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The Cult of Saint Sergius of Radonezh and Its Political Uses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

David B. Miller
David B. Miller*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Roosevelt University
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Extract

One hundred years ago, on the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, Vasilii Osipovich Kliuchevskii delivered the principal address to the Moscow Theological Academy. With his first tortuously long sentence the historian created an imaginary continuum, transcending time, between his audience and the saint. His words bear repeating:

While entering the gates of the Sergius Lavra in the midst of a wave of people devoutly crossing themselves, one sometimes wonders: why is there not and has there never been in this monastery some special witness with a serene, immutable gaze, like some old Russian chronicler, to observe and, with an exact, impassive hand to record “who hath sought moral guidance in the Russian land“; to do so in the same manner year in, year out, from century to century as if he were one and the same person, remaining alive for centuries? Such an eternal and immortal observer could tell how for five hundred years people have worshiped at the grave of the Venerable Sergius, what thoughts and feelings they have carried with them when they returned to all corners of the Russian land.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , Winter 1993 , pp. 680 - 699
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1993

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References

An earlier version was read at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Phoenix, Arizona, 21 Nov. 1992. I thank Andrei Pliguzov for his suggestions and criticisms and the Summer Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois and Gail Lenhoff for their assistance.

1. On 26 September, one day after Sergius's name day (V. O. Kliuchevskii, “Znachenie Prepodobnyogo Sergiia dlia russkogo naroda i gosudarstva,” in idem, Sbornik statei, 3 vols. [Moscow: Tip. Riabushinskogo, 1912-1915], 2: 194). Sergius died 25 September 6900. Whether this should be 1391 or 1392 by our calendar is disputed. The calendar of the Orthodox Church (Nastol'naia kniga dlia sviashchenno-tserkovno-sluzhitelei, comp. S. V. Bulgakov, 2d ed. [Khar'kov: Tip. Gub. przavleniia, 1900], 349-51) and Golubinskii, Evgenii (Prepodobnyi Sergii Radonezhskii i sozdannaia im Troitskaia Lavra [Moscow: Tip. A. I. Snegireva, 1892], no. 50 [pp. 95–97])Google Scholar say 1392, contending that the reckoning followed a calendar in which the year began 1 March in a system where Jesus's birth was 5508 years from the date of creation. Others, e.g., Sovetskaia istoricheskaia entsiklopediia, s.v. “Sergii Radonezhskii,” by V. A. Kuchkin, date Sergius's death to 1391, assuming that the calendar in use was that in which the year began 1 September and in which the four months, 1 September-31 December, are reckoned 5509 years from creation to Jesus's birth.

2. Durkheim, Emile, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (London: Allen & Unwin, 1915), 69 Google Scholar, for first quote; Shils, Edward A., Center and Periphery: Essays in Macrosociology (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1975 Google Scholar), 38, for the second; Prokhorov, G. M., “Vnutrenniaia dinamika drevne-russkoi kul'tury, ili Nadsoznanie Drevnei Rusi,” in Russkaia dukhovnaia kultura, Dipartimento di storia della civita Europea, Testi e ricerche, no. 11, ed. Magarotto, Luigi and Rizzi, Daniela (Trento: Universita di Trento, 1992), 211–32.Google Scholar

3. E.g. the publication of hagiographical and epic historical texts about Sergius, the reprint of Kliuchevskii's address and adulatory writings about Sergius by George Fedotov, Boris Zaitsev, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna Filaret, Pavel Florenskii, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Valentin Rasputin et al. in Desiatnikov, V. A., comp., Sergii Radonezhskii: Sbornik (Moscow: Patriot, 1991 Google Scholar), and an academician's appraisal, Kuchkin, V. A., “Sergii Radonezhskii, Voprosy istorii, no. 10 (1992): 75–92 Google Scholar.

4. Kleinberg, Aviad M., Prophets in their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 13–21ffGoogle Scholar; Stephen Wilson, “Introduction,” and Delooz, Pierre, “Towards a Sociological Study of Canonized Sainthood in the Catholic Church,” in Saints and Their Cults, Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore and History, ed. Wilson, Stephen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–53, 141-68Google Scholar; Kliuchevskii's seminal work on Russian hagiography, Drevnerusskie zhitiia sviatykh kak istoricheskii istochnik (Moscow: Tip. Gracheva, 1871; repr. The Hague: Mouton, 1968, and Moscow: Nauka, 1988)Google Scholar, esp. i-ii, 408-38; Gail Lenhoff, The Martyred Princes Boris and Gleb: A Social Cultural Study of the Cult and the Texts, UCLA Slavic Studies, no. 19 (Columbus: Slavica, 1989): esp. 12-24.

5. Cf. Kleinberg, , Prophets, 11–12 Google Scholar; B∅rtnes, Josten, Visions of Glory: Studies in Early Russian Hagiography (Oslo: Salum Forlag, 1988), 11–26 Google Scholar, with Kliuchevskii's pessimism (Drevnerusskie zhitiia, 431-32), about the possibility of distilling historical truth from hagiography.

6. I cite the “extended vita” and encomium from Dmitriev, L. A. and Likhachev, D. S., comps., Pamiatniki literatury Drevnei Rusi. XlV-seredina XV veka (hereafter PLDR), (Moscow, 1981), 256–429 Google Scholar. Archimandrite Leonid first published the “extended vita” in 1863; it is in Pamiatniki drevnei pis'mennosti i iskusstva 58 (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvo liubitelei drevnei pis'mennosti i iskusstva, 1885), and designated test “E” by Iablonskii, V., Pakhomii Serb i ego agiograficheskie pisaniia (St. Petersburg: Sinodal'naia tip., 1908)Google Scholar. Kloss, B. M., “Zhitiia Sergiia i Nikona Radonezhskikh v russkoi pis'mennosti XV-XVII vv.,” in Metodicheskie rekomendatsii po opisaniiu slaviano-russkikh rukopisnykh knig, vol. 3 (Moscow: AN SSSR, Int. slavianovedeniia i balkanistiki, 1990): 271–96Google Scholar; and Ludolf Miiller, intro., v-liii, to reprint of N. S. Tikhonravov's collection of texts, Die Legenden des Heiligen Sergij von Radonež, Nachdruck der Ausgabe von Tichonravov, Slavische Propylaen, no. 17 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1967), are excellent guides to texts and literature. Texts of what Kloss concluded was Pakhomii's first reworking of Epifanii (to Tikhonrarov and Iablonskii, text B = Epifanii's biography) are in Die Legenden, texts, 1: 3-69, and Prosvirnin, A., “V pokhvalu prepodobnomu Sergiiu, igumenu Radonezhskomu vseia Rossii chudotvortsu,” Bogoslovskie trudy 11 (1973): 216–39Google Scholar. Julia Alissandratos ( “Simmetricheskoe raspolozhenie epizsodov odnoi redaktsii Zhitiia Sergiia Radonezhskogo,” in American Contributions to the IX International Congress of Slavists [Kiev, September, 1983], 2 vols. [Columbus: Slavica 1983], 2: 7-17) demonstrated a symmetry in lablonskii's text B, suggesting it was a unitary work rather than a pastiche. But was it Epifanii's or Pakhomii's? Also: Kliuchevskii, Drevnerusskie zhitiia, 88-112; Golubinskii, , Sergii, n. 1 (75–81)Google Scholar; Zubov, V. P., “Epifanii Premudryi i Pakhomii Serb,” Trudy Otdeleniia drevnerusskoi literatury (hereafter TODRL) 9 (1953): 145–58Google Scholar; Dmitrij Tschizewskij, “Epiphanius the Wise, Medieval Russian Hagiographer,” intro. to repr., Zhitiie sv. Stefana episkopa Permskogo izdano V. Druzhininym, Apophoreta Slavica, no. 2 (s'-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1959); Appel, Ortrud, Die Vita des hi. Sergij von Radonež. Untersuchungen zur Textgeschichte (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1972)Google Scholar; Droblenkova, N. F., “Zhitiie Sergiia Radonezhskogo, Slovar ’ knizhnikov, ed. Likhachev, D. S., vol. 2, pt. 1 (Leningrad: Nauka, 1988): 330–36Google Scholar.

