Equal to the Apostles (because he baptized Rus), Prince Vladimir "rested in Bose" on July 15 (O. S.) 1015. But his head, one of the main shrines of the Orthodox world, disappeared in the 1937-1939s. Maybe it has not disappeared at all and will be found by the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Orthodox states of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus! It was then that the 1000th anniversary of the death of one of the great creators of Kievan Rus, the cradle of these peoples, will be celebrated.
In Russia, they began to honor the memory of their Baptist, probably already after his death, when the horrors of princely civil strife faded into the past, and his son Yaroslav was established in Kiev. This is evidenced not only by the epics that have come down to us about Vladimir the Red Sun, but also the frequently encountered name Vladimir among the princes, which spoke of great reverence for the glorious ancestor. Already at the end of the 1040s, the future Metropolitan of Kiev Hilarion will utter his famous "Word" addressed to the memory of the holy prince: "Arise, O honest head, from your grave! Arise, shake off the dream! For you are not dead, but you are sleeping until the general uprising. Stand up, you are not dead! You did not have to die, who believed in Christ, who is the life given to the whole world. Shake off the dream, look up and you will see that the Lord, having honored you with such honors there, in heaven,and on earth, not without memory left in your son …
Rejoice, our teacher and instructor of piety! You were clothed with righteousness, girded with strength, shod with truth, crowned with good-mindedness, and, as with hryvnia and gold utensils, adorned with mercy. You, O honest head, were naked - a garment, you were hungry - satiation, you were thirsty - cooling of the womb, you were a widow - help, you were a wandering - dwelling, you were bloodless - cover, you were offended - intercession, poor - enrichment.
As a consolation for these and other deeds, accepting reward in heaven, tasting the blessings “that God has prepared for you who love Him,” and satiating with His sweet beholding, pray, O blessed one, for your land and for the people over whom you have faithfully ruled. May the Lord preserve him in the peace and piety that you have devoted to him, and may the right faith be glorified in him, and may all heresy be cursed, and may the Lord God observe him from every invasion and captivity, from gladness and all sorrow and misfortune!"
In these lines, as in the entire passionate "Word" of the great enlightener of Russia Illarion, there is a whole program of canoning Prince Vladimir as a patron and benefactor of Russia, as an equal to the Apostles, who enlightened his country with the light of faith. But how relevant these lines sound! As if they were written not 1000 years ago, but 2-3 years ago, when the people of Ukraine, like today, cannot unite for the sake of building their own state, striving to become truly European. Even Orthodox Christians are divided! When in two fraternal powers there are people who interfere with the spiritual community! Our society, where unbelief and denial of spiritual values have been instilled for seven decades, vitally lacks this UNUSUALLY IMPORTANT UNIVERSAL SHRINK!
Prince Vladimir was able to transform the state and put it on the right path of development. Therefore, sovereigns, princes and other rulers gave him respect. The author of the chronicle praise to Prince Vladimir, placed in the "Tale of Bygone Years" in 1015, wrote: “The Russian people honor his memory, remembering Holy Baptism, and glorify God in prayers, chants and psalms, singing to the Lord. New people enlightened by the Holy Spirit. " However, for some reason, the official canonization was delayed for two centuries. Most likely, in society in the XI-XII centuries there was a latent struggle for the official, church-wide recognition of Prince Vladimir as a saint. How could this be? What forces opposed the glorification of the Baptist of Russia? There are many reasons for this, and there is not enough space in the newspaper to analyze them.
Only in the XIII century did the general church canonization of Prince Vladimir take place. This was partly due to the fact that on the day of the memory of St. Vladimir, who, of course, was not forgotten by the people, there was a glorious victory of Prince Alexander Yaro-Slavich, a descendant of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince, over the Swedes on the Neva. And for the saints it was first recorded in the Galicia-Volyn Chronicle in 1254. At the time when his tomb was already buried under the ruins of the Tithe Church. Here his remains lay in a sarcophagus not far from the burial place of his grandmother, the holy princess Olga.
They were not remembered for centuries, until 1635. St. Metropolitan PetroMogila understood that special shrines were needed to unite the Orthodox people in order to effectively resist Catholic expansion. Therefore, he undertakes the restoration of the Tithe Church, built by Prince Vladimir to unite the people in the new faith. During the clearing of the old foundation, two sarcophagi were found. One of them contained the relics of the Baptist of Russia. In 1795, in the “Brief Historical Description of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra,” the author, the venerable Metropolitan of Kiev Samuil (Mislavsky), described numerous details of this find.
