession was held in his honour; and in 1807 his old reliquary was replaced by a much grander one, wrought from silver. The relics of Saint Abraham were taken from the monastery by the Bolsheviks in 1923 and placed in a museum, and then decommissioned from museum storage in the 1950s; the Church has as yet not been successful in locating and recovering them. A particle of his relics is still kept in the altar at the restored Princess Monastery, and pilgrims still visit there to ask for his intercessions.

In addition, at the place of his execution – similar to many of the Welsh martyrs – there sprang up a holy well of clean water, at which a chapel was built in later centuries by the Orthodox people of Tatarstan. This chapel and well can be found on the Volga’s south bank, northwest of the city proper. This well is visited and held in reverence by both Muslims and Christians, in significant part because a Muslim was the first person to be healed there by the water from the spring, and in part because the Hanafîs were willing to show courtesy and honour to a brave and virtuous man despite their religious differences. The chapel was later destroyed, and the well boarded up, by the Bolsheviks. In 1993, the chapel was rebuilt, and once the boarding and other detritus were cleared away, the well source was found to be unpolluted. Today it continues to be a place of pilgrimage for both Orthodox Christians and Hanafî Muslims. Holy martyr Abraham, bold confessor of Christ and patient sufferer on the Volga banks, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!

Apolytikion for Saint Abraham, Tone 4:

Днесь, благовернии людие, сошедшеся,
восхвалим добляго сего мученика и страдальца Авраамия,
сей бо, укрепляемь силою Божиею,
душу свою положи за Христа,
много пострадав от зловерных болгар.
Сего ради от Господа венец прият
и ныне предстоит Ему
и молится о граде сем
и о всех нас, чтущих память его.

Translation:

Today the people of good faith gather
To praise this worthy martyr and sufferer Abraham,
This man, strengthened by the power of God,
Entrusted his soul to Christ,
And suffered much at the hands of wicked Bulghars.
Thus for the sake of the Lord he accepted the martyr’s crown,
And now stands before Him
And prays for this city
And for all of us who honour his memory.

Chapel of Saint Abraham on the Volga