SAINT DEMETRIUS OF ROSTOV

In the person of Saint Demetrius of Rostov, the Russian Church honors the author of the only complete collection of saints’ lives in native language an exemplary bishop of the era of Russian absolutism. Dimitry was the métropolitain of the ancient city of Rostov, a thinker, writer, preacher, monk, and a man of sincere and profound piety.

1 The discovery of the relics took place in 1752 and related to the renovation of the church where Dimitry had been buried 43 years earlier. Since the burial site had not been prepared, it turned out to be temporary in nature, which became the unintended reason for the discovery. Soon, healings began to occur at the shrine of Saint Demetrius. Four years later, in the spring of 1757, the Synod of the Russian Church canonized him and decided to celebrate twice a year: on November 10 (October 28), the day of his death, and on October 4 (September 21), the day of the discovery of his relics. It is believed that Dimitri was the first saint of the Russian Church to be canonized during the Synodal period.

2 Saint Demetrius is one of the most known Russian saints. Relatively close to us in time and geographical location of his ministry, he seems familiar and understandable, to us. But the day of his commemoration passes almost unnoticed, as one of the routine festive calendar days in honor of the saints.

3 The memory of Saint Demetrius is truly a cause for gratitude for all, for Slavic Orthodoxy, and for the entire Russian Church. It was Demetrius of Rostov who compiled a collection of the lives of saints for each day of the calendar year. In the history of our church literature, there has simply never been such a complete collection of lives of saints. And after him, no one has been able to repeat his achievement.

4 Surprisingly, during the Synodal Era, which many consider to be overly bureaucratic and administrative, the holy bishop of Rostov was revealed to be a great saint, endowed by God with a special blessing, similar to the great biblical figures and ancient Fathers of the Church.

5 The saint devoted more than two decades to writing the collection of Lives of the Saints, an immortal work. Once, while writing during a night vigil, the martyr Orestes appeared to Dimitri in a vision and said, “I suffered more for Christ than you have written.” “Which Orestes are you, the one commemorated in December or the one commemorated in November?” asked the saint. “I am commemorated in November,” replied the martyr and showed the saint his wounds. This vision was also a prophecy. Years later, the saint himself departed to the Lord on a late autumn day, which is now celebrated by the Church as his memory.

6 This wonderful story is somewhat “balanced” by another, downright bureaucratic episode. In the office of the last Moscow patriarch of the pre-synodal era, Adrian, Saint Demetrius was obstructed for introducing into the collection of lives of saints the life of Saint Jerome (347-420), translator of the Bible and great Father of the Church. His contemporaries presumed that Jerome was “too Western” a saint. Soon after Dimitri’s death, Peter the Great moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg and abolished the patriarchate.