Reverend Kirill and Maria, parents St. Sergius Radonezh
(Memory January 31, October 11)
Eternal memory of you, blessed Cyril and Mary, as throughout generations and generations people have learned to achieve salvation through your pious life and faithfulness. Sedalen, voice 1
The wisdom has long been known: “There are two windows facing heaven: the Family and the Church.” Like any real human revelation, and not an aphoristic fiction, this wisdom reveals the meaning of our experiences, hopes and warns of possible distortions.
Using its metaphorical nature and flexibility, it is easy to assume that any distortion in the designs of both the first and second windows leads to tragedy: Paradise is not only inaccessible, but also indistinguishable. Holiness for both cases is the guarantee of not only a clear visual perspective for the observer of Heaven, but a visible route to Heavenly Jerusalem. Pilgrim's Road.
It is also known that in principle there can be no “Christian state”. Only an individual can become Christian - a union of individuals in marriage - a family - and a community - the Church. In such a family (community) miraculously connect mutual love spouses, children, all household members, comfort and gifts of God's mercy. The world sees this, and it rarely likes it.
In the history of Russian Orthodoxy best example such a “small Church” is the family of the parents of St. Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh, Saints Cyril and Mary.
Moving along the outline of the earliest hagiographical work dedicated to St. Sergius, the “Life,” compiled, or rather, masterfully written around 1400 by his “disciple Epiphanius the Wise,” we learn that Cyril and Mary were “pleasers of God, truthful before the Lord full and adorned with people and all sorts of virtues”; and also that the praiseworthy couple... knew the Holy Scriptures well.”
That is, they were both literate and educated. The saint’s mother “fasted and prayed diligently, so that the very conception and birth of the child occurred during fasting and prayer.” And “she was virtuous and God-fearing... she consulted with her husband” regarding the “dedication” of this particular, middle son to God.
The family of Bartholomew, Stephen and the younger Peter was “pious” and at the same time completely ordinary, human, without any mysterious vows or mystical revelations. Epiphanius writes: “Having welcomed the birth of the baby, they (the parents) called their relatives and friends, neighbors and indulged in fun, glorifying and thanking God, who had given them such a child.”
What is it, a child, “such”, Epiphanius, perhaps due to the hagiographic genre, anxiously added. One thing is certain: rejoicing over the birth of all children was a familiar and pleasant thing. As well as teaching young people to read and write or doing peasant work (this is discussed in detail in the “Life” of the monk).
IN fast days the boy refused mother's milk. Maria not only “complained about this with regret,” but called on Cyril, and she and her husband “examined the baby from all sides and saw that he was not sick and that there were no obvious or hidden signs of illness on him.”
They usually “look at” when they bathe or swaddle. It's interesting that they did it on their own. The hagiographer does not mention either healers or “grandmothers”. They could do everything. Epiphanius emphasizes: Kirill, although a boyar, did not disdain agricultural work.
Boris Zaitsev begins his essay about the saint (Paris, 1924) cautiously: “Sergius’s childhood in his parents’ house is a fog for us... a certain spirit can be caught from Epiphanius’s messages.”
One can imagine the saint's parents as respectable and fair people, religious to a high degree. It is known that they were “strange-loving.” They accepted all sorts of “pagan pilgrims” and by the second half of their lives they themselves became “wanderers,” that is, migrants, or, as they say now, refugees. What happened?
Boris Zaitsev writes: “Kirill and Maria came under a double blow. On the one hand, the state stung (i.e., it forced Kirill to pay for the trips of the Rostov princes Konstantin II Borisovich and Konstantin III Vasilievich to the Horde and contribute considerable cash- author), then on the other hand there was a misfortune with the Muscovites Vasily Kocheva and Mina: “The people grumbled, worried, complained. They said... that Moscow was tyrannizing... In his old age, Kirill was ruined and was forced to leave Rostov region».
In those same decades, Moscow would betray Saint Michael of Tver and allow Tver to be ravaged. The “gathering of Russian land” was paid for with Russian lives and destinies.
Behind all this “nebula” of Zaitsev and the forced position of Epiphany’s literary deflection in front of the growing power of Moscow and state authoritarianism, in his usually treacherous attitude towards the family, is hidden real story forced exodus of the reverend's parents.
If we reduce to a minimum all the half-spoken hagiographers and Zaitsev’s patriotic maxims (“Moscow has unshakably risen above the specific turmoil”), then the “Radonezh resettlement” of the family is nothing more than flight, abandonment of the homeland for the sake of preserving family freedom and the integrity of the hearth.
The feat, the Christian virtue of Cyril and Mary is not that they were “pious”, “hospital-loving” and knew literacy, but that they saved their children from the scorching breath of that monster that is ready to consider the family a “small Church”, but only as “your cell”.
Christians can be grateful to the parents of the “abbot of Russia” for the fact that, supported by God, they saved the youth Bartholomew for the Church and the country. Their “migration” is reminiscent of the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt from Herod’s hatred.
Epiphanius the Wise was the first to draw a parallel from the life of the saint’s parents to biblical history, namely the mother of the prophet Samuel, Saint Anna. This is recorded in other texts of the Life of St. Sergius and in the service to Saints Cyril and Mary, compiled in 1997: “The married couple ... the mother who imitated the prophet ...”
“We want peace, but we will not give up” is the defining feeling of Christian couples when they are forced to protect their children and their autonomy. It is possible only with mutual respect and agreement. The same applies to the later joint consent of Cyril and Mary, when they decided to take monasticism.
The monastic choice of Saint Sergius's parents is of particular interest. The researchers simply report: “...there was then a mixed monastery in Khotkovo, where Cyril and Maria became monks.” There were, of course, other monasteries, but the Khotkovo monastery of the 14th century in its structure resembles the medieval Celtic monasteries of Ireland.
Firstly, due to the practice of mixed communal communities, and secondly, due to the fact that the names during monastic tonsure, if they were originally Christian, remained unchanged. Before last days, and the spouses died almost simultaneously, they could see each other, pray for their children, empathize with each other and look to the future without trepidation. Their duty as Christian parents was fulfilled.
Since the 14th century, Cyril and Mary were revered, and pilgrims, fulfilling the behest of St. Sergius, before going to him at the Lavra, visited Khotkovo, where the relics of the holy couple rested in the Intercession Cathedral. In 1981 they were glorified at the Cathedral of Radonezh Saints, and on April 3, 1992, in the year of celebrating the 600th anniversary of the death of St. Sergius, their church-wide glorification took place. Two windows in their house were open towards Paradise.
Archpriest Alexander Shabanov
Reverends Kirill and Maria- parents of St. Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh. Remembrance Days - January 31; June 5 - Cathedral of Rostov-Yaroslavl Saints; July 19 - Cathedral of Radonezh Saints; October 11.
Epiphanius the Wise writes that the future great Hegumen of the Russian Land was born from noble and faithful parents: from a father whose name was Cyril, and a mother named Maria, who were God's Pleasers, truthful before God and before people, and full and adorned with all kinds of virtues, which God loves. God did not allow such a baby, who was supposed to shine, to be born from unrighteous parents. But first God created and prepared such righteous parents for him and then from them he produced his saint.
About the parents of St. Sergius, the Life tells that they were The boyars, from the glorious and famous boyars, owned a large estate in the Rostov region and great wealth. At first, boyar Kirill was in the service of the Rostov prince Vasily Konstantinovich († 1307) and his son Prince Konstantin Vasilyevich († 1364), married to the daughter of the great Moscow prince Ivan Danilovich (Kalita).
The Life of St. Sergius reports that more than once the boyar Kirill accompanied the Rostov prince to Golden Horde, which indicates the closeness of boyar Kirill to the court of the Rostov princes. Boyar Kirill, due to his position, owned a sufficient fortune. In the family, besides Bartholomew, the future Sergius, there were two more children - the eldest Stefan and the younger Peter.
Reverend Kirill was in the service first of the Rostov prince Konstantin II Borisovich, and then of Konstantin III Vasilyevich, whom he, as one of the people closest to them, more than once accompanied to the Golden Horde. St. Cyril owned a fortune sufficient for his position, but due to the simplicity of the morals of that time, living in the countryside, he did not neglect ordinary rural labor.
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Cyril and Maria of Radonezh- parents of St. Sergius of Radonezh, reverends of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Kirill and Maria lived at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries in the Rostov principality; according to legend, they owned an estate on the banks of the Ishni River, 4 km from Rostov. The noble and noble boyars of Rostov, Kirill and Maria, preferred the solitude of rural nature to city life at the princely court. Kirill was in the service of the Rostov prince Konstantin II Borisovich, and then of Konstantin III Vasilevich, whom he accompanied more than once to the Horde as one of the people closest to them. He owned a fortune sufficient for his position, but due to the simplicity of the morals of that time, living in the village, he did not neglect ordinary rural labor.
Kirill and Maria were kind and God-pleasing people. Speaking about them, blessed Epiphanius notes that the Lord, who deigned to shine on the great lamp on the Russian land, did not allow it to be born from unrighteous parents, for such a child, which, according to God’s dispensation, was supposed to subsequently serve the spiritual benefit and salvation of many, was befitting to have and the parents of the saints, so that good comes from good and better is added to better, so that the praise of both the born and those who give birth may mutually increase to the glory of God. And their righteousness was known not only to God, but also to people. Kirill and Maria strictly followed church rules, prayed and went to church together, helped the poor, received strangers.
During her pregnancies, Mary fasted, avoided meat, fish and milk, eating only bread and plant foods. They had children Stefan, Bartholomew (the future Sergius of Radonezh) and Peter. According to the life, when Mary was in church pregnant with Bartholomew, he exclaimed three times in a loud voice in the mother's womb. From the first days of his life, baby Bartholomew surprised everyone with his fasting: on Wednesdays and Fridays he ate nothing at all, and on other days he refused his mother’s milk if Mary ate meat.
Bartholomew, when he was about 12 years old, asked his parents for a blessing to become a monk; they did not object, but asked him to wait until they died. When Bartholomew was 15 years old (around 1328), his parents, having gone bankrupt, moved from the Rostov principality to Moscow - to the city of Radonezh, where they lived near the Church of the Nativity of Christ. Kirill was supposed to receive the estate, but due to his old age he could not serve the Moscow prince, and his eldest son Stefan took on this responsibility.
At the end of their lives, Cyril and Maria together took first monastic tonsure, and then the schema in the Khotkovsky Intercession Monastery, 3 km from Radonezh, which at that time was both male and female. They, already infirm, were looked after by Stefan, who also settled in the monastery after the death of his wife. They died in 1337 (no later than 1339) in old age, after illness, blessing Bartholomew for his monastic feat. The children buried them in the Intercession Cathedral, where their relics are still located.
April 3, 1992, in the year of celebrating the 600th anniversary of the repose of St. Sergius, on Bishops' Council Russian Orthodox Church A church-wide glorification of Schemamonk Kirill and Schemanun Maria took place. Canonization worthily crowned six centuries of veneration of the parents of the great ascetic, who gave the world an example of holiness and Christian family structure.
"Radonezh. Journey to the origins."
From Radonezh - a village with a melodious, fairy-tale name, the place where the great founder of Russian monasteries Sergius of Radonezh grew up, we go to Khotkovo.
After all, it was here - to Khotkovo - that he went after the death of his parents, to the Intercession Khotkovo Monastery, where his brother Stefan was already living by that time.
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The monastery is the most ancient. Founded in 1308. It was he who laid the foundation for the city and gave it its name - Khotkovo.
It is the main attraction of this small town near Moscow. Since ancient times, the significance of the monastery was determined by its location - being on the way to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. There was a tradition before visiting the Lavra to bow to the parents of Sergius.
Let's not break traditions. We enter the monastery through the southern gate above the gate church of St. Mitrophan of Voronezh. There are two buildings on the right and left gray. These are the western and eastern buildings of the almshouse (1826)
Although the monastery is very ancient, only buildings from the 18th - 19th centuries have been preserved in the monastery. The massive gate through which we entered belongs to XVIII century. The path rises sharply uphill.
There is no traditional central square with a temple or temples in the middle. The monastery looks like a street with monastery buildings on each side.
Temples of the monastery:
1. Cathedral of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
2. Cathedral of the Intercession Holy Mother of God
3. Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist (above north gate)
4. Church of St. Mitrofan of Voronezh (above the southern gate)
5. Unknown chapel
6. Wooden belfry (1990s)
Other buildings of the monastery:
7. Western building of the almshouse (1826)
8. Eastern building of the almshouse (1826)
9. Hotel (1877-1879)
10. Cell building (ca. 1900)
11. Monastery building
12. Dorm building (mid-19th century)
13. Refectory (abbot) building (1839)
14. Monastic building (transitional)
15.Handicraft building (mid-19th century)
16.Hospital (1872)
17. Rectory Corps (1900)
18. Outbuilding
19.Modern fence
20. Wall of the old fence (XVIII century)
21.Southwestern tower of the fence (XIX century)
22.Southeast tower of the fence (XIX century)
23.South utility gate
24.Wooden building (bathhouse)
25.Wooden building
26. Northern utility gate
27. Various buildings of the Soviet period
28. Former monastery hotel (late 19th – early 20th centuries). Now the building is the Museum of Artistic Crafts
A very picturesque picture opens here. Lovely - expensive to see.
