St John of Kronstadt:

Sermon on the Week of All Russian Saints

Today is the feast day of All Russian Saints--all the saints that the Russian Church, the Russian land, had nurtured. Now is the holiday of the spiritual heaven above Russia. This heaven spreads from St. Vladimir the Grand Duke and St. Olga the Grand Duchess. They were the origins of all the saints that illuminated Russia. This assembly of saints grew into a giant tree of holiness, though it is true that even before Grand Duke Vladimir there were saints in the region now known as Russia. Those areas which now comprise Russia also brought forth their saints before they became part of Russia.

Khersones boasts seven bishops from the first times of settlement there, before SS Kyrill and Methodius preached there. It was in Khersones that Grand Duke Vladimir was baptized, and with the relics of the Hieromartyr Clement of Rome he brought the Orthodox Faith to Kiev, placing there the foundations of the growth of the Russian Church. Now we celebrate all those saints of God--SS Anthony and Theodosius and the many other miracle-workers of the Kievan Caves, all Russian saints, those hierarchs who strengthened Orthodoxy, obtained Christianity for the Russian land, who confirmed in the people their faith and piousness, those saints who behaved like madmen but were in fact wise and with their seemingly foolish behavior humbled their pride and also taught children to venerate holiness and follow the Gospel. We glorify the many saints who shone in different points of the Russian land; those passion-bearers who patiently endured the sufferings sent down upon them, and finally, those few martyrs who shone in ancient days but also those who now plentifully soaked every clump of soil on the Russian land with their blood.

The land was sanctified with their blood, the air was glorified with the passing of their spirits. The heavens over Russia was made holy with the faces of the righteous saints of God who shine above her. Their numbers are uncountable.

There is a wonderful book recently published: "Holy Russia." In it, the Cross of Russian holiness is described in detailed. From this book one learns how sainthood took root and grew in Russia, how one saint would give rise to another, how they were interconnected, and how a golden chain of sainthood grew in Russia. We celebrate them all today, whose numbers are impossible to count. We see the wondrous saints who strengthened the Russian Idea with their pastoral work. We see how the Russian land was famed not only for the feats of her tsars, boyars and warriors but also how its different regions, with maturity, became related through their saints. This is why Russia was called Holy Russia--not because there was no sin or lawlessness, no, wherever there are people, there will be sin and lawlessness.

Since the Fall of our ancestors, evil entered the world, but no evil was ever interpreted as the ideal or even tolerated in the Russian land. There was evil, but afterwards there was repentance. Even thieves repented; those who ended their lives on the executioner's block, the majority of them remembered the Lord Christ before their death, bowed before the people, begging forgiveness for their crimes, with which they tempted others into sin, and pleaded for prayers for their eternal repose. So it was in ancient days, in Russian history, and this saintliness is still treasured by the Russian land. And we praise all those saints who, through their lifelong labors served as examples of such holiness. Here is Grand Duke Vladimir and St. Olga the Grand Duchess--then the history of the princes who shone as the saints of God.

Why were they saints? Because, though from days of yore they held power, had great wealth, they were not imprisoned by their riches, were not enslaved by them. That wealth and power served either to create good or to give others the opportunity to live according to the laws of God. Other saints sought seclusion in caves, in deep forests, deserts, yet they were still like magnets that drew those seeking spiritual strength. And those saints who left and tried to achieve anonymity--their anonymity became well-known and other people sought them out. They shine from the depth of ages even today. The Lord glorified their deeds, sanctified their relics with miracles and even now they preach the glory of God. St. Sergius--so many years he lived alone in the deep forest, where there was nary a soul, only the animals. Even now the Trinity-Sergius Lavra attracts the faithful from all the corners not only of Russia, but from the whole world. And its fame comes from nothing else but St. Sergius himself and those saints who saved themselves through his teaching. Even now it is the heart of the Russian land, together with our throne city of Moscow, which shines not only with wealth and ancient buildings but with the glory of those saints who labored there and whose relics repose there.

We glorify all those who from all corners of the Russian land confirmed Christianity, preaches to those who knew nothing of it. Russia united all under one roof, not so much within one border as within the spiritual calling to the holiness of the saints of the Russian land. Many of their names assumed a place among the Russian people. And although the progenitors of the Russian people were the Slavs, there are different names, but no one felt alien who accepted the Orthodox faith. The Orthodox Faith saved Russia. The Orthodox Faith sanctified her. The Orthodox Faith strengthened her. And in the difficult times of the Tatar yoke, how did the Russian people save themselves? Only through their faith in God, and it was then, in those terrible times that more churches were built, more monasteries established. And in those difficult times the Russian people especially called upon God, and then Russia arose again.

Many years before our holocaust even outside of Russia's borders there were saints who belonged to the Russian nation, born in Russia and coming to shine in other places. So in Greece, one of God's saints is John the Russian, who was a prisoner during the times of Peter the Great, who lived among the Turks and was so strong in the Christian faith that Muslims succumbed to him, seeing his righteous life. They attempted to convert him to Islam, but he remained strong: they ceased trying and wondered at the pious life of this Russian man who lived among them as a slave, yet who seemed to reign over them. And when the Greeks had to leave Asia Minor they took his relics to a church on the Island of Euboia, not far from Athens. Even now it is a place where Greek, and now even Russian, refugee-pilgrims gather.

Outside of the borders of Russian St. Paisius Velichkovsky labored, not yet glorified [St. Paisius Velichkovsky was canonized locally by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in the Skete of St. Ilya on Mt. Athos, and then later together with the Optina Elders in 1990--ed.], but he became the spiritual father of many saints who were spiritual leaders in Russia in recent times.

They are all celebrated together. Yet how different were their lives! Some were princes, others commoners. Some held high positions, others walked the streets, half-naked--yet their voices were heeded by the tsars! Ivan the Thunderous, before whom all trembled, beginning with members of his own family, the ruler who exiled Metropolitan Philip, a holy man who denounced him, still listened to the words of the half-unclothed Vasily the Blessed. Once Ivan the Thunderous was in church, and upon leaving he saw Vasily the Blessed. He said "Vasily, I did not notice you, I did not see you here." "Yet I saw you, Tsar, not here in church but as you walked the Vorobey Hills!" And the Tsar was baffled: "Yes," he said, "during liturgy I thought about building a palace in the Vorobey Hills!"

Ivan razed Great Novgorod. While approaching Pskov, another fool-for-Christ, Blessed Nikolai, offered him some meat. "I will not eat meat today. It is Friday," said Ivan the Thunderous. "But you do worse, you drink the blood of man," replied Blessed Nikolai, "Leave quickly. If you tarry, you will have nothing to leave on." And Ivan the Thunderous left the courtyard. The words of Blessed Nikolai began to be fulfilled: Ivan’s favorite steed died. He left Pskov quickly without engaging them in battle. Holiness was victorious.

In more recent times, Tsar Nicholas I visited Kiev. There, Blessed Theophil, sitting on the floor, greeted him, another yet-uncanonized saint of Russia. He gave him a few words of advice, and the Tsar, the Sovereign Ruler before whom all of Europe trembled, heeded his words.

Even up until the most recent times, there were saints of the Russian land. Many of them have been canonized and are known the world over, many are as yet unknown and will shine, God willing, when their time comes. St. Germogen, for example, reposed uncanonized for three hundred years after his death. That is God’s will, for us to see different ideals, and did not only glorify those of our day, then leave the church and resume our daily routines, forgetting them. No, the saints must be our great guides, we must always have them before our gaze.

Here in the diaspora we have righteous Christians, though they have not yet been canonized, but from whom people have received wondrous signs. There was, for example, Bishop Jonah of Manchuria. He felt the end of his earthly life approaching. He summoned a priest and began to read the prayers of departure, and the very hour when his soul departed for Heaven, a boy in the same city who was unable to walk for a long time suddenly ran to his mother and said, "Mama, mama, Bishop Jonah just appeared to me and said, here, I don’t need my legs anymore. You can have them." That boy who lay immobile in his bed, can now run! Then they heard that St. Jonah had just passed away.

A few years ago in France, during the transfer of a cemetery to a new site, a grave was unearthed, and the workers recoiled in shock. There, in full vestments, lay an orthodox priest; it turned out that he had lay there for over 16 years. He succumbed to cancer, which often destroys the body while the patient is still alive, and here he lay whole and incorrupt and now his body was brought to rest near Paris.
The righteous in God shine even in our day. And how many of them live now in our tortured Homeland!? How many martyred clergymen! How many martyrs! They are countless. How many saints have been sent down to us who have reposed, who in their lives emulated those who were persecuted in the times of the Iconoclastic and other heresies.

SS Peter of Krutitsa, Kyrill of Kazan and many other who died in unknown locations, whose relics will never be found, but shine like the brightest of lights before our spiritual eyes in the Russian heavens.

All of them, the righteous ones of God, canonized and uncanonized, pray for us, instruct us by example.
I repeat, there was always sin and always lawlessness in Russia. They existed from the first times, as sin flooded the world, from the moment when our ancestors sinned in Eden. But sin must not remain, and if one repents, then transforms from a thief into a saint. How sinful was Mary of Egypt, others were robbers and then became saints. Pray now that the Lord sends their spirits into our hearts. Let us outside of the borders of our Homeland, following their example, remember that we do not carry the name of the sons and daughters of Russia for naught. The Lord did not give us these roots for no reason, He did not idly intend to have some to live in Russia and others to be born of Russian parents.

If each nation boasts one thing, for the Russian nation it is her saints. "Beautiful France," they say. Different countries are given different names—people are wondrous in different ways. But Russia is called "Holy Russia." Only one other land bears this name—the Holy Land, in which our Lord shone. No other land, no other nation assumes this name. Why is this so? Because the most important for us, the most treasured, the greatest thing is holiness. This is the ideal, this is the goal of the Russian people. We have forgotten to appeal to the spiritual heaven, but I hope we have not forgotten forever. Like fellow travelers who walk the desert at night, gaze at the heavens and find their way, so must we also look upon our Russian heavens for the Lord to show us the path and bring us to peace and unity here in the diaspora, for the Lord to transform the hearts of Russian people abroad and then, succumbing to this spiritual pressure, the temporal chains of distance will fall away. And Russia will arise in all her glory and greatness.

May the Lord bless you!