On translation of the relics of the Saint Faithful Prince Alexander Nevsky to Saint-Petersburg — in the electronic rarities of the Presidential Library

A memory of the Saint Faithful Prince Alexander Nevsky is celebrated in Russia on September 12, 2017. To get familiar with the electronic collection, which includes digitized rare editions dedicated to the life of a military leader, a renowned defender of the Russian lands is possible on the Presidential Library website.

Alexander Nevsky is the heavenly patron of St. Petersburg. In 1724, by decree of Peter I, his incorrupt relics were brought from Vladimir to the new capital. The publication from the collection of the Presidential Library entitled A description of the life and veneration of Saint Faithful Prince Alexander Nevsky of 1867 explains this decision: “After twenty years of war with the Swedes, in the same places where St. Alexander equipped his army with arms, Peter laid the new capital of Russia on the same river, which name St. Alexander was bearing, that is, the Neva River. Concluding, finally, a glorious and long-awaited peace, the Emperor decided to commemorate the ancient winner of the Swedes on the banks of the Neva; he wished to consecrate the new capital with its monastic Lavra by translation here the honest relics of Blessed Alexander.” The date of August 30 (September 12 N.S.) was not accidentally chosen. The 1852-year edition entitled the Saint Faithful Prince Alexander Nevsky makes a point that it was “the very day in which the glorious peace of the Russian State with the country of Sweden was concluded in 1721.”

Detailed description of the preparations for a landmark for the city and the country event can be found in the historical and biographical essay Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky, Grand Duke of Vladimir and All of Russia in 1871: “By order of the Most Holy Governing Synod were requested: an ark for the Saint reliquary and a canopy for a visitation the ark both with a decent for “the master persona” decoration. The ark, upholstered in crimson velvet braid, had, on its closure a cushion of azure color, lined from all around with a gold and brushed braid; the cushion was crowned with a princely crimson velvet heading, enclosed with a wide crisscross German passementerie and stoat-fur-trimmed, with a silver gilt cross on top. Decorated from outside with          peacock blue (dark-cherry) velvet baldachin, and from inside with a raspberry baybereck (thick silk-n-brocade fabric), and all overlaid with a golden passementerie with a copper gilt cross on top and four copper icon-lamps on its sides.

The participants of the procession were given the following instructions: “to accompany the Saint relics with a strict attention, so that in difficult places there would be no excessive slowdown, but in convenient ones — “wrecking” haste; so that all, with relics being, both a clerical and a guard, would be “discreetly assigned” and ever-present; and finally, “a foul language and the indecent actions” from anybody would not ever happen.”

On August 11 (24), 1723, the procession moved forward from the Nativity Monastery in Vladimir and on August 17 arrived in Moscow, then approaching the shores of Lake Ilmen: “In Veliky Novgorod, the ancient patrimony of St. Alexander, the Saint relics boarded a rich in ornament boat and, down the Volkhov, continued the procession, as in those days when St. Alexander was sailing along this river with his glorious prince’s armed force,” — as A description of the life and veneration of Saint Faithful Prince Alexander Nevsky specifies all the symbolism of the event.

On August 30 (September 12 N.S.), 1724, the shrine arrived in the outskirts of St. Petersburg and has been met and received with special honors: “Peter met the holy relics at the mouth of the Izhora River and accommodated it on a magnificent galley, he personally took a wheel and placed the nobles under oars. When the galley with the relics approached the monastery, a bark — the grandfather of the Russian fleet — was floated forward to meet it, there was a joy-bells-ringing and a thunder of the guns. <…> The new capital celebrated the translation of the saint relics three days, and every August 30 the city remembers this event as a special holiday. From this moment, St. Petersburg found its heavenly patron — the Saint Faithful Prince Alexander Nevsky.