Origin of the Commemoration
The collective feast traces its origin to October 4, 1439, when St. John, Archbishop of Novgorod (1165–1186), appeared to the presiding hierarch St. Euthymius II and ordered him to serve a special panikhida in memory of those buried at the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom. This apparition gave rise to the regular liturgical commemoration of all the hierarchs interred in the Sophia Cathedral.
It was in the same year, 1439, that Euthymius II discovered the relics of Archbishop Ilya (St. John). Euthymius also canonized predecessors and commissioned the hagiographer Pachomius the Serb to compose lives of the saints, work that helped fix the memory of the Novgorod hierarchs in the Church's commemoration.
The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom
The first wooden Cathedral of Holy Wisdom was built by St. Joachim of Korsun on a former pagan burial ground. The present stone cathedral was built between 1045 and 1050 by Vladimir of Novgorod and Bishop Luka Zhidiata, replacing the earlier wooden church, and was consecrated by Bishop Luka Zhidiata in 1050 or 1052.
The cathedral, rising some 38 meters, served as the city's major necropolis, housing 47 burials, among them Prince Vladimir (1052) and 32 bishops, archbishops, and metropolitans. The synaxis gathers these interred prelates into a single commemoration.
Hierarchs Commemorated
St. Joachim of Korsun (Korsunