The dragon and the bear

First of all, (sort of) belated blessings for Spring Festival this year, and a Happy Year of the Dragon! It’s the middle of Golden Week, so I’m still in the window!

恭喜发财！幸福安康！万事如意！身体健康！龙马精神，财运亨通！

According to the Yijing, the relevant hexagram seal for this year is qian 谦, or ‘modesty’, composed of an upper trigram kun 坤 (the receptive, field) and a lower trigram gen 艮 (keeping still, mountain).

The judgement associated with this seal is as follows:

MODESTY creates success.
The superior man carries things through.

And the associated image for his seal is that of a subterranean mountain.

Within the earth, a mountain:
The image of MODESTY.
Thus the superior man reduces that which is too much,
And augments that which is too little.
He weighs things and makes them equal.

This image in fact reminds me of something that Fr Thomas Hopko of blessed memory once wrote on the subject. Modesty (that is to say, humility) is not a matter of self-abasement in his view:

Humility does not mean degradation or remorse. It does not mean effecting some sort of demeaning external behaviour. It does not mean considering oneself the most vile and loathsome of creatures. Christ Himself was humble and He did not do this… Genuine humility means to see reality as it actually is in God. It means to know oneself and others as known by God… The humble lay aside all vanity and conceit in the service of the least of God’s creatures, and to consider no good act as beneath one’s dignity and honour.

In order to ‘reduce that which is too much’, we have to have a certain standard as to what ‘too much’ is; and we can’t do that without looking outside of ourselves for the standard. The same goes with ‘augmenting that which is too little’, ‘weighing things’ and ‘making them equal’. The standards are not to be found in us, but to realise that requires that we understand reality by a different measure than our own fallible perspective. Faith may move mountains, even if it is as small as a mustard seed which is buried in the earth. But to understand this parable, we can’t be reading it with the eyes of worldly pride.

~~~

And, by the way, in the interest of rectification of names, it is properly called Spring Festival (春节). That is even though this festival does mark the New Year on the agrarian calendar, and even though it technically falls during winter. Traditionally, farmers used Spring Festival as a yearly marker to prepare for the necessary work that needed to be done by the vernal equinox—hence the name.

Despite the woke usage nowadays, Spring Festival is not, properly speaking, a ‘Lunar’ New Year, because the traditional agrarian calendar is in fact a lunisolar calendar, with intercalations to make up for discrepancies with the solar year, and not a true lunar calendar. And thank goodness for that, because if it were a true lunar calendar, Spring Festival would jump around as much as Ramadan does. But I don’t see anyone lining up to call Spring Festival the ‘Lunisolar New Year’.

And… wait, where and when was the traditional agrarian calendar developed again? It wasn’t developed in Seoul. It wasn’t developed in Tôkyô. And it sure wasn’t developed in Manila (where agricultural work is based on the tropical ‘dry’ and ‘rainy’ seasons with no need for a lunisolar marker for the coming of spring). It was developed along the Yellow River in the Central Plains of China. The agrarian calendar is traditionally accredited to the Yellow Emperor in about 2700 BC, with reforms to it being made during the Shang (1600 BC – 1046 BC) and Zhou (1046 BC – 256 BC) Dynasties. The New Year on this calendar was first celebrated in the Central States: what is now China.

So, for English-speaking people to call it ‘Chinese New Year’ is, even if not exactingly correct as a translation, still completely understandable. Further: it’s asinine for the perpetually-aggrieved wokesters, Redditors and bourgeois Korean and Japanese nationalists to try to ‘correct’ them prescriptively, to the even more incorrect ‘Lunar New Year’.

~~~

Two days before Spring Festival, also, media personality and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson held an interview with the President of Russia, released on the Social Media Platform Formerly Known as Twitter. It’s a two-hour-long interview, but I highly encourage watching it.

What somewhat surprised me about it, actually, was how unsurprising Putin’s historiographical position was. There was nothing at all idiosyncratic, revisionist or even overtly nationalist in Putin’s reading of medieval and early modern Russian history. If anything, it was a standard textbook treatment of the subject which held to consensus positions on the creation of the Rus’ polity under Ryurik, the baptism of Kievan Rus’, the Tatar yoke, the geopolitical struggle between Muscovy and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Treaty of Pereyaslavl and so on. But the fact that he dwelt upon the history of medieval and early modern Rus’ far longer than Carlson was clearly comfortable with, shows that Putin not only takes that history seriously but thinks it is worthwhile for Americans to be exposed, even to an abridged textbook version of it.

It somewhat restored my respect for Putin, as well, that he refused to be baited or led, as Carlson was clearly attempting to do, into acceding to or supporting American conservative culture-war aims or narratives. Most notably: when Carlson attempted to push forward his idea that China would attempt to exert its hegemony over Russia in a more intolerable way than America would, Putin at once dismissed this as a ‘bogeyman story’. He further emphasised that China was Russia’s neighbour with a long land border; that it was a valuable partner in trade; and that its leadership is much more interested in compromise than in confrontation or domination. Putin is not about to sell out his good relationship with such a neighbour for a fistful of empty promises from the West.

To give another example, Putin steadfastly declined to delve into the details of any of his dealings with former (or current) American leadership. At first I found this rhetorical tactic a little frustrating. I was wondering why he was protecting these people, or lending them a cover of plausible deniability. But after a while I came to realise that Putin was simply being a diplomat. Even though he clearly has grievances with the way Russia has been treated by America and by the West more broadly, even under Yeltsin’s tenure, he isn’t in the business of singling out particular American political figures for particular instances of blame. For similar reasons, he also didn’t give in to Tucker’s questions about the current state of the American social fabric and its relations with the government… though there it might really be a weak point in his knowledge rather than a gentlemanly attempt not to take sides.

But Putin also, to his credit, refused to offer support even implicitly, for the idea that a change in administration alone could bring about a thaw in relations with Russia. Carlson was clearly leading him with his questions toward an admission that Trump would be preferable to Biden for Russia. But for Putin, it clearly isn’t a question of a Republican or a Democrat in the White House. (I made exactly this point eight years ago also; I’m glad it still holds up!) Putin observes that the American élite mentality which prevails in both parties, and which attempts to destroy anything that it can’t control, needs to shift first.

So, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but a major tip of the hat to Tucker Carlson for holding this interview. It needs to be seen; Carlson has provided a valuable service to the American people to be able to hear the arguments of the other side for themselves. As for Carlson himself, though, as an interviewer… he seemed to be rather out of his depth, and one could get the impression at a couple of points that Putin was playing with him, even trolling him a bit (as when he hinted at Carlson’s unsuccessful attempt to join the CIA).

I hope that (in the spirit of the Yijing for this New Year), we can approach this interview with the Russian President in a spirit of humility, in the interest of correcting our deficiencies or exaggerations in vision, and making things equal.

Holy and Righteous Jovan Vladimir, Prince-Martyr of Duklja

Saint Jovan Vladimir of Duklja

Today in the Holy Orthodox Church we commemorate a young man of blameless life, the Serbian prince Jovan Vladimir, who ruled the principality of Duklja – what is now Montenegro – around the turn of the eleventh century. A young ruler who was killed unjustly for political reasons, his life mirrors those of the Russian princely martyrs Boris and Gleb, the Bohemian ducal martyr Václav and the Old English atheling Éadweard.

Jovan Vladimir [Srb. Јован Владимир] was born in the year 990. Having been raised according to Christian principles by his father Peter [or Petrislav] of Duklja, he ruled the principality from his childhood, and upon his majority he was already considered to be a thoughtful, peaceful and just ruler – and was described as such by the Byzantine historian John Skylitzēs. He ruled from a hill named Kraljič, which is currently the village of Koštanjica in southeastern Montenegro. It was his misfortune that he was born during a period of protracted warfare between the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire. His father had been approached by Emperor Basil II ‘the Bulgar-Slayer’ for support against the Bulgarians; although Peter did not send any soldiers, the diplomatic relations between Duklja and Byzantium remained cordial under Jovan Vladimir. The Bulgarian Tsar Samuil attacked Duklja in the year 1009, in order to head off a possible alliance that could undermine him. Jovan Vladimir retreated with his armies to Oblik, which was infested with venomous snakes. Offering a prayer to the Lord, he asked for Christ’s aid. As a result, the snakes became tame and did not attack his soldiers.

Samuil lay siege to Oblik, and Jovan Vladimir, not wishing to cause his people any further suffering from violence and starvation, surrendered himself into the hands of the Bulgarian Tsar. He was taken in chains to the Tsar’s capital at Prespa (today Little Prespa Lake in Greece), and thrown into the dungeons. What happened afterwards became the basis for one of the truly great High Medieval romances.

Samuil had a daughter whose name was Teodora Kosara. This young woman was deeply pious and minded to follow Christ; upon hearing that her father had taken many captives in Duklja, she asked his permission to go with her maids and wash the feet of the captives in imitation of Our Lord. Seeing no harm in granting this wish, her father allowed it. Kosara descended into the dungeons and began to carry out her good work. She began to wash the feet of a young man of her own years. Looking up at him, she found him handsome. Engaging him in conversation, she found him to be sweet and gentle and modest in character, and full of wisdom and knowledge of holy things: ‘to her his speech seemed sweeter than honey and the honeycomb’.

Having fallen for her father’s hostage, Kosara went straight back to Tsar Samuil and asked to be given to Jovan Vladimir in marriage. Samuil found this proposition expedient, as it would allow him to retain control over Duklja without having to resort to force of arms. (Samuil seems to have been led by the nose by his daughters in this respect. His elder daughter Miroslava had similarly pled for the hand of the Armenian prince Ashot of Taron and was granted it.) He freed Jovan Vladimir from prison, married his daughter to him, and placed him as his vassal over the lands of Duklja.

Jovan Vladimir and Teodora Kosara had one daughter together, who ended up marrying the Serbian prince Stefan Vojislav. When Samuil died of a heart attack in 1014 following a military defeat at the hands of the Greeks, his son and Kosara’s brother, the chivalrous Gavril Radomir, ascended to the throne of the Bulgarian Empire. However, he did not reign long. The following year, however, his cousin Ivan Vladislav assassinated Gavril, and then usurped power for himself. Seeking to stamp out any further threats to his consolidation of power, Ivan Vladislav then made a plot to cut off Kosara from political consideration by murdering her husband. He issued an ‘invitation’ to the Serbian prince to join him in Prespa.

According to Skylitzēs, Jovan Vladimir would have gone himself, but his wife insisted on going in his place and making a demand for his safe passage. Vladislav welcomed Kosara and offered her a golden cross to take back to Vladimir as a token, but Vladimir refused it, saying that he would accept instead a wooden cross similar to the one that Christ was crucified on, from the hands of a priest. Vladislav sent two bishops and a hermit with the wooden cross which he had taken an oath on, and Jovan Vladimir kissed it and took it with him to Prespa. He went into a church to pray, and as he was leaving the church, he was taken by Vladislav’s soldiers and beheaded on the very church steps. In this way he met his death in a Christlike way at the hands of a political rival.

His wife, Teodora Kosara, never remarried. She transported the remains of her beloved husband from Prespa back to Duklja and had them buried at the Prečista Krajinska Church close to Jovan Vladimir’s main court. She herself became a nun and entered a community of monastics nearby. When she herself reposed, she requested that she be buried at her husband’s feet. The relics were translated from thence by the Despots of Epirus, from which they fell into the hands of the Arberian warlord Karl Topia in the late 1300s; he had a church erected in Saint Jovan’s honour in Elbasan in central Albania.

Saint Jovan Vladimir was the first of many Serbian princes to be recognised as a saint, as many of the descendants of Saint Stefan Nemanja, including most notably the glorious Saint Sava, were cut from a similar God-fearing cloth. Holy martyr Jovan Vladimir, blameless sufferer and believer in the saving Cross, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Jovan Vladimir, Tone 3:

Your holy martyr John, O Lord,
Through his sufferings has received an incorruptible crown from You, our God.
For having Your strength, he laid low his adversaries,
And shattered the powerless boldness of demons.
Through his intercessions, save our souls!

Church of St Jovan Vladimir, Bar, Montenegro

Righteous Tsar Boris Mihail, Equal-to-the-Apostles, Enlightener of the Bulgarians

Tsar Saint Boris Mihail of Bulgaria

Christ is Risen!

Today is Holy Pascha, the Feast of Feasts, the Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Today we celebrate the holy eucatastrophe, the inversion of the logic of the fallen created order – in short, we celebrate the defeat of death. Rejoicing is a difficult thing for me right now, but still I rejoice in this: that human beings and systems will not have the last word, and that human faltering and failure are not the sum total of our existence, and that even death, which seems to be all-powerful and all-consuming in this world, is broken.

It also happens to be – and he would be a shame to ignore now, given just the fact of how fascinating the guy is – the feast day of Tsar Saint Boris Mihail, one of the pivotal figures in mediæval European history. To understand why he was so important to the shape of Europe of the 800s, it’s necessary to understand his historical and political surroundings.

First of all, there was the political crisis of the east-west division of Christendom, which had been a long time in the brewing. Although Empress Eirēnē of the Eastern Roman Empire had upheld the faith that was proclaimed in both West and East and officially ended iconoclasm by convoking the Second Council of Nicæa, in 800 Pope Leo III nevertheless anointed the Frankish king Karl the Big as ‘Roman’ ‘Emperor’ on the rather misogynistic legal pretext that the Roman Empire could not be ruled by a woman. (Ulpia Severina, Augusta of Rome after the death of her husband Aurelian in 274, may well have had a few things to say about that.) This political manœuvre, as well as justly infuriating Empress Eirēnē, further alienated the Church in the West from the Church in the East, and created a long power struggle between the Frankish kingdom and Eastern Rome that would shape many of the subsequent political conflicts in Central Europe.

Second, there was the unification of the Western Slavic tribes to Bulgaria’s northwest under Mojmír, which took place amidst the power vacuum left by the defeat of the Pannonian Avars by the Franks. This confederation was Great Moravia. And although the Moravians were technically a vassal state of the Carolingian kingdom, in practice they turned out to be far more independent than the Franks liked.

And third, there was Bulgaria itself. Upon his accession to the khaganate, Boris had inherited from his prædecessors Krum the Fearsome, Omurtag the Builder and his father Presiyan a sprawling, massive territory that stretched from Ohrid to the Dneister, and from the modern-day site of Budapest to the Black Sea. This territory, as any student of Balkan history can tell you, is difficult at the best of times to keep united and well-defended, and Boris was always going to have an uphill row to hoe when it came to protecting it all from incursions by Eastern Rome, by the Serbs, by the Croats, by the Pannonian Slavs, by the Magyars and by the newly-arrived Moravians. What’s more, under Presiyan – as prophesied by Saint Boyan-Enravota – the various tribes of Slavic peasants ruled by the Turkic Bulghar lordly class had already begun converting to Christianity. The new khaghan needed, as much for political and diplomatic reasons as for spiritual ones, to unite his people around one faith.

So. Enter Boris [Bg. Борис].

Boris, the son of the aforementioned Presiyan, had no sooner come to power in 852 than his rule was tested by numerous border wars with Greeks, Serbs, Croats and Franks… wars in which he tended to come off a bit the worse for wear each time. These wars lasted almost until the end of the 860s. He was first an ally and then a rival of the saintly King Rastislav of Great Moravia. He turned his attention between the Frankish Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire as both of them kept pressuring him along his borders.

Boris, thankfully for the Bulgarians, was no fool. He understood well enough that in order to keep the Slavs he commanded from rebelling against him or being subsumed into the kingdoms around him, he would need to convert to Christianity eventually. He understood quite astutely the nature of the rivalry between the ‘Roman Emperor’ in the West and the Roman Emperor in the East, and managed with remarkable political adroitness to ‘play both sides’… even when he was on the losing end militarily. At first, the khaghan leaned pretty heavily toward Rome rather than Constantinople. Needing to counterbalance against Rastislav’s Moravians combined with Karloman in revolt, Boris asked for an alliance with Louis the German – a provision of which would have brought Frankish missionaries into Bulgaria, and Bulgaria effectively into the Western Roman political-ecclesiastical ambit. However, in 863, the Eastern Roman Emperor Michael III launched a surprise attack into Bulgarian-controlled Thrace, and forced Boris to come to a peace agreement.

Fatefully, Boris decided to adopt the Eastern Liturgical rites of Emperor Michael III as part of this peace agreement. However, there are indications that he was already preparing to set his face eastward. For one thing, Boris’s half-sister Anna had already converted to Christianity in the Constantinopolitan style, having been held hostage in the Eastern Roman court for several years. For another thing, the Christianity of the Slavic peoples he ruled – coming as it did from the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius – already followed the Constantinopolitan rubrics and used a language, Slavonic, whose status in the West was notably in dispute. Whatever his ultimate motive (or mixture of motives!), the khaghan Boris agreed to be baptised in secret along with his family at his capital at Pliska. The Byzantine Emperor himself was his sponsor, and he took the Emperor’s name in baptism as his own: Mihail.

Boris Mihail’s baptism provoked an immediate and violent response from the Turkic Bulgarian aristocracy. They saw the Christian faith as an affront to their nomadic traditions as well as their legitimacy. In 865 the pagan boyars staged an open revolt against the newly-christened khaghan. Boris managed to crush the revolt. But despite having been recently baptised, he wasn’t all in on the whole peace, love and forgiveness aspect of Christianity yet. Nope: he went full Shang Yang on the behinds of the defeated rebels. Boris ordered the executions of fifty-two boyars, their wives and their children, exterminating their entire families. To complete the turn away from paganism, Boris Mihail abdicated the Turkic title of khaghan and adopted the Slavic title of knyaz ‘prince’, and the Greek-derived title of tsar ‘emperor’.

There was also the much more delicate matter of ecclesiology, which Boris handled with a much defter and lighter hand. The missionaries which arrived from Constantinople in Bulgaria all served the Liturgy in Greek and commemorated the Patriarch of Constantinople as the head of the Church. But Boris’s ultimate aim was to establish a Slavonic-speaking church that was beholden neither to Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire, nor to Rome and the Western ‘Roman’ ‘Empire’. In this aim, he was perfectly happy to keep playing both sides against each other. Despite having had a Constantinopolitan baptism, he sent a very polite envoy to Rome with a list of 115 ecclesiological and legal questions addressed to Pope Nicholas I; he received back a famous reply of 106 answers. The Pope also sent Latin and Frankish missionaries into Bulgaria, headed by Formosus, the ambitious bishop of Porto.

This action produced no small amount of consternation in New Rome, where it was regarded as an encroachment on Constantinopolitan jurisdiction. Archbishop Photios of Constantinople took several steps in answer to the Latin missions in Bulgaria. He produced his own letter to Boris in 866, ‘On the duties of princes’. At the request of Boris’s Moravian neighbours to the northwest, he also sent among them Saints Cyril and Methodius and encouraged the adoption of a Liturgical rite in the Slavonic language. And he began attacking Latin missionaries in general – but Formosus in particular – for adding the filioque clause to the Nicene Creed. Photios’s combative approach to Rome was one decisive factor leading to the ‘Photian schism’ of 867. Boris was able to take deft political strides in the middle of this schism, and by turning his face again to Constantinople in 870 he was able to secure a promise of autocephaly for the Bulgarian Church, with its primate holding the rank of Archbishop.

In Great Moravia, the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius was meeting both with success and with jealousy. The mission was baptising critical numbers of Slavs, who could now hear the Gospel of Christ spoken in their own tongue. However, this aroused the wrath of the Frankish bishops who sought Moravia as their own jurisdiction. When Rastislav was betrayed to his blinding, confinement and death at the Franks’ hands by his traitorous nephew Svätopluk, the resulting Frankish-controlled Moravian government, at the instigation of the Frankish bishop Wiching, began ruthlessly persecuting the disciples of Methodius, subjecting them to exile, torture, slavery and likely death.

Boris Mihail, never blind to a good opportunity, welcomed the survivors of the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius into Bulgaria in 886 – in particular Saints Kliment and Naum. He instructed them to build schools and encouraged them to teach native clergy as well as teach any student who wanted the Slavonic letters. They also built up the first major corpus of Liturgical works, hagiographies and other documents in the Slavonic language.

The first Tsar of Bulgaria followed the example in old age of many mediæval princes and kings who had first embraced Christianity in their prime… and here again we see these incidental linkages (as with the eremitical saints in each) between the Church in Britain and the Bulgarian Church. Like Saints Elaeth ‘Frenin’ and Custennin of Strathclyde, Judicaël of Brittany, Ceolwulf of Northumbria, Æþelræd of Mercia and Sigeberht of East Anglia, Tsar Boris Mihail abdicated his throne in favour of his son Vladimir, and entered the monastic life.

Sadly, Vladimir’s faith was not as firm as his father’s. He began destroying the Christian churches, driving out the Christian priests, and proclaiming a revival of paganism. This met with a lukewarm reaction among the boyars (most of whom by now had already converted), and with a much colder reaction from the populace which were already strongly Christian. And it also enraged Boris, who came out of his monastic seclusion in order to raise an army with which to defeat his own son. Boris had Vladimir blinded and thrown into a dungeon, and set up his second son Simeon as Tsar before retiring again to his monastery. Two years later Boris emerged again from his monastery. This time, he helped his son raise an immense army to fend off an invasion of Bulgaria by the pagan Magyars. They defeated them decisively at the Battle of Southern Bug. He then returned to his monastery again, this time permanently, and he reposed in the Lord on the second of May, 907.

As with many of the kingly saints I treat here, Tsar Boris Mihail may not, on first glance, appear very saintly. In particular, his treatment of the pagan boyars after their rebellion and defeat seems unduly harsh. However, the importance of his conversion to the Christian faith of his subjects cannot possibly be overstated. Neither can his insistence on an independent Slavonic-speaking Church, an insistence which the ecclesiology of Constantinople found it could more readily accommodate than that of Rome. And although his conversion to Christianity may have had one or more motives which reek of political advantage, the fact that he forswore all political power after 896 and spent the last decade of his life in solitary contemplative prayer speaks to the influence that the Christian doctrine eventually had upon him. Holy Tsar Boris Mihail, apostolic guide of the Bulgarian people, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Boris Mihail of Bulgaria, Tone 6:

Full of the fear of God, and enlightened by holy baptism,
Thou becamest a habitation of the Holy Spirit, O right-believing King Boris;
And having established the Orthodox Faith in the land of Bulgaria,
And set aside the scepter of kingship,
Thou madest thine abode in the wilderness,
Didst flourish in ascetic struggles,
And found grace before the Lord.
And now, standing before the throne of the Most High,
Pray thou, that He grant unto us who entreat thee salvation for our souls.

Holy Righteous Prince Boyan-Enravota, Protomartyr of Bulgaria

Saint Boyan-Enravota of the Bulghars

As well as being the Sunday of Saint Gregory Palamas this year, the twenty-eighth of March is also the feast-day of Saint Enravota, the first Bulgarian martyr for the Orthodox Christian faith. He is also called Saint Boyan, an epithet derived from the Slavic word for ‘warrior’. Saint Enravota is known for being a friend to the captives and merciful to his enemies, though these are not traits one normally thinks to look for in a Turkic chieftain. His conversion to Christianity and his prescient, Divinely-inspired prophecy of Orthodoxy’s spread in Bulgaria led to his martyrdom at the hands of his own family.

Saint Enravota, or Boyan (Bg. Енравота or Боян) was born probably in the early 800s. He belonged to the ruling family of the Old Bulghars, the Dulo clan, which claimed descent from Attila the Hun. The khaghan Asparukh of the Dulo clan, who had originally hailed from the banks of the Volga, migrated south and west along the Black Sea coast, and founded the first Bulgarian state in Thrace in the year 681. This state had a Turkic-speaking, Tengri-worshipping Bulghar ruling class – kin to modern-day Chuvash, Bashkir and Tatar peoples – and a commoner class comprised mostly of Slavs and Thracians, who had for the most part not yet begun the process of Christianisation. It is noteworthy that Saint Enravota is one of the Orthodox saints who is regularly portrayed in traditional iconography, as in the icon above, with Asian features.

Enravota was the eldest son of the Bulghar khaghan Omurtag the Builder, and the grandson of the great khaghan Krum the Fearsome (known for his immense territorial expansions; his strict-but-fair law code which had, for its time, generous welfare provisions for state assistance to beggars; and – oh, yes – fashioning drinking vessels out of the skulls of his fallen enemies). Enravota was of a considerably different temperament than his father and grandfather, which may be one reason why he was passed over for consideration as Omurtag’s heir in preference to his youngest brother Malamir.

The Bulghars were at this point in time constantly at war with the Eastern Roman Empire. This was the old nomadic style of chronic warfare which took the form of harassing one’s neighbours, stealing their chattel and occasionally carrying off captives. During Omurtag’s time this was the norm – the Bulghars would stage raids for cattle and slaves into Byzantine-held territories. One of the captives that was taken by the Bulghars in such a raid was a Christian bishop named Kinamon. When it was learned that Bishop Kinamon was literate and knowledgeable, Omurtag hired him as a tutor for his children – however, Kinamon began teaching them not only reading and writing and the seven liberal arts, but also began to teach them the præcepts of the Christian religion and encourage in them the Christian virtues. Kinamon also refused to take part in the pagan ceremonies of the Bulghar state. Omurtag, under pressure from his boyars and enraged at this corruption and ‘softening’ of his children, had Kinamon seized, tortured and thrown into a dark pit, where he remained as a prisoner for many years.

Malamir had not listened with particular attention to Bishop Kinamon. The elder brother, Enravota, had, and among the first requests he made of Malamir when he became khaghan was to release Kinamon from captivity. This request was granted, and Kinamon was released to Enravota as a slave. But Enravota listened further to Kinamon as he taught him about Christ and the good news of mankind’s salvation and reconciliation to God. Ultimately, Enravota chose to accept baptism and become Christian himself. He was filled with a love of prayer and fasting, and his younger brother took notice.

Malamir demanded that his brother renounce Christianity at once and return to the pagan worship of the Bulghars, but Enravota steadfastly refused. Malamir then ordered – taking upon himself the sin of Cain – that his elder brother be killed. The eleventh-century chronicler Saint Teofilakt of Ohrid gives us a record of the prophetic speech he gave to his brother Malamir before the sentence was carried out:

This faith, which I now die for, will spread and increase across the whole Bulgarian land, although you may wish to oppress it with my death. In any case, the Sign of Christ will establish itself and churches of God will be built everywhere and pure priests will serve the pure God and will deliver ‘sacrifice of praise and confession’ to the life-giving Trinity. Idols, and priests as well, and their ungodly temples, will crumble and will turn into nothing, as if they had not existed. Besides, you alone, after many years, will cast away your ungodly soul without receiving anything in reward for your cruelty.

Saint Enravota was then put to death by the sword, and he joined the ranks of the holy martyrs. This happened in the year 833. It was not long before his prophecies began to be fulfilled, for the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius was about to begin among the Slavic peoples of Europe. As for Malamir, he died some years later, childless and heirless. The khaghanate passed to his and Enravota’s nephew by the middle brother Zvinitsa, named Presiyan. Presiyan’s son, Saint Boris, would be the one who invited the two remaining of the Seven Saints into Bulgaria – Saint Kliment and Saint Naum. And, just as Saint Enravota predicted, from their efforts the Sign of Christ did establish itself in Bulgaria, churches were built everywhere, and priests were lifted up from among the Bulgarian people to serve and praise God in gladness and singleness of heart. Holy protomartyr Enravota, bearer of God’s Good News to the Bulghar people, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion to Saint Boyan-Enravota of Bulgaria, Tone 3:

Your holy martyr Boyan, O Lord,
Through his suffering has received an incorruptible crown from You, our God.
For having Your strength, he laid low his adversaries,
And shattered the powerless boldness of demons.
Through his intercessions, save our souls!

Holy Greatmartyr Georgi the Elder of Sofia

Saint Georgi of Sofia

Today in the Orthodox Church we commemorate a great Bulgarian martyr of the Ottoman yoke, Saint Georgi the Elder of Sofia. In fact, he lived at the time when the Turks had only recently established themselves on the European continent, and he was among the first victims of their fanaticism. Under Ottoman rule, in fact, he served in their army, but he bravely refused to brook insults against Our Lord from the officers, which was the reason for his execution.

Saint Georgi was born in Sofia, probably around the year 1407. We have little knowledge of his parentage, but we know that they were Bulgarians and that they loved him and gave him a good education. His hagiography describes Georgi as a handsome, powerfully-built young man who was also literate. He lived at a time when, as mentioned above, the Turkish enemy was advancing into European Thrace, and the few remaining holdouts of the old Eastern Roman Empire – which in its hubris had descended into petty political bickering, backstabbing and even apostasy from the Orthodox faith – were under significant political pressure from the Ottomans. Georgi may have belonged to one of these minor statelets before they were conquered by the Turks; however afterwards it appears he joined the Ottoman Army without having adopted Islâm.

He was in Adrianopolis, which was renamed Edirne by the Turks, in his armour and military insignia in order to have his bow repaired by a local craftsman in service to the army, who was also a Turk. As the craftsman while working on his weapon, some nearby Turkish soldiers began to blaspheme against Christ. And Saint Georgi, hearing this, could not refrain from saying back to them:

The Lord Jesus Christ, our God, is great and unique and His wisdom is unparalleled. Yours, whom you call a prophet, can’t even be counted among the dogs. Who is like the Lord Jesus Christ our God, Who dwells in the heights and watches over the humble? One alone is Holy, One is the Lord, One is worshipped, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, amen. What God is as great as our God? He is the sole Creator; all other things are created!

The Turks then flew into a rage, and beat Georgi mercilessly about the face, and then they tried without success to strangle him and then bind him with his own bowstring. However, Georgi being as large and powerful as he was, they could not restrain him, and he continued to confess Christ in His Lordship. The Muslims at last succeeded in binding his hands behind his back, and marched him to the local governor, the vâli. The vâli asked the young soldier if it was true that he had spoken as he had. Georgi owned every one of his words, repeated them, and added still more. The governor ordered him to be tortured on a rack and beaten, and then sent to another official of higher rank.

This official then asked him: ‘Is what I have heard true, you accursed man?’

Georgi answered back: ‘Shall I hide the truth now? What I have said, I have said. Yes, you tyrant – I have spoken everything that you have heard.’

The Turkish official then ordered him to retract his speech, forsake Christ and confess Muhammad as the prophet – promising him honour and gifts if he did so. But Georgi refused, continuing to confess one Lord Jesus Christ, as God and Creator, Who reigns eternally. Then the official handed Georgi over to the mob, which beat him, struck him, spat upon him, and then had him thrown into prison, where he continued to be mocked and tortured.

The Islâmic scholars then came before the official to protest his leniency against Georgi, whom they deemed a blasphemer. When Georgi was called again before the court, he appeared radiant and happy, as though he were about to be presented with high honours. The official had been content to follow the letter of the law, to have him horsewhipped and then released. But the mob demanded that Georgi be put to death by burning at the stake, and the Turkish official feared them, and so he handed Georgi over to the mob and to the pyre that they had already prepared. Georgi approached this fire bravely, knowing that although the enemy could burn his body they could not touch his soul.

Several Turks tried to impede his progress to the pyre and entreated him to recant his Christianity, but Georgi would not listen to them. Two Turkish soldiers struck him in the heart with a sword as he ascended the pyre. As the blaze was lit and he knelt upon the pyre to pray, another soldier ran him through with a spear, disembowelling him. In this way Saint Georgi of Sofia met his martyrdom and joined the ranks of the saints. The Muslims employed various means of preventing the Christians from finding his body. They threw animals on the pyre with him, added fuel to the fire and left it burning from the afternoon until the following morning so that everything was burnt to ashes, and then scattered the ashes away.

However, for several days after this, the Lord saw fit to honour His martyr in a perceptible way. A pillar of fire appeared over the spot where Saint Georgi had been executed, such that everyone living in Edirne could see it. Sometimes it appeared as the light from a gentle candle; at other times it appeared as a small flame; and at other times it appeared as a great star falling from the sky, but remaining in place for hours over that hallowed spot. In 1880 the Ottoman Sultân Abdülhamid II gave permission for the Bulgarians to build a church in Edirne in honour of the martyr. In this day as well let us remember Saint Georgi, and pray for his intercession for those who continue to suffer persecution and martyrdom for the Orthodox faith. Holy martyr Georgi of Sofia, bold confessor of Christ, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion to Saint Georgi of Sofia, Tone 3:

Your holy martyr Georgi, O Lord,
Through his suffering has received an incorruptible crown from You, our God.
For having Your strength, he laid low his adversaries,
And shattered the powerless boldness of demons.
Through his intercessions, save our souls!

Church of Saint Georgi the Greatmartyr, Edirne, Turkey

Venerable Roman of Tărnovo, disciple of Saint Teodosii

Saint Roman of Tărnovo

Today in the Holy Orthodox Church, the seventeenth of February, is the feast day of Saint Roman, the disciple of Saint Teodosii the Hesychast of Tărnovo, who was in turn one of the disciples of Saint Grēgorios of Sinai, the father of the mediæval hesychast movement in the Orthodox Church. Much of the information that we have on the life and deeds of Saint Roman the Hesychast comes from the hagiography of his mentor and spiritual father.

Saint Roman [Bg. Роман] was born in the early 1300s in Tărnovo, the capital of Bulgaria. His family came from one of the Turkic Old Bulghar stems which formed the basis for the first Bulgarian state – the Old Bulghars were related to the Bulghar Khanate to which Saint Abraham of the Volga belonged, and from which descend the Kazan Tatar, Bashkir and Chuvash peoples of Russia. His parents raised him to be a nobleman, but he had little interest in the martial disciplines of his upbringing. Instead he retired to a monastery in Tărnovo and became a novice.

Saint Teodosii arrived in Tărnovo to beg the help for the second time of Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr, that he might put to flight the Muslim bandits who were raiding the monastery of Saint Grēgorios in Paroria. When he heard that Saint Teodosii was in Tărnovo, the young novice Roman, who was seeking a deeper and holier life of quietude, came out from his monastery to meet the elder hesychast and threw himself at his feet, begging to be taken as a disciple. If Teodosii did not accept him, Roman pleaded, he would go and be slaughtered by some wild beast or throw himself from the rocks of Tărnovo – deeper than the thirst of the deer for spring water, was Roman’s thirst for Teodosii’s wisdom and guidance in Christ. Well might we imagine that the elder Teodosii still saw a bit of noble arrogance in these rash pronouncements. But the elder, who was acquainted with Roman from his youth, took pity on the lad, and brought Roman back with him to Paroria. Saint Grēgorios also took a liking to the young Bulgarian nobleman, and agreed to keep him on at his monastery.

At Paroria, Roman distinguished himself by a superlative meekness and obedience to his elders in all things, obeying them in imitation of how Christ obeyed His Father. He stayed at Paroria monastery until Saint Grēgorios reposed in 1347. The monks sought to make Teodosii their abbot, but Teodosii, who had no desire to lead men in a monastic community, made plans to leave for Mount Athos in secret. Roman discovered his plans and begged to be allowed to come with him. On Mount Athos the two monks studied and struggled to apply in their lives of prayer the methods of hesychasm. Again, however, they were driven from their home by the Turks, and they fled again into Bulgaria. Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr again welcomed them warmly, and gave Teodosii and Roman a plot of land at Kilifarevo where they could set up a hermitage.

Three years Saints Teodosii and Roman laboured at Kilifarevo, and through their earnest hard work and life of prayer and vigil the hermitage prospered. What’s more, they could not keep the secret of their presence from the folk of Bulgaria for long, and soon the hermitage was thronged with people from all walks of life seeking help and advice, which they did their best to give. And what’s more, many young men of Bulgaria sought to join Saint Teodosii and join the hermitage as novices and disciples. Soon enough there were fifty men living at Kilifarevo, and Teodosii and Roman were compelled to construct a monastery there to house them all. Despite Saint Teodosii’s determination not to become an abbot, God clearly had called him to be there.

Throughout all his endeavours, Saint Roman had been Saint Teodosii’s tireless and uncomplaining companion, helpmeet and supporter, and engaged in polemics against Judaïsers and anti-hesychasts in Bulgaria. Saint Teodosii eventually retired to Constantinople, and left Saint Roman as his prior in charge of the monastic brotherhood – he reposed in Constantinople in the year 1363. By this time, Saint Teodosii’s and Saint Roman’s monastic community had been established at Ustieto near Tărnovo, where the monastery was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Here Saint Roman continued to promote hesychasm and to carefully shepherd his monastic flock faithfully as his mentor would have done.

During his last years Saint Roman developed a chronic illness that we recognise today as whooping cough. However, he did not alter in any way his prayer routine or his vigils. He slept only during the dawn hour, keeping the whole night for prayer. The one thing he did in response to this malady was to alter his daily fast only to include one small daily cup of wine. He did not complain or pay attention to his illness, but continued to advise the monks and give spiritual comfort to the laity for as long as God would allow. In the end, Saint Roman was given to know by God when he would repose. He gathered all of his monastic brothers around him, told them how much he loved them, exhorted them to continue to strive for Christ and to imitate one another in meekness and kindness and obedience, and celebrated the Liturgy with them one last time. He reposed at peace with God and with his brothers on the seventeenth of February. The monks grieved long over his loss, and buried him with all the honours due to a beloved spiritual father and abbot of their house. Holy and venerable Roman, steadfast student of the prayer of the heart, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Roman of Tărnovo, Tone 8:

In you, Father, we have an example of how to care for our salvation:
You took up the Cross and followed Christ,
And taught us to despise the flesh for it is transient,
And care for the soul which is immortal.
Therefore, O Venerable Roman, your spirit rejoices together with the angels!

Holy Trinity Monastery at Ustieto, Bulgaria

Righteous Petǎr, Tsar of Bulgaria

Saint Petǎr of Bulgaria

Today is the birthday of our nation’s greatest president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And in the Orthodox Church, it is also the Synaxis of the Three Holy Hierarchs, as well as the feast day of Tsar Saint Petǎr I of Bulgaria. Saint Petǎr was a mild-mannered, sweet-tempered, peace-loving man who enjoyed a long rule over Bulgaria; and even though it was not a period of military conquest and glory, Bulgaria still enjoyed a period of prolific church growth and general prosperity under his enlightened rule.

Saint Petǎr was born around the year 903, presumably in what was then the Bulgarian capital at Preslav. His father, Tsar Simeon I, was a fierce and warlike ruler who made war upon the Eastern Roman Empire as well as the Magyars and the Serbs. The Tsar married twice, and Petǎr was the Tsar’s son by his second marriage, to Maria the sister of Georgi Sursuvul. Petǎr was of a very different temperament than his father, and this was evident early on in his life. When he was perhaps ten years of age, he went on a pilgrimage to Constantinople together with his elder brother Mikhail. However, despite the differences between himself and his father, he evidently earned his father’s favor enough to be named heir instead of Mikhail, whom Simeon forced to become a monk.

Tsar Simeon died of a heart attack in 927, leaving the 24-year-old Petǎr as king over a great Bulgarian Tsardom at the height of its territorial expansion. At this time, Petǎr’s closest advisor, friend and regent was his uncle Georgi Sursuvul, who was of like temperament to the new Tsar. Petǎr had inherited several territorial wars from his father, including those in Croatia and Eastern Rome, which he desired to bring to an end. Therefore, in utmost secrecy, Georgi Sursuvul sought to forge a peace treaty and a dynastic alliance with Eastern Rome. Petǎr gladly agreed to this.

In 927, a delegation of Bulgarians including Georgi Sursuvul and several of the Bulgarian Tsar’s kinsmen arrived in the City and met with the Roman Emperor Rōmanos I Lakapēnos, where they hammered out a peace agreement that also entailed the young Petǎr’s marriage to the Emperor’s granddaughter, Maria Lakapēnē, who was renamed Eirēnē at the wedding to signify her importance to the new peace.

The new Bulgarian Tsar and his uncle forged peace with Eastern Rome on terms quite favorable to the Bulgarians, speaking to the military brilliance of Petǎr’s father. The Roman Empire formally recognised the ruler of Bulgaria as a ‘Tsar’, and the marches between Eastern Rome and Bulgaria were fixed according to the treaties of 897 and 904. The Roman Empire paid a yearly tribute to Bulgaria as well, something similar to the contemporary danegeld which England paid to the Norse rulers. More importantly, the Bulgarian Church won its autocephaly, with its primate being given dignity equal to the Patriarchs of the Five Ancient Churches.

Petǎr unfortunately faced several rebellions from his brothers Mikhail and Ivan in the following years, which he was forced to quell, as well as several invasions by the Bulgarians’ ancient and cruel tribal enemies the Magyars. However, it soon became clear to all that his natural preference followed his uncle’s desire for peace. He waged no offensive wars during his reign, but he kept the peace within his borders quite firmly. As a result, Bulgarian society not only prospered, it flourished.

Much of this prosperity flowed to the Church, and Tsar Petǎr himself was a particularly eager benefactor of the Orthodox Church in Bulgaria, giving funds for the construction and adornment of many grand cathedrals and churches throughout his Tsardom.

It was during Petǎr’s reign that the Gnostic-Manichæan hæresy of Bogomil first appeared in the Bulgarian realm. This was the result of a number of factors. The resettlement of the Paulician sect from Armenia under the Emperors of Eastern Rome was one such; as was the still low level of literacy (let alone knowledge of right doctrine!) among the Slavic Bulgarians. Another unwitting factor may have been Tsar Petǎr’s lavish gifts to the Church, which gave the appearance of corruption. Tsar Petǎr did combat the new hæresy as well as he was able, however the first documentation we have of it comes from after his reign, from the hands of the Orthodox priest Kosmas. He retired from his throne in 969 and reposed in the Lord, having sought the solace of the monastic tonsure, on the thirtieth of January 970.

Though modern sources have not necessarily been as kind to Saint Petǎr as they ought, in the period immediately following his reign, he was considered to have been a ‘good king’ who was peaceable and orderly and generous, of the same ‘type’ in this era of historiography as Éadgár the Frithsome and Saint Václav of Bohemia. May God see fit to have mercy upon our many sins and grant us (though we do not deserve) leaders such as these in our own time! Holy Tsar Petǎr, peaceable ruler and generous benefactor of the Orthodox faith, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Church of St George, Kyustendil, Bulgaria, possibly dating to the reign of Saint Petǎr

Holy Hierarch Evtimii, Patriarch of Tărnovo and All Bulgaria

Saint Evtimii of Tărnovo

Today in the Orthodox Church is the feast-day of Saint Evtimii of Tărnovo, another of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s great mediæval luminaries. Saint Evtimii is perhaps the greatest of the Bulgarian saintly patriarchs of his time; like Saints Teodosii (his teacher) and Romil, he was also a firm and vocal (er, so to speak) supporter of the Hesychast movement in the Orthodox Church spearheaded by the great Saint Grēgorios of Sinai, who had settled and reposed in Bulgaria. Saint Evtimii was also an accomplished linguist and a formidable scholarly mind, and he did much to uplift the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in his time as Patriarch.

