The Transfer of the Relics of Sainted Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow and Wonderworker of All Russia
Commemorated on July 3
The Transfer of
the Relics of Sainted Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow and Wonderworker of All
Russia: After the martyr's death of Sainted Philip (+ 23 December 1570; the
account about him is under 9 January), his body was buried at the Otrocha
monastery, in Tver. The monks of the Solovetsk monastery, where formerly he was
hegumen, in 1591 requested permission for the transfer of his relics to their
monastery. The much-suffered and undecayed body was placed in a grave, prepared
by Saint Philip for himself while still alive, beneathe the portico of a temple
of the Monks Zosima and Savvatii of Solovetsk, nearby the grave of the
starets-elder Jona (Shamin), his beloved guide in monastic deeds.
On 29 April 1649 a
grammota by Patriarch Joseph was sent to the hegumen of the Solovetsk
monastery, Ilia, concerning the solemn uncovering of the relics of the Sainted
Wonderworker Philip. On 31 May the relics were transferred into a new reliquary
and placed in the Preobrazhenie-Transfiguration cathedral.
In 1652 Nikon, then
still the metropolitan of Novgorod, proposed that there be transferred to
Moscow the relics of the three Martyr Sainted-hierarchs: Metropolitan Philip,
and Patriarchs Job and Ermogen. With the blessing of Patriarch Joseph,
Metropolitan Nikon set off in 1652 to Solovetsk for the relics of Saint Philip
and solemnly conveyed them to Moscow. Into the hand of the saint was put a
document (grammota) of repentance by tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, in which he
besought the forgiveness of sins of his great-grandfather Ivan the Terrible,
"transgressing" his own power afront the power of the Church. On 3
July the holy relics were met in Moscow: "a pastor, innocent and cast out,
was returned to his own throne". In the Uspensky Sobor-cathedral "in
his own centre-place he stood for 10 days" and all day from morning til
night there were bells, just like on Pascha Sunday. Afterwards the holy relics
were placed in the Uspensky Sobor at the south door of the altar.
At the place where
the relics of Saint Philip were met in Moscow by clergy and people, a cross was
set up, which gave its name to the Krestov-Cross Tollgate in Moscow (at the
Rizhsk rail-station).
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
