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Commemorated on June 26
Sainted Dionysii,
Archbishop of Suzdal', in the world David, was tonsured at the
Kievo-Pechersk monastery, from whence with a local blessing of an icon of the
Mother of God from the founders Monks Antonii and Theodosii, he arrived at the
Volga. Saint Dionysii dug out a cave not far from Nizhni-Novgorod and
asceticised in total solitude. Brethren constantly thronged to the holy ascetic
and in about the year 1335 he founded a monastery in honour of the Ascension-Voznesenie
of the Lord. Among his students of Saint Dionysii were the Monks Evphymii of
Suzdal' (Comm. 1 April) and Makarii of Zheltovodsk and Unzhensk (Comm. 25
July). In the year 1352 the holy elder sent twelve men from his brethren to
"the upper cities and countryside, whom there God would bless" for
the spiritual enlightening of the people and the organising of new monasteries.
The monastery of Saint Dionysii exerted a deep charitable influence on the
inhabitants of Nizhni-Novgorod. In the year 1371 the saint tonsured into
monasticism the forty year old widow of prince Andrei Konstantinovich, an
instance of which he accepted into monasticism "dignitaries: women, and
widowers, and maidens".
In the year 1374
Saint Dionysii was deemed worthy of the dignity of bishop, and his years of
service as bishop occurred during a remarkable period – Russia was rising to
cast off the Mongol-Tatar Yoke. On 31 March 1375 the Tatar military-chief,
having been shown to the bishop's court by the enslaved inhabitants of Nizhni-Novgorod,
shot off an arrow from his bow at Saint Dionysii. But the Lord preserved his
chosen one, and the arrow struck only the bishop's mantle. In 1377, through the
blessing and possibly the editorship of Saint Dionysii, there was compiled the
Lavrentian Chronicle by the Monk Lavrentii, inspiring Russia in the struggle
for freedom.
In 1379, preserving
the integrity of the primal-bishop's cathedra, Sainted Dionysii was one of the
bishops gathered in Moscow by order of the prince, and he came out against the
election as metropolitan of the prince's protegee, the ill reputed archimandrite
Mityaya.
In the same year of
1379 Saint Dionysii journeyed to Constantinople with a protest against the
choice of Mityaya on grounds of his complicity with the heretical Strigolniki.
The saint made a strong impression upon the Greeks by his sublime spiritual
frame of mind and his profound knowledge of Holy Scripture. Patriarch Nilos,
having termed the saint "a warrior of God and a spiritual man", wrote
that he himself viewed him "at fasting and charity, and vigil, and
prayers, and tears, and every other virtue". From Constantinople Saint
Dionysii sent off to a Sobor-Council at Suzdal' two copies of the Hodegetria
Icon of the Mother of God. In 1382 the sainted-bishop received from the
patriarch the title of archbishop. Returning to Russia, the saint travelled to
Pskov and Novgorod to struggle against the heresy of the Strigolniki. He
visited Constantinople a second time in 1383 for discussion with the patriarch
on questions about the governance of the Russian metropolitanate. In the year
1384 Saint Dionysii was made by patriarch Nilos "metropolitan for
Russia". But upon his return to Kiev the saint was arrested on orders of
the Kiev prince Vladimir Ol'gerdovich and subjected to imprisonment, where he
died on 15 October 1385. The burial of the saint was in "the Kiev Cave of
Great Antonii". The commemoration of Saint Dionysii on 26 June is
celebrated because of his name in common with the Monk David of Soluneia, this
being the name he carried in the world. In the Synodikon of the 1552
Nizhni-Novgorod Pechersk monastery, Saint Dionysii is called a
"wonderworking monk".
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
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