Saint Evtimii [Bg. Евтимий] was born around the year 1317 in Tărnovo. He was Bulgarian, and his parents likely belonged to the eminent Tsamblak family of that city. He received a fine education from the monastic schools in Tărnovo, and around the age of thirty he chose to become a monk himself. He was tonsured and accepted into the monastery at Kilifarevo, which had been founded by Saint Teodosii. By dint of his humble attitude and his steadfast obedience he earned the trust of Saint Teodosii, who appointed him his assistant in 1363. Together they travelled to Constantinople and stayed at the Studion Monastery which had been founded under the rule of Patriarch Saint Gennadios, which was renowned for its library. It was here, shortly afterward, that Saint Teodosii reposed in the Lord.

Saint Evtimii distinguished himself among the monks at Studion for his obedience, for his willingness to learn, and the rapidity with which he soaked up the wisdom of the holy place. At some point he moved from Studion to Athos, where he established himself at the Monastery of Saint Athanasios the Athonite. Here he was influenced by Saints Grēgorios of Sinai and Iōannēs Koukouzelēs. He was punished with exile by the Emperor Iōannēs V Palaiologos and sent to the isle of Lemnos, possibly for speaking out against the emperor’s submission to the Pope of Rome. At length he was permitted to return to Athos. When he did he entered the Bulgarian Monastery of Zographou and stayed there for a brief time.

He returned to his native Bulgaria in 1371. Here he founded a monastery with attached school dedicated to the Holy Trinity in Tărnovo, and applied himself to a great linguistic task of educating the people… continuing and deepening the work that had been begun by the Seven Holy Saints of the South Slavs. On Athos, he had been exposed to, and discussed, a number of sacred texts in the original Greek, and had found that the Bulgarian equivalents he had grown up with had been poorly transcribed in an irregular manner, such that they gave cause to confusion and rise to disputes. Saint Evtimii set to work reforming Church Slavonic orthography to render it more intelligible to ordinary people. He also committed himself to a massive amount of work in translating and redacting works into Church Slavonic from Greek. The texts transcribed and redacted by Saint Evtimii still serve as the basis of the great bulk of the Liturgical texts still in use in the Slavonic setting, in Russia and the South Slavic nations. For this reason, Gregory Tsamblak, his biographer, compared his work to that of Holy Prophet Moses and of the Ægyptian Pharaoh Ptolemy I.

Saint Evtimii succeeded Patriarch Ioanikii as the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church upon the latter’s repose in 1375. Keeping true to his teacher Saint Teodosii and to the præcepts of the Orthodox Church even in a time of widespread hæresy and disputes, Saint Evtimii became the foremost supporter of the Hesychast movement in Bulgaria. He applied his wisdom and his skill as Patriarch to the rectification of moral order in the Orthodox Church and to the proper division of the word of Truth.

Saint Evtimii was in charge of commanding the Bulgarian forces at the disastrous Siege of Tărnovo in 1393, when the city was overthrown and razed by the rapacious Turks under the command of Süleyman Çelebi. Saint Evtimii had been left in command by Tsar Ivan Shishman, who was off with the main army defending Nikopol. For three months Saint Evtimii encouraged the Bulgarian forces to hold out against the Turkish foe, however – as Gregory Tsamblak suggests – Tărnovo may have been betrayed from the inside by members of one of the non-Christian neighbourhoods inside the city. The Turks entered and engaged in wholesale slaughter of the inhabitants, including 110 of the boyars and prominent citizens of the city, and desecration of the churches. Saint Evtimii was spared from this holocaust and sent into exile in Bachkovo Monastery in Thrace. Saint Evtimii reposed perhaps around the year 1402. Unfortunately, we do not know where he is buried. The death of Saint Evtimii and the destruction of Bulgaria by the Turks tragically spelled the end of the Tărnovo Patriarchate, which was subsequently subjugated to Constantinople. Only in 1870 were the historical rights of the Bulgarian Patriarchate restored. Holy hierarch Evtimii, holy hesychast and great teacher of piety to the Bulgarian people, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Evtimii 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 Evtimii,
Entreat Christ our God
That our souls may be saved.

Patriarchal Monastery of the Holy Trinity, Tărnovo, Bulgaria

Holy Hierarch Ioakim, Patriarch of Tărnovo and All Bulgaria

Saint Ioakim of Tărnovo

The 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

Venerable Romil the Hesychast of Ravanica

Saint Romil of Ravanica

Today in the Orthodox Church is the feast-day of another of the shining lights of mediæval hesychasm, Saint Romil of Ravanica. Saint Romil was one of several of the disciples of the great teacher of hesychasm Saint Grēgorios of Sinai, along with Saint Teodosii of Tărnovo, who shone forth in Southeastern Europe in what was a fairly dark time for the Orthodox Church as a whole. To him let us look as to a lodestar in our own dark times.

Saint Romil [Bg. Ромил, Srb. Ромило] was born by the name of Ruško in the city of Vidin in the year 1330. His parents were wealthy and well-born: his father was Greek and his mother was Bulgarian. They gave him a sound education, and Ruško impressed his teachers with his quickness and eagerness to learn. Ruško was not, however, like the other children his age. He did not play games or indulge in idle pursuits, being of a much more serious-minded bent. His parents worried for him, and began to arrange a marriage for him. Fearing to be trapped in such a scheme, Ruško fled his parents’ house at the age of fourteen and ventured from Vidin into Tărnovo, asking to be accepted as a novice at the Mother of God ‘Who Shows the Way’ Monastery in that city. He was admitted and took on the monastic name of Roman. He distinguished himself as a monk by his humility and his obedience to his abbot.

This happened at around the same time as Saint Grēgorios of Sinai arrived in Bulgaria, having been exiled there by Muslim persecutions and hostile governors. He was welcomed by the pious Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr, and was allowed to settle in the Strandža, and establish a monastery near Paroria – now a national park in Bulgaria. It was not long before the great father of the hesychasts began attracting followers to him from throughout southeastern Europe. One of them was the young monk Roman, who asked his abbot’s leave to journey to Paroria, to dwell there and to learn from the great Saint Grēgorios.

At first, his abbot was loath to let him go. Not only was Roman an exceptional monk whose loss would be keenly felt by the Mother of God Monastery, but the abbot also displayed that wise, loving and prudent caution regarding his spiritual sons that all men of advanced spiritual achievement would do. He feared for Roman’s soul, that he might be tempted into delusion. But it soon became apparent to the abbot that Roman’s spiritual thirst was a genuine and healthy one, and so at last the abbot gave his leave to the young man, and offered him provisions for the journey to Paroria.