7. PLDR, 290-374, 382-84, 392-94; M. D. Priselkov, comp, Troitskaia letopis': Rekonstruktsiia teksta (hereafter TL), (Moscow-Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1950), 397, 440-41; Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (hereafter PSRL), 37 vols, to date (Moscow-St. Petersburg-Leningrad, 1846-), 6: 119-22; 11: 31-32, 143-44, and 2d ed., 4 vols, to date (St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad), 15, pt. 1: 107-8; Golubinskii, , Sergii, 13–39, 44Google Scholar; The Modern Encyclopaedia of Russian and Soviet History, s. v. “Sergius of Radonezh,” by Faith Wigzell; Meyendorff, John, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 124, 132-36, 209-11, 216, 292–99Google Scholar; V. A. Plugin, “Sergei Rado nezhskii-Dmitrii Donskoi-Andrei Rublev,” Istoriia SSSR (1989) no. 4: 71-74; V. A. Kuchkin, “Sergius Radonezhskii,” 82-85, 88-89; cf. Budovnits, I. U., Monastyri na Rusi i bor'ba s nimi krest'ian v XIV-XVI vekakh (Moscow, 1966), 77–158 Google Scholar; and B∅rtnes, Visions, 187-93, who, in light of the fact that Sergius dedicated his monastery to the Trinity, seems excessively cautious in arguing that one cannot be certain that he inaugurated the special worship of the Trinity ascribed to him by Epifanii.

8. Dmitrii's relations with Sergius: TL, 396-97, 418, 421, 429, 434, 440-41; PSRL 6: 119-22; 8: 21, 34; 11: 71, and 2d ed., 15, pt. 1: 107-8, 137-8, 144, 150-51, 156; PLDR, 382-84; Prokhorov, G. M., Povest’ o Mitiae: Rus’ i Vizantiia v epokhu Kulikovskoi bitvy (Moscow: Nauka, 1978 Google Scholar); Golubinskii, , Sergei, 39–44, 48Google Scholar; cf. V. A. Kuchkin, “Dmitrii Donskoi i Sergii Radonezhskii v kanun Kulikovskoi bitvy,” in Tserkov', obshchestvo i gosudarstvo v feodal'noi Rossii, ed. A. I. Klibanov (Moscow: Nauka, 1990), 103-25, with Borisov, N. S., Tserkovnye deiateli srednevekovoi Rusi XIII-XVII w. (Moscow: Izdat. Moskovskogo universiteta, 1988), 112–17Google Scholar; Ivina, L. I., Krupnaia votchina severo-vostochnoi Rusi (Leningrad: Nauka, 1979), 35–36 Google Scholar. Kloss ( “Zhitiia Sergiia,” 291-92) proposed that similar information in TL, the encomium to Sergius and Epifanii's vita suggested common authorship. Grants: Rybakov, B. A. et al., eds., Vkladnaia kniga Troitse-Sergieva Monastyria (hereafter VK) (Moscow: Nauka, 1987), 26 Google Scholar, revised by Ieromonakh Arsenii, “O votchinnykh vladeniakh Troitskago Monastyria pri zhizni ego osnovatelia, prepodobnago Sergiia,” Letopis’ zaniatii Arkheograficheskoi kommissii 7 (1884): 139-75; B. D. Grekov and L. V. Cherepnin, eds., Akty sotsial'no-ekonomicheski istorii severo-vostochnoi Rusi kontsa XIVnachala XVI v. (hereafter ASEI), 3 vols. (Moscow: Izdat. AN SSSR, 1952-64), 1, no. 1; Budovnits, Monastyri, 105-11.

9. The event of 1363-1364: PSRL 4, pt. 1: 292, and 5: 230; of 1380: PLDR, 272, 386-88, and PSRL 11: 5; my discussion below of when mention of Sergius with reference to them appeared.

10. PLDR, 340-43 and 352-58, 394-96; Golubinskii, , Sergii, 16–20 Google Scholar; Borisov, , Tserkoxmye deiateli, 110–13Google Scholar. Bortnes's observation (Visions, 182-87) that Pakhomii introduced hesychast “light mysticism” into the description of this and other miracles ascribed to Sergius, convincing though it is, need not compromise the conclusion that the episode was in Epifanii's “vita” , or that Sergius's contemporaries heard of and were awed by the miracle.

11. Introducing his biography, Epifanii lamented that one had not been written in the 26 years since Sergius's death and said that he wrote his from memory and the reminiscences of others recorded over a span of twenty years (PLDR, 256-58). See Kloss ( “Zhitiia Sergiia,” 274-80); Golubinskii, Evgenii (Istoriia kanonizatsii sviatykh v russkoi tserkvi [Moscow: Moskovskaia dukhovnaia academiia, 1903], 72 Google Scholar), on the ceremony of 1422 and new prayers.

