In Christianity, each craft has its own patron. Hunters also have their own patrons. True, Catholics and Orthodox have different saints here. Our domestic hunters ask Saint Tryphon for luck, and Western European ones ask Saint Hubert.
In early Christian times, hunting was considered a useful, but not at all a godly trade. After all, the beast is killed, that is, blood is shed. Anything connected with blood, unless it is the blood of the Savior or a martyr who suffered for the faith, Christians tried to ignore.
People and beasts
The priests themselves could not carry weapons and shed someone else's blood. Many saints overshadowed with their bodies not only persecuted brethren, but also "dumb creatures." So at first the hunters had no heavenly patrons. The fishermen were more fortunate in this regard: they had several heavenly assistants - Nikolai, who not only saved the drowning, but could, on occasion, drive a school of fish into the nets; the apostles Andrew, John, Peter and James, who were engaged in fishing and caught the souls of men; and even Thomas the Unfaithful.
Hunting from the life of the then society, of course, did not go anywhere. On the contrary, in the feudal world it became a privileged occupation. For a medieval feudal lord it was considered a complete dishonor if he could not organize a hunt for his overlord. The suzerain did not come to the castle of his vassal with his retinue to attend a feast arranged for him. No, he was looking forward to the funniest entertainment in the world - hunting a deer, elk, wild boar and other animals with a pack of dogs. So gradually the attitude towards hunting changed. And, of course, the hunters and hunters had a heavenly protector. But by that time the paths of Eastern and Western Christianity had already diverged. And there were two patrons.
Tryphon - the patron saint of hunters and a caster of reptiles
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Trifon is considered the patron saint of our hunters. According to the church life, he was born at the beginning of the 3rd century, either in Phrygia or in Mysia - that is, in Asia Minor. Legends tell about his life in different ways. According to one version, his parents were Christians, according to the other, he came to Christianity on his own, despite his early childhood (Tryphon lived only about 16 years). But thanks to strong faith, the gift was revealed to him to heal from physical and mental anguish. All whom he healed, Tryphon converted to Christianity. After all, he treated in a special way, expelling from the body not the disease itself, but the demon, which sat in the body and causes suffering.
Moreover, it was said that Tryphon is able not only to heal people, but also to control the behavior of insects and snakes. Somehow the village of Kampsada, where he lived, underwent a real invasion of harmful creatures and could completely lose the harvest. Tryphon read prayers for several days, and the trouble was over. The critters (most likely swarms of locusts) left Campsada without causing harm.
In Orthodoxy, there is even an interesting text of a prayer that Tryphon allegedly uttered and which all believers need to read in a similar situation. This prayer begins like this; “I conjure you, multi-species beasts, worms, caterpillars, beetles and prusi, mice, pike-holes and kritnits, and various genera of flies and musnits, and moths, and moth, and gadflies, and wasps, and a millipede and various genera of animals crawling on the ground, and flying birds, causing harm and futility to fields, grapes, gardens and heliports …”It is interesting, however, that this is a purely Russian text, and it was distributed only on the territory of the then Muscovy.
From Rome to Moscow
According to legend, the fame of Tryphon's gift spread throughout the earth. I also reached the palace of Emperor Gordian III, in which his young daughter suffered from seizures. The emperor sent for the boy. As soon as he approached Rome, the city was only three days away when the devil jumped out of the girl's body. Such was his strength. When Tryphon was in the palace, he forced the devil to show himself to all the courtiers and promise that he would leave and never return. The devil did not look his best - like a rabid dog with burning eyes and a muzzle pressed to the floor.
However, Tryphon did not receive benefits from the cure of the imperial daughter. Power in Rome then changed like the weather. A few years later, under Decius Trajan, he was executed, like other Christians. Initially, Tryphon was not considered the patron saint of hunters at all, he healed women from infertility. Also helped to fight against invasions of caterpillars, flies and other pests. Gradually, they began to consider him the master of all forest dwellers. But the full image of Tryphon as the patron saint of hunting and hunters took shape during the reign of Ivan III, when rumors spread about a miracle with a gyrfalcon.
