Sainted Sophronii, Bishop of Irkutsk and All Siberia
Commemorated on June 30
Sainted Sophronii,
Bishop of Irkutsk and All Siberia, expired to God on 30 March 1771,
the second day of Holy Pascha. While they awaited a decision of the Holy Synod
concerning the burial, his body remained for six months uncommitted to earth
and during this time it was not subject to decay. Then already, in view of this
circumstance, and also knowing about the strict ascetic life of Saint
Sophronii, the flock began to venerate him as a saint of God. Frequently (in
1833, 1854, 1870, 1909) his relics were witnessed as undecayed and the source
of grace-bearing wonderworkings. A fire occurring on 18 April 1917 at the
Theophany Cathedral at Irkutsk left only the bones of the sainted-bishop, but it
did not diminish, but rather on the contrary, it increased the reverent
veneration of the saint by the faithful of the nation.
A local Sobor
(Council) of the Russian Orthodox Church in its deliberations of 10/23 April
1918 decreed to make a glorification of Sainted Sophronii, enumerating him
among the rank of the holy saints of God. This solemnity of enumerating Sainted
Sophronii to the list of the saints was done on 30 June. At a second session of
this Sobor under the presiding of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon [now Sainted
Tikhon] was sanctioned a Service to Sainted Sophronii with a tropar, compiled
by Archbishop John who at that time guided the Irkutsk diocese, so that all
believers would have the possibility of adding prayer to the holy saint into the
voice of the Siberian churches, deeply venerating the memory of their
illuminator and intercessor.
And at the present
time believers turn for help to Sainted Sophronii. Prayers witness to this,
having been composed on the day of the 40th year celebration of the
glorification of the sainted-bishop on 13 July 1958, by Metropolitan Nestor
(Anisimov), – then Metropolitan of Novosibirsk and Barnaul'sk, and a solemn
feast of the 200 year anniversary of the day of death of Sainted Sophronii took
place at the Zolotonoshsk Krasnogorsk women's monastery and in the Irkutsk
diocese ("Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate", 1971, No. 9), and
there is reverent veneration of his memory by all believers of the Russian
Orthodox Church.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