12. Visits: Gorskii, A. V., lstoricheskoe opisanie Sviato-Troitskiia Sergievy Lavry v 1841 g, 2 pts. (Moscow: Tip. N. Efimova, 1890), 1: 70–71 Google Scholar; PSRL 27: 272. Grants and Gifts: VK, 26; Akty, sobr. v bibliotekakh i arhhivakh Rossiiskoi imperii Arkheograficheskoiu ekspeditsieiu Imperatorskoi AN (hereafter AAE) 1 (St. Petersburg, 1836), no. 24; ASEI, 1, no. 109; Arsenii, “O votchinnykh vladeniakh,” 144-72.

13. Cherepnin, L. V., ed., Dukhovnye i dogovornye gramoty velikikh i udel'nykh kniazei XIV-XVI vv. (hereafter DDG) (Moscow-Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1950), no. 17, 50 Google Scholar; PSRL 23: 146; Kuchkin, “Spodvizhnik Dmitriia Donskogo,” Voprosy istorii (1979), no. 8: 104-16.

14. PSRL 15, pt. 1: 177.

15. Iurii's involvement in establishing the cult in 1422 is attested in Pakhomii's rewriting of Epifanii. Kloss ( “Zhitiia Sergiia,” 279) noted it in Pakhomii's (unpublished) third edit. (ca. 1442); it is also mentioned in the edit, that Kloss (285-86) calls Pakhoinii's fifth (ca. 1450); for Zubov ( “Epifanii,” 152-55) the earliest work solely of Pakhomii; printed in Die Legenden, texts, 2: 80-82, and Velikiia Minei Chetii, sobrannyia Vserossiiskim Mitropolitom Makariem (hereafter VMCh) for September, 25-30 (St. Petersburg: Tip. akademii nauk, 1883), 1450-51. On Rublev's “Trinity” icon, cf. Lazarev, V. N., Andrei Rublev i ego shkola (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1966), 33–35, 135–36Google Scholar; Kuz'mina, V. D., “Drevnerusskie pis'mennye istochniki ob Andree Rubleve” in Andrei Rublev i ego epokha, ed. Alpatov, M. V. (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1971), 103–18Google Scholar, with Plugin, “O proiskhozhdenii ‘Troitsy’ Rubleva,” Istoriia SSSR, no.2 (1987): 64-79. Iurii's boyar deeded a lucrative salt deposit and salt works in Galich to Trinity (Golubinskii, Sergii, 28-29; Gorskii, Opisanie, 1: 69-71; Voronin, N. N., Zodchestvo severo-vostochnoi Rusi, 2 vols. [Moscow: AN SSSR, 1961-62], 2: 311–12Google Scholar; Cherepnin, L. V., Obrazovanie russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva v XIV-XV vekakh [Moscow: Izdat. sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoi literatury, 1960], 356–59Google Scholar).

16. PSRL 4, pt. 1: 489; 23: 150-51; DDG, no. 38, 107-17.

17. Sergius's vision of the Mother of God in the vita (PLDR, 394) validated his intercessory powers. Quotations from Heffernan, Thomas J., Sacred Biography: Saints and their Biographers in the Middle Ages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 4 Google Scholar; Shils, , Center and Periphery, 38 Google Scholar, and his discussion of the charisma of central places, 31-47, 111-26; Durkheim, , Elementary Forms, esp. 282-308, 393–413 Google Scholar; Brigitte Gazelles, “Introduction,” and Magdalena Carrasco, “Sanctity and Experience in Pictoral Hagiography,” in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 16, 61-62, on the power of hagiography. The history of Sergius's cult mirrored trends in the Catholic world where members of religious orders replaced martyrs, ascetics and bishops of an earlier period as the focus of cult making (Wilson, “Introduction,” in idem, ed. Saints and their Cults, 5).

18. Durkheim, , Elementary Forms, 362 Google Scholar.

19. Quotes from Geertz, Clifford, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power,” in Culture and Its Creators: Essays in Honor of Edward Shils, ed. Ben-David, Joseph and Clark, Terry Nichols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977 Google Scholar; repr. in Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual and Politics Since the Middle Ages, ed. Sean Wilentz [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985], 13-38), 150-71; Hobsbawm, Eric, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” The Invention of Tradition, ed. Hobsbawm, and Ranger, T. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–12 Google Scholar.

20. PSRL 26: 200; Cherepnin, Obrazovanie, 768-71, 787-808; Vernadsky, George, The Mongols and Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 301–2, 316-25.Google Scholar

21. PSRL 26: 200.

22. Cf. the long version, PSRL 6: 172-74, 18: 196-98, 8: 115-17; 26: 200-2, with short entries, PSRL, 5: 268, 15: 492, and 23: 152.

