In the Land of Sergiy Radonezhsky

Just 12 versts from Trinity-Sergiev Lavra, west of the main road to Moscow, rises the golden spire of the elegant Church of the Transfiguration—in the village of Radonezh. The church sits high on a hill above the river Pazha. It was here that Mikhail Nesterov worked on his famous canvases, “The Vision of the Boy Bartholomew” (see page 35) and “The Blessing to Dmitry Donskoy for the Kulikovo Field Battle.” Indeed, it is easy to see this area’s countryside reflected in Nesterov’s paintings. For it was also here, amidst the expanses of verdant hills and birch forests, that Bartholomew, the future St. Sergius and hero of Russia, spent his youth.

During the reign of Grand Prince Ioann Danilovich, the village of Radonezh was given to his younger son, Prince Andrei, whose son Vladimir was cousin to Dmitry Donskoy, the hero of the Kulikovo Field Battle, and someone who would figure large in the life of St. Sergius.

Bartholomew was born on September 25, 1315 in Rostov-Veliky, to the boyar Kirill and his wife Maria. “He was an adolescent who surpassed ... in his wisdom other adolescents of his age, who ... came to love God from his young years,” Catherine the Great wrote in her monograph on the life of St. Sergius. Fleeing from the Tartars’ attacks on Rostov, Bartholomew’s family moved to Radonezh in 1328.

Bartholomew took the cloth at age 23, on October 7, 1342. On that day, the Orthodox Church was celebrating the day of the martyrs Saint Sergius and Vakh. So, according to the tradition of those times, Bartholomew was renamed “Sergius.” “He was meant to revive the spirit of heroic deed in the Russian soul,” one biography asserted.

St. Sergius became famous for his tireless labors and his prophetic dreams, both of which are described in detail in the numerous stories of his life. He was crucial in expanding the power and reach of the Orthodox Church through the establishment of monasteries (including Trinity-Sergius Lavra) and the training of others who extended this mission, including Nikon, Simon and Makary. Some 70 monasteries were established by his disciples. As a result, the Russian Orthodox Church calls him one of the “Pillars of the Church.”

Yet Sergius’ most acclaimed exploit dates to 1380. On August 18, 1380, Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich (the future Dmitry Donskoy) was on his way to battle the Tartar Khan Mamai (and the Lithuanians, but they never showed up). He stopped to seek blessing from Sergius in his battle (which would take place on Kulikovo Field, over the Don river). In an unprecedented move, Sergius did so, and predicted that Dmitry would be victorious (in fact later sending Dmitry a message urging him to attack at what proved a crucial moment). Sergius also gave to Dmitry’s service two great “warrior monks”—Alexander Peresvet and Andrei Oslabya. (Monasteries at that time were also military outposts for Rus’.)

After the battle, Dmitry reported to Sergius about Alexander Peresvet’s heroic death. In a one-on-one battle with the Tartar giant Chelubey, both fighters perished, killing one another simultaneously with their spears. “If your disciple Alexander Peresvet had not killed the Tartar-bogatyr,” Dmitry said, “many other Russians would have gone to their deaths!”

Sergius, who would also be known in history as Sergiy Radonezhsky, for the town in which he lived, passed away in 1392. “If it were at all possible to reproduce in manuscript whatever is evoked by the memory of St. Sergius,” wrote the historian Vasily Klyuchevsky, “... this manuscript would represent a meaningful, content-rich history of our political and spiritual life.”

In 1988, on the occasion of the millennium of Russian Christianity and the approaching 600th anniversary of the death of St. Sergius, a monument by the sculptor V. Klykov was raised near the Church of Transfiguration (see photo). It was the first monument in Russia to this most venerated Russian saint since 1917 and has become a place of pilgrimage.

— The Editors