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"In remembrance of future births," they removed from the tomb the head and the right hand, with which the holy prince baptized Russia. The head was originally placed in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Berestovo. Pyotr Mogila considered it a "structure" of Vladimir himself, that is, belonging to him. Then the "honest chapter" was transferred to the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
The metropolitan sent the governor to Moscow as a gift worthy of "tsarist majesty". Its trace is lost in the centuries. Part of the holy relics, namely the lower jaw, according to the inventory of the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, was there: "Yes, in the same large ark of the Grand Duke Vladimir of Kiev, part of the relics, an underside bone with teeth, and under it is a cypress board." Another part of the relics - the bone of the hand - was transferred by Peter Mogila to the Hagia Sophia Cathedral, after he took it from the Uniates. Particles of relics were also found in other places. For example, in one of the altar crosses of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.
But the main shrine is “the head of St. noble and Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir - kept for centuries in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Namely: in the middle part of the Assumption Cathedral at the end of the right side of the large iconostasis near the southern wall in a wrought silver ark. This was evidenced by the inscription in gold letters on a copper board:
“From the creation of Mipa 7270, and from the birth of Christ Savior of our God in 1762, the month of October 24, into the first prosperous State Pious, Autocratic, Great Grand Duchess of our Empress Ekaterina Aleksyevna, and the great priest of all Pavl Petrovich, the legitimate All-Russian Throne, the Heir, was built this transom and to her cancer from the cypress tree and decorated with a silver and protchim salary, in which were laid … Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Volodymyr, who was baptized by the Holy Baptism of All-Apostles The ark was covered by an upper plate with a chased image of St. Vladimir's full height with an opening to the very head for honoring, that is, kissing. It was made by the best domestic jewelers in 1825 and is timed to coincide with the arrival of the new emperor, Nicholas I.
The fact is that after the solemn coronation in Moscow, all Russian autocrats were obliged to visit Kiev - for "the most respectable supplement to the ark with the Honorable Head of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince." It is noticed that if the ruler did not hurry to do this, then he could not stay on the throne for a long time. Don't believe me? This can be easily traced from historical documents and court journals. There is much to be found about the veneration of this most important shrine. Those who took the throne under not entirely legitimate circumstances were especially worried about their prosperous reign: Catherine I, Alexander I, Nicholas I. Thus, the last of the above emperors "graciously bestowed a golden cover with eagles and ermines" on the relics of St. Vladimir.
Metropolitan of Kiev Yevgeny (Bolkhovitinov) laid this veil on June 25, 1827, on the birthday of Nicholas I, while delivering a lengthy speech about the importance of this shrine: “We remember all those sacrifices of gratitude with which worthy heirs to your throne honored you as a forefather and ancestor of yours. approval, dissemination, glorification and enlightenment of Russia. Imitating your wisdom, courage, piety, zeal for the Faith, they have preserved what you have acquired, have expanded what you have acquired, have glorified your inheritance, planted by you along all the boundaries of your kingdom, the Faith of Christ, they have revived and kept in purity. They established the Orthodox Church, which you established, with their patronage, and multiplied the sciences called by you to become the power. All this accomplishment is their honor to the good principle that you have put in place;and therefore, with grateful feelings, they have always been in awe of your remains on earth, glorified by God himself with holiness, and in sacrifice of gratitude to you they adorned them with their gifts and splendor. But no one has ever brought you porphyry as a gift, inherited from you."
Continuous honors were given to the relics of the Baptist of Russia until the Soviet era, when, under the guise of helping the hungry, they began to plunder church property and shrines. Then all the precious offerings were sold, melted or simply destroyed. So everything was lost, except for the cypress ark with the head of Vladimir. It was also shown in the 1920s-1930s to numerous onlookers who visited or lived on the territory of the Museum Town - the so-called Kiev-Pechersk Lavra at that time. The chapter disappeared sometime in 1938. The oldest connoisseur of the history of Lavra Shchadenko claimed that she was sent to Leningrad to the famous sculptor-reconstructor M. Gerasimov to create a portrait of the prince. But Gerasimov later denied this.
The head of Vladimir could be in the basements of the Atheist Museum, which in Soviet times was housed in the St. Petersburg Kazan Cathedral. The relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov. They cannot be in the former KGB of Ukraine, since this service has returned everything to the churches, since 1985, when the holy relics of Theodosius (Uglitsky) were given to believers in Chernigov. They subsequently protected the ancient Slavic city from a radioactive cloud in April 1986. That is why Chernigov, although located close to Chernobyl, is the least polluted.
I don't want to think that this shrine has been destroyed. Let's hope that it has survived and is waiting for its hour when all Orthodox peoples will be confirmed in their common faith. Then the head of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir will miraculously appear so that the heads of our states have every opportunity for the common good to honor her and lead our countries to a brighter future!
V. Kirkevich