23. PSRL, 23: 152; Chapt. 49: “O Dmitrii Ermoline,” in the narrative about new miracles of 1448-1449 at Sergius's tomb; Die Legenden, texts, 2: 158-65; Cherepnin, Obrazovanie, 791, 793.

24. PSRL 26: 207, 27: 114.

25. Gorskii, , Opisanie, 1: 69 Google Scholar. The incident was one in which Vasilii had solicited, then disregarded Martinian's advice pertaining to conditions by which a rebel boyarin made his peace and returned from exile in Tver'.

26. Die Legenden, texts, 2: 158-65; Akty istoricheskie, sobr. i izd. Arkheograficheskoiu kommissieiu (hereafter AI), 1 (St. Petersburg, 1841): 75-83 (no. 40); Gorskii, Opisanie, 1: 71-72.

27. Iona, initially Shemiaka's ally and nominee as metropolitan, came over to Vasilii's side when it appeared that he would win out in the dynastic struggle (PSRL 8: 121-21; Gustave Alef, “Muscovy and the Council of Florence,” Slavic Review 20 [1961]: 397-401; la. S. Lur'e, “Kak ustanovilas’ avtokefaliia russkoi tserkvi v XV v.,” Vjspomogatel'nye istoricheskie distsipliny 23 [1991]: 181-98).

28. The meeting: PSRL 23: 154; betrothal and marriage: PSRL 26: 205, 212.

29. AI 1: 103, 106-7 (nos. 54, 58, 59); AAE 1: 32-33 (nos. 42, 43).

30. AI 1: 87 (no. 43); DDG, 151, 153, 155 (no. 51, dated c. 31 Mar.-6 Apr. 1448, a treaty (dokonchanaia gramota) in the form of an exchange of letters between Vasilii and his captor at Trinity in 1446, now “younger brother,” Ivan Andreevich of Mozhaisk, referring to Sergius as a saint.

31. Pakhomii also edited Epifanii's service, did a sermon, some prayers and an akathistos (service for a saint or the Mother of God during which one “doesn't sit down ” ) (Kloss, “Zhitiia Sergiia,” 282-86; Zubov, “Epifanii,” 152-56; Muller, Intro, to Die Legenden, xv-xvii). Cf. Epifanii on the deportation, PLDR, 288-90, VMCh for Sept. 25-30, 1485-87, and Nikon Chronicle, PSRL 11: 128-29, with Pakhomii's edits, in Die Legenden, texts, 1: 12, 80-81; 2: 3-7, and VMCh for Sept. 25-30, 1413. Cf. Die Legenden, texts, 2: 80-82, and VMCh for Sept. 25-30, 1450-53, which connect Iurii with the translation of relics in 1422, with PLDR, 256-429; PSRL 11: 127-47, Die Legenden, texts, 1: 1-69, and VMCh for September 25-30, 1463-1563, which do not.

32. Cf. PSRL (2d ed.), 15, pt. 1: 74-75, and TL, 379, where Gerasim and Pavel were envoys to Boris, with PSRL 4, pt. 1: 292, 5: 230. Pavel and Gerasim reappeared as Aleksei's agents in Sergius's vita, bringing him the metropolitan's approval to establish a church and monastery at Kirzhach. They cannot otherwise be identified unless this was the Gerasim whom Aleksei made bishop of Kolomna, a post he held until his death in 1388 (PSRL [2d ed.], 15, pt. 1: 123, 154).

33. Die Legenden, texts, 1: 59-60 (1st edit.), 136-38 (2d edit.) Pakhomii wrote a third edition in the 1440s, possibly at the time of Sergius's canonization. It is unpublished and one can only speculate as to whether he further embellished the narrative along lines of a similar episode in the “Chronicle Tale” of 1380 that appeared about the same time. Kloss ( “Zhitiia Sergiia,” 276-79) dates the earliest ms. to the second quarter of the fifteenth century, possibly ca. 1442, because its reference to Sergius's ability to reconcile “Orthodox tsars” was appropriate to Vasilii's armistice then with Dmitrii Shemiaka. Without distorting its meaning, the passage could also be said to be relevant to Vasilii's reconciliation with the realm in 1447-1448.

34. Cf. “extended vita” , PLDR, 386-88, with “Chronicle Tale,” PLDR, 118, or PSRL 4, pt. 1: 313-14, 316. Also: the letter to Dmitrii, AI 1: 76, 80-81 (no. 40); M. A. Salmina, “Letopisnaia povest’ o Kulikovskoi bitve i ‘Zadonshchina',” in Slovo o polku Igoreve i pamiatniki Kulikovskogo tsikla, ed. D. S. Likhachev and L. A. Dmitriev (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1966), 344-84, esp. 372-76; Salmina, “K voprosu o datirovke ‘Skazaniia o Mamaevom poboishche',” TODRL 29 (1974): 98-124, dating tales of the “Kulikovo cycle;” La. Lur'e, S., Obshcherusskie letopisi XIV-XV w. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1976), 67–121 Google Scholar; Kuchkin, “Dmitrii Donskoi,” 114-21, who, ignoring Salmina's arguments, considers the Zadonshchina the seminal Kulikovo tale; idem, “Sergius Radonezhskii,” 85-86.

35. “Tale of the Destruction of Mamai,” PLDR, 144-48, 172, 182; “extended vita: ” PLDR, 386-88; Kuchkin, “Dmitrii Donskoi,” 104-14. Oddly, the “Chronicle Tale” had Bishop Gerasim bless Dmitrii and his army in Kolomna before Kulikovo; the “Tale” wrongly called him Gerontii and an archbishop. He appears nowhere in the account of 1380 in the vita.

36. Zubov, “Epifanii,” 155-56. DDG, 151, 153, 155, the first source mentioning Nikon, and Sergius, as saints. Nikon's vita: Logofet, Pachomij, Werke in Auswahl. Nachdruck der Ausgabe von V. Jablonskij mit einer Einleitung von Dmitrij Tschizewskij, Slavische Propylaen, no. 1 (Munich: Eidos, 1963): lxxiv–lxxvii Google Scholar; Kloss, “Zhitiia Sergiia,” 289-90. The council of 1547 officially recognized Nikon's sainthood (G. Z. Kuntsevich, “Podlinnyi spisok o novykh chudotvortsakh k Feodosiiu Arkhiepiskopu Novograda i Pskova,” Izvestiia Otdeleniia russkogo iazyka islovesnosti 15, pt. 1 (1910): 255). It occasioned another vita (VMCh for Nov. 18-22 [Moscow, Tip. akademii nauk, 1914], 2891-2912). A healthy ransom also helped to assure Edigei's departure (PSRL 23: 142-43).

37. PSRL 23: 256; 25: 277; Damaged by fire, it was razed and a new one of brick and stone was erected in 1480 (PSRL 8: 205).

38. PSRL 25: 310-11. The gap in visits should not obscure the reality, so evident in inventories of grants by Ivan and his wife Mariia (ASEI 1: 218-381, 3: 447-49) that for them Trinity was the most holy place in Rus'.

39. PSRL 4: 515; 23: 179; 25: 323. PSRL 6: 223, 8: 205. Ivan's first wife died in 1465; he married Sophia in November 1472.

40. Basil of Parius, 12 April; George of Mitylene, 7 April. Maiasova, N. A., “Khudozhestvennoe shit'e,” in Troitse-Sergieva Lavra. Khudozhestvennye pamiatniki, ed. Voronin, N. N. and Kostochkin, V. V. (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1968), 122–23Google Scholar.

41. On the dynastic crisis: Fine, John V. A., “The Muscovite Dynastic Crisis of 1497-1502,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 8 (1966): 198–215 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kollmann, Nancy Shields, “Consensus Politics: The Dynastic Crisis of the 1490s Reconsidered,” Russian Review 45 (1986): 235–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Isolde Thyret, “Blessed is the Royal Womb: The Significance of Miraculous Birth to the Muscovite Tsaritsy in the Sixteenth Century,” unpublished paper read at Midwest Slavic Conference, Columbus, 1 May 1992; texts of the inscriptions in Nikolaeva, T. B., Proizvedeniia russkogo prikladnogo iskusstva s nadpisiami XV-pervoi chetverti XVI v., AN SSSR, Institut Arkheologii, Svod arkheologicheskikh istochnikov, El-49 (Moscow: Nauka, 1971), 65–66 Google Scholar; Maiasova, “Khudozhestvennoe shit'e,” 122-23; Khlebnikova, N. A., “Maloizvestnye proizvedeniia masterskoi Sof'i Paleolog,” in Pamiatniki kul'tury. Novye otkrytiia. Ezhegodnik 1976 (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), 196–97Google Scholar.

43. Book of Degrees, PSRL 21, pt. 2: 554-55; Illuminated Compilation, PSRL 12: 190-91; Kloss, B. M., Nikonovskii svod i russkie letopisi XVI-XVH vekov (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), 206-65, esp. 262–63Google Scholar.

44. The Compilation of 1518, PSRL 28: 337.

45. Sean Wilentz, “Introduction. Teufelsdröch's Dilemma: On Symbolism, Politics, and History,” in Rites of Power, ed. Wilentz, 13-14, following Durkheim, Elementary Forms, 433.

46. Kertzer, David I., Ritual, Politics, and Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), esp. 9–10 Google Scholar.

47. I rely on Durkheim (Elementary Forms, esp. 69, 432-96) in rephrasing for late medieval Rus’ the insights of Shils (Center and Periphery) and Armstrong, John A. (Nations Before Nationalism [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982], esp 129–31Google Scholar). That Vasilii went on with Ivan from Trinity is more than supposition: The chronicle entry is worded so that only Ivan does the moving to Trinity and elsewhere; the phrase “with” Vasilii, etc., comes before the predicate mentioning the first destination (Trinity) and succeeding ones, implying that he also continued on.

48. Nancy Shields Kollmann about processions during the reigns of Vasilii III and Ivan IV; “Pilgrimage, Procession and Symbolic Space in Sixteenth-Century Russian Politics,” unpublished paper prepared for Workshop on Early East Slavic Culture, 2-7 June 1990, UCLA, Los Angeles.

49. Attached to the Sergius Church built atop a new gate ( Gorskii, , Opisanie, 1: 6 Google Scholar).

50. 1518: PSRL 6: 261, 8: 264; 1524: Gorskii, , Opisanie, 1: 75-79; 1530: 6: 265, 34: 16; 1531: 8: 276, 13, pt. 1: 56; 1532: 6: 261, 8: 280Google Scholar; the first in 1533: 6: 267, 8: 285, 29: 9; 1533, the last: 6: 271-72, 274-76, Gorskii, , Opisanie, 1: 81 Google Scholar, and cf. with Letopisets nachala tsarstva, PSRL 29: 9-10, where Metropoliitan Daniil instead of Ioasaf presided in the death ritual and there was no mention of a journey to Trinity in describing the tonsure.

51. Nikolaeva, , Proizvedeniia prikladnogo iskusstva, 74–75 Google Scholar; Maiasova, “Khudozhestvennoe shit'e,” 125-26.

52. PSRL 34: 194.

53. Hartmut Rüss, “Machtkampf oder ‘feudale Reaktion?’ Zu den innenpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen in Moskau nach dem Tode Vasilijs III,” and “Elena Vasil'evna Glinskaia,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 18 (1970): 481-502, and 19 (1971): 481-98; Kollmann, Nancy Shields, Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345-1547 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 142–45, 161–69Google Scholar.

54. Kollman, “Pilgrimage;” annalistic entries: PSRL for 1536: 29: 27; for 1537 (2): 29: 30, 13, pt. 1: 120; for 1538: 29: 33-34; for 1539 (2): 29: 35, 13, pt. 1: 130; for 1540 (2): 29: 37, 38; for 1541: 29: 41; for 1542 (2): 29: 43, 44; for 1543: 29: 45; for 1544: 29: 46; for 1545 (2): 29: 47; for 1546: 26: 49; for 1547 (2): 29: 50, 51; for 1548 (2): 29: 56; for 1552 (3?): 6: 304, 314, and 29: 111-12, 210-11; for 1553: 13, pt. 1: 231-32; for 1554: 29: 231; for 1555: 29: 249-50; for 1556 (2): 29: 247, 250; for 1558: 29: 274; for 1559 (2?): 29: 280-81, Gorskii, Opisanie, 1: 8; PSRL for 1561: 29: 297; for 1563 (2): 13, pt. 2: 367, 29: 323; for 1564 (3): 29: 334, 335, 341; for 1565 (4?): 29: 346-48; for 1566 (2): 29: 350, 352; for 1567: 29: 354.C

55. See Freeze, Gregory L., “Tserkov', religiia i politicheskaia kul'tura na zakate staroi Rossii,” Istoriia SSSR (1991) no. 2: 96–106.CGoogle Scholar