Along the path leading up we approach the St. Nicholas and Intercession Cathedrals.
St. Nicholas Cathedral It amazes the imagination with its size. It is huge and stands out in its style among all the buildings of the monastery. The style is difficult to define; it is mixed - Romanesque-Byzantine-Russian. The cathedral was built at the beginning of the 20th century ( 1900-1904) .
We were lucky, we found the cathedral in all its glory after a major restoration, which began in 2007 and is just being completed. The scaffolding has been removed. And only here and there heaps of trees are visible nearby construction waste. But the cathedral itself is open and magnificent.
Near St. Nicholas Church - Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, gentle, graceful. This is the main cathedral of the monastery. Intercession Cathedral was built in 1812-1816. on the site of the former cathedral of the 17th century. The building is in the style of classicism. This cathedral contains the relics of Cyril and Mary, the parents of St. Sergius of Radonezh.
Khotkovo is a small town. There are few attractions. But the Intercession Khotkov Monastery alone is enough to honor the city with a visit.
In addition, it should be noted that the places here are really very picturesque; it is not for nothing that our Russian artists traditionally painted their great canvases in these parts. Repin lived and worked in Khotkovo, and Polenov often visited. Closely connected to the city creative destiny Nesterova.
But that is not all. Few people know that the famous films of the 30s and 40s “Jolly Fellows”, “The Pig Farmer and the Shepherd”, “Maxim’s Youth” were also filmed in the vicinity of Khotkov, on the banks of picturesque rivers Vori and Pages.
Our journey continues. The index offers us a choice of the most wonderful places in the Moscow region. If you go right, you will end up in Sergiev Posad. Directly to Abramtsevo. Well, since we’re talking about artists, let’s first go to their heavenly abode of art called , and then continue our journey in the footsteps of Sergius of Radonezh.
Not far from Rostov the Great, on the banks of the Ishni River, there was an estate of the noble Rostov boyars Kirill and Maria. Kirill was in the service of the Rostov princes, owned a fortune sufficient for his position, but, living in the village, did not neglect ordinary rural labor. A severe famine and the Mongol-Tatar invasion brought the Rostov boyar to poverty. It is possible that the willful Moscow governors in charge of Rostov ordered him to leave the city, and then the family settled in the village of Radonezh near the Church of the Nativity of Christ.
Cyril and Maria were kind and godly people: they helped the poor and sick, and welcomed strangers. The couple already had a son, Stephen, when God gave them another son - the future founder of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, St. Sergius. Long before his birth, God's Providence gave a sign of him as a great chosen one of God. One day, when Mary, pregnant with him, was in church, the child, to the great amazement of all those present, exclaimed three times in a loud voice in his mother’s womb during the liturgy.
After this, Mary began to especially monitor her spiritual state, remembering that she was carrying a baby in her womb, who was destined to be the chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit. She vomited herself from all filth and uncleanness, protected herself by fasting, avoided meat, milk and fish, ate only bread, vegetables, and water. She also abstained from wine, drinking only water, and little by little, instead of various drinks. Often in secret, alone, sighing with tears, Mary prayed to God for the preservation of herself and the baby.
And so righteous Mary, like Saint Anna, the mother of the prophet Samuel, together with her husband made a promise: if they had a boy, they would bring him to church and give him to God. This meant that they would do everything so that the will of God would be fulfilled on their future child, that God’s predestination would be fulfilled about him, to which they already had some indication.
And on May 3, 1314, great joy visited the righteous parents: a boy was born. On the fortieth day after his birth, the baby was brought to church to perform Baptism on him. Priest Michael named the baby Bartholomew, for on this day (June 11) the memory of the holy Apostle Bartholomew was celebrated. This name in its meaning - “Son of joy (consolation)” was especially comforting for parents. The priest felt that this was a special baby and, overshadowed by the Divine Spirit, predicted: “Rejoice and be glad, for this child will be the chosen vessel of God, the abode and servant of the Holy Trinity.”
Parents began to notice something special in the baby’s behavior: if the mother ate meat, the baby did not drink mother’s milk. On Wednesdays and Fridays he went without food at all. Abstained by fasting in the womb, the baby, even at birth, seemed to require fasting from the mother. And she began to observe fasting more strictly: she completely abandoned meat food, and the baby, except for Wednesdays and Fridays, always fed on her milk after that.