Here, however, the legends differ. Initially, the gyrfalcon, lost during the hunt by Prince Ivan Yuryevich Patrikeev, was found by him after a prayer on the day of St. Tryphon, that is, on the first of February. Gradually, the legend was overgrown with additions, and the falconer Trifon Patrikeev appeared in it, and Ivan the Third, who bore the nickname the Terrible, turned into Ivan the Terrible. However, the gyrfalcon, it seems, was nevertheless miraculously found, because in memory of this miracle, Ivan the Third ordered to erect a church dedicated to St. Tryphon on the site where the bird was found. It was built in the years 1470-1490.
Since that time, the falcon even got on the coat of arms of Moscow, first on the hand of St. Tryphon, then Tryphon was replaced by George the Victorious. And Trifon became the legalized patron saint of Moscow hunters.
Young aristocrat with a pack of dogs
The western patron saint of hunters, Saint Hubert, or rather Saint Hubert, was by birth the son of the Duke of Aquitaine Bertrand. He was born in 656 or 658 in Toulouse and, unlike our Tryphon, lived a long and eventful life (died in 727). In his youth, Hubert was not at all interested in questions of faith, he spent all his time on the hunt, for she was his only passion.
According to legend, he once went hunting without company on Good Friday. And suddenly in the middle of the forest a huge deer appeared in front of him, and a white cross shone between its high antlers. And the deer reproached the young man that he, chasing the animals, forgets about his soul. The hunter was shocked and ashamed. He immediately rushed not home, but to Maastricht, to the tseok, to Bishop Hambert, repented of his sins and took tonsure. And after the tragic death of his mentor, he built a chapel on the site of his murder by the pagans, where the relics of Lambert were transferred. Hubert succeeded Saint Lambert in the See of Maastricht and later became the first bishop of Liege. In the 9th century, a cathedral called Notre-Dame-y-Saint-Lambert was erected on the site of the chapel, that is, the Cathedral of Our Lady and Saint Lambert. Hubert, who came to believe as a result of a miracle, carried out active missionary work among the local pagans,for which he even received the nickname "Apostle of the Ardennes".
Hubert's entire life was associated with the church. But although he no longer participated in the hunt, his love for this business did not leave him all his life. He couldn't poison the beast, but he could take care of the hounds and keep the breed clean. No wonder the saint is depicted surrounded by a pack of dogs. In 825, the remains of Saint Hubert were transferred from Liege to the Benedictine abbey of Andage, renamed in his honor. The monks of this monastery were engaged in breeding hounds, which were called so - the hounds of Saint Hubert. They were black and red tan Fold-eared Ardennes dogs, which were considered the best of the bloodhounds. They could find not only the wounded animal by the smell of blood, which is what all other hounds are capable of, but also find the bed of future prey at the very beginning of the hunt.
According to the surviving descriptions, these hounds were distinguished by their large size, stature, heavily knocked down bones and a large, heavy head with flews. It was this breed that Hubert brought to such perfection that in the 10th century the hounds of Saint Hubert ended up at the royal court. Every year the abbot of the monastery sent six of the best dogs to the French kings. They were very appreciated throughout Europe, they were not afraid of either water or cold and perfectly drove a large animal. The Ardennes monks were engaged in breeding this breed until the Great French Revolution.
Modern hounds of St. Hubert, according to the dog handlers, are no longer purebred. After the revolutionary events, the monks abandoned their occupation, and when they returned to it, time was lost. The pet blood was already mixed. From Saint Hubert himself, too, nothing but a name has survived. His remains were pulled from the tomb and destroyed by fighters against Catholicism during the Netherlands Revolution of 1568. However, despite this touch to the posthumous biography of Hubert, he, as Saint Hubert, is considered their patron by all Western hunters - both Catholics and Protestants.
Nikolay KOTOMKIN