At Paroria, Roman became one of Saint Grēgorios’s most devoted disciples. He had come to the monastery with a fellow-monk named Ilarion, who was of a weak constitution. Seeing this, Grēgorios assigned to Ilarion the lighter and easier tasks around the monastery, while to Roman he assigned the heavy and menial work: chopping wood, drawing water, hauling stones and earth, serving in the kitchens. He was also assigned to the infirmary to tend to the sick. But not one word of complaint passed Roman’s lips, and whatever he did he tended to it with great attention and love. Sick men became well under his ministrations. Very soon he came to be called ‘Roman the Good’ by his fellow monks.

Saint Grēgorios observed this, and approved. He began instructing Roman in the hesychast method of inner silence and the prayer of the heart. When the saint reposed, Roman grieved day and night for the elder. He was loath to remain at Paroria while not under the supervision of a spiritual elder. His fellow-traveller Ilarion had already subjected himself to another elder, and Roman soon joined him. Again Roman placed himself under obedience to him just as he had to Saint Grēgorios.

Paroria was, at that time, subject to attacks by brigands and by Muslim princes who were hostile to Bulgarians as a matter of course. Having robbed the three monks of food and shelter, Roman, Ilarion and their spiritual elder were forced to flee Paroria to Mokren. Here Roman parted from the company against the elder’s wishes, seeking a desert place where he could live by himself. However, soon after this the elder died, and Roman, penitent for his act of disobedience, returned to Ilarion and flung himself down at the other monk’s feet. In repentance, Roman demanded to be allowed to place himself under Ilarion’s obedience. At first Ilarion refused, knowing Roman to be his better in spiritual attainment, but after seeing Roman’s sincere and heartfelt remorse Ilarion agreed to Roman’s request.

Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr had gone in force to Paroria and cleared it of bandits, and for a short time Roman and Ilarion returned and lived there as master and disciple. Roman took on the Great Schema and the monastic name of Romil. However, the bandits returned and again Saint Romil was forced to flee. He set up a small hermitage in a remote place, but other monks who were jealous of Romil’s peace began to whisper against them, and rather than contend with them Romil went instead to Athos. Seeking deeper and deeper solitude he settled at last at Melana, and then to the spare, forbidding northern slopes of Athos. But even in these remote places, spiritual elders would send Saint Romil pupils and spiritual children of theirs whom they thought to be in need of correction. Romil advised them on ways to be loving and humble, and ways to love God in greater perfection. Keeping in mind his own sins, Romil humbly encouraged those who came to him always to be obedient, just as Christ obeyed His Father.

After the Serbian despot Uglješa Mrnjavčević fell in battle against the Turks at the disastrous Battle of the Marica River in September 1371, the impious Turks were emboldened to mount attacks on the Holy Mountain itself. Saint Romil was among those who were forced to flee the Turkish assaults on the island, and he wound up first in Vlorë on the Adriatic Sea coast in what is now Albania. Once again he sought solitude, and once again it eluded him. Many monks and laymen sought him out in his hermitage for spiritual advice and healing. However, the unjust governors in Vlorë and the poor catechesis among the priesthood there precipitated his move from there to Ravanica in Serbia.

In Ravanica there was a newly-built monastery which Prince Saint Lazar had dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos, and Saint Romil set himself up in a cell near to this monastery. Here he lived for the remainder of his days, before he reposed in the Lord on the sixteenth of January, 1385. When he was buried, it was said that his tomb gave off an ineffable sweet fragrance. Many wonders of healing and exorcism attended Saint Romil’s burial and took place over his relics. Holy and venerable Romil, humble hermit and luminous beacon of hesychasm, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Romil the Hesychast, Tone 8:

By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
And your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
O our holy father Romil, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!

Ravanica Monastery, Serbia

Venerable Gavriil, Hermit of Lesnovo

Saint Gavriil of Lesnovo

The fifteenth of January is also the feast-day of the great and venerable Saint Gavriil of Lesnovo, a contemporary and friend of the meek Serbian Saint Prohor of Pčinja, with whom he shares this day of veneration. Both of them were disciples of Saint Ivan of Rila. As with both Saint Ivan and Saint Prohor, his hagiography bears some resemblance to saints in the Celtic tradition.

Saint Gavriil [Bg. Гавриил] was born in the eleventh century to noble parents, in the town of Osiče near Kriva Palanka, in what is now North Macedonia – although at the time it was part of the Byzantine province of Bulgaria. His parents, who had been without children for much of their adulthood, had prayed to God for a son, and Gavriil was His gift to them. They arranged a marriage for him and left him all of their property. But Gavriil’s young wife soon died, and Gavriil fled his inherited estate in search of a life which would be well-pleasing to God.

He met a deacon named Thomas, whose love for Christ inflamed in his heart a desire for the ascetic life. Thereafter he had a vision of the Archangel Michael, whereupon he returned to Osiče and established a church there, in honour of the Nativity of the Theotokos. However, he was soon compelled to leave his home and seek a monastic vocation at the Monastery of Saint Michael in the village of Lesnovo – today located in the foothills of northeastern North Macedonia. Here he distinguished himself by his humility and meek obedience to the abbot, and the abbot, soon recognising his spiritual potential, granted him the privilege of living in a cell apart by himself to devote greater time to prayer and vigil.

The monk Gavriil lived in this way meekly for some time. However, he had great compassion on his brethren, and his prayers for them when they were injured or ill had great efficacy in healing them. Many sought out Gavriil on account of this grace he demonstrated. As the crowds grew larger, Gavriil moved out of the monastery to avoid them, and he ventured first northward toward the forested hills around Lukovo. There he met a shepherd whose flock had been infected with a certain incurable and deadly blight of the flesh. The shepherd asked Saint Gavriil to bless some water and sprinkle it on his sheep. The sheep were healed wondrously by this water. The shepherd spread the news around of the holy man, and soon again Gavriil was thronged about by crowds. Again the hermit withdrew to a high mountain peak – possibly Orlov Kamen on the border of Serbia and Bulgaria. Here he spent thirty years toiling in solitary struggle, unknown to men. Here he met his repose in the Lord.

Saint Gavriil appeared in a vision to a Bulgarian monk named Iosif, asking him to make a journey to uncover his relics. Iosif – fearing that the vision might be a delusion sent by the Evil One – went to consult with his abbot and with the Metropolitan about it. The Metropolitan believed the vision to have been genuine, and enjoined the monk Iosif to make the journey and follow the saint’s instructions. The monk Iosif took with him a party of fellow-monastics and set off for the peak, and being guided by a second vision they found there the relics of Saint Gavriil lying in his cell, incorrupt. The monk brought them with great reverence to Lesnovo Monastery, where they were interred with honour and became the site of many wondrous healings and spiritual prodigies. The Serbian voivode and despot Jovan Oliver, in the fourteenth century, visited the now run-down monastery and built a church to house the reliquary, as well as giving generously of his own funds to restore the monastic house to its former glory. Later in the fourteenth century, the relics of Saint Gavriil would be transferred to Veliko Tărnovo to keep them safe from the depredations of the Turkish Sultân Murad I. His relics today, however, rest at the Lesnovo Monastery – which today bears both the name of Archangel Michael and the name of Saint Gavriil. Holy and venerable Gavriil, steadfast athlete of Christ, ascetic and healer, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Gavriil of Lesnovo, Tone 8:

By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
And your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
O our holy father Gavriil, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!

St Michael and St Gabriel Monastery, Lesnovo, North Macedonia