Growing up, Bartholomew, as in the first days of his life, did not eat any food on Wednesdays and Fridays, and kept abstinence on the rest. Maria feared that a harsh lifestyle could harm his health and convinced her son to reduce the severity of fasting. However, the son asked not to dissuade him from abstinence, and the mother no longer interfered.
When Bartholomew turned 15 years old, his parents moved from the Principality of Rostov to the Principality of Moscow - to the city of Radonezh. According to the custom of that time, Cyril was supposed to receive an estate, but due to his old age he could no longer serve the Moscow prince, and this responsibility was assumed by his eldest son Stefan, who by that time was already married. The youngest of the sons of Cyril and Mary, Peter, also married, but Bartholomew continued his exploits in Radonezh. When he was about twenty years old, he asked his parents for a blessing to become a monk. Kirill and Maria did not object, but asked to wait only until their death: with their departure they would have lost their last support, since the two older brothers were already married and lived separately. The blessed son obeyed and did everything to appease the old age of his parents, who did not force him to marry.
At that time, the custom of accepting monasticism in old age was widespread in Rus'. This is what simple people, princes and boyars did. According to this pious custom, Cyril and Maria, at the end of their lives, also took first monastic tonsure, and then the schema in the Khotkovsky Intercession Monastery, which was located three miles from Radonezh and was at that time both male and female. Weary of illness, sorrow and old age, the schema-boyars did not work long in their new rank. In 1337 they departed to the Lord in peace. Before their blessed death, they blessed Bartholomew for his monastic feat. The children buried them under the shadow of the Intercession Monastery, which from that time became the last shelter and tomb of the Sergius family.
The chronicle of the Khotkovsky Intercession Monastery provides evidence of how prayer appeal to the Monk Sergius and his parents saved people from serious illnesses. Their intercession was especially evident during national disasters - the terrible pestilence of 1770-1771, cholera epidemics in 1848 and 1871. Thousands of people flocked to Khotkovo. At the tomb of the saint’s parents, the Psalter and prayer to the saints Schemamonk Cyril and Schemanun Maria were read vigilantly. At the same time, they were already locally revered in the monastery. And every time many people were saved from destructive diseases.
The relics of Schemamonk Kirill and Schemanun Maria invariably rested in the Intercession Cathedral, even after its numerous reconstructions. Already in the 14th century, in the facial life of St. Sergius, his parents are depicted with halos. According to legend, the Monk Sergius bequeathed - “before going to him, pray for the repose of his parents over their coffin.” And so it happened - pilgrims going on a pilgrimage to the Trinity Lavra first visited the Khotkovo monastery, wanting to “bow at the grave of his righteous parents, in order to appear to the blessed son from his dear grave as if with parting words from the righteous parents themselves.” Also, according to legend, the Monk Sergius often went to the grave of his parents from his Lavra.
In the 19th century, the veneration of Saints Cyril and Mary spread throughout Russia, as evidenced by the month books of that time.
After 1917, the Khotkovsky Monastery was liquidated. In July 1981, the celebration of the Council of Radonezh Saints was established on July 6 (19), the day after the holiday in honor of the discovery of the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh. Schemamonks Kirill and Maria were glorified in the Cathedral of the Radonezh Saints.
In 1989, in the Intercession Church of the former Khotkovsky Monastery, returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, a candle was lit again church prayer St. Sergius and his parents. In the same year, on the day of the celebration of St. Sergius, the relics of his righteous parents were transferred to the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. The celebration of the memory of Saints Cyril and Mary resumed on September 28 (October 11) and January 18 (31). Faith in the intercession of the saints was strengthened after numerous healings performed at the tomb.
Khotkovsky opened in 1992 convent in honor of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the same year, when the 600th anniversary of the death of St. Sergius was celebrated, the church-wide glorification of St. Cyril and Mary took place, crowning six centuries of veneration of the parents of the great lamp of the Russian land, who gave the world an example of holiness and Christian family structure.
Prayer to St. Cyril and Mary, parents of St. Sergius of Radonezh
O servants of God, Schema-monk Kirill and Schema-nun Mary! Hear our humble prayer. Even though your temporary life has naturally ended, you do not depart from us in spirit, always following the commandments of the Lord, teaching us and patiently bearing your cross, helping us. Therefore, together with our reverend and God-bearing father Sergius, your beloved son, we naturally acquired boldness towards Christ God and His Most Pure Mother. Even now, be prayer books and intercessors for us, unworthy servants of God ( names). Be our intercessors of strength, so that by living faith, by your intercession, we may remain unharmed from demons and evil men, glorifying the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. |
