Rare materials about life and deeds of Sergius of Radonezh available at the Presidential Library

8 October 2014

To mark the 700th anniversary of St. Sergius of Radonezh, which is widely celebrated this year, the Presidential Library published on its website rare materials related to one of the most revered saints.

As we know, the future great ascetic was born May 3, 1314. The boy was baptized Bartholomew. He came from a family of Rostov nobleman Cyril who moved into the territory of the Moscow principality near Radonezh. Childhood and youth of the future saint are described in detail by Ivan Morev in his "St. Sergius of Radonezh, the great ascetic and sympathizer of the Russian Land" issued in 1893. On the pages of the book you can find the following lines: "The more Bartholomew grew, the clearer and greater revealed his special qualities of the soul; the more often his extraordinary heart attractions and desires proclaimed themselves. As a boy, he was not like other children. Thus, he completely evaded children's games and amusements, avoided jokes, laughter and idle. But especially he surprised his parents by fasting and abstinence."

Even in his youth, Bartholomew wanted to devote himself to monastic life. But he managed to do it only after reaching 23 years of age, after the death of his parents. Then the young man went to the hermitage, he settled in Makovei hole and took monastic vows under the name of St. Sergius. "...Having renounced the world, he did not forget his native Russian land; and living in the desert, he saw and understood the people’s grief, mourned and grieved over the disasters and misfortunes of the fatherland and tried to facilitate them through his prayers and intercession before Godm" says the book of Ivan Morev.

St. Sergius did not stay long alone. The book "In memory of the 500th anniversary of the Venerable and God-bearing our father Sergius of Radonezh, Wonderworker of All Russia," published in 1894 and digitized on the 700th anniversary of the saint by the Presidential Library, says: "People who wanted to have an example and guide in spiritual life, hearing about life of the holy Sergius began to ask permission to settle and live near him. According to the saint, aliens began to build their huts around his solitary cell, taking his fasting life as a model. Three or four cells he built with his own hands, chopping wood and carrying it to the cells to add the brotherhood; he also grounded in mills, baked bread, cooked food, sewed clothes and shoes; using his two water-carriers he brought water on top of the mountain and delivered it in each cell... Many sought salvation under his peaceful roof, and he rejected no one, neither rich nor poor, according to the word of the Gospel."

The Presidential Library website also features a rare edition, "The Life and deeds of the Venerable and God-bearing our father Sergius of Radonezh, Wonderworker of All Russia." The book was published in 1904 in Sergiev Posad, and previously was not available to a wide range of readers. This work is also unique due to the fact that the town of Sergiev Posad originated in the late 14th - early 15th centuries around the Trinity-Sergius Monastery (from 1744 - Lavra), founded in 1337 by St. Sergius of Radonezh.

With "quiet and gentle words" St. Sergius of Radonezh could affect the most callous and hardened hearts. He often reconciled warring. The moral authority of Sergius also contributed to political successes of the Moscow State during the reign of Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy. The most significant event of the 14th century - victory in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 – was attributed by contemporaries to the prayers of St. Sergius: before taking field from Moscow, August 18, Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy came with the boyars and governors to the Trinity monastery to ask for the blessing of Sergius of Radonezh...

Today, the Presidential Library collections include more than four thousand digitized publications on religious themes. These are rare books on the history of religion, including the history of Orthodoxy, biographies of saints, documents on the participation of the Church in the formation of Russian statehood. And on the whole at the present stage the collections of the first electronic national library of Russia contain more than 320,000 items. More than 110,000 of them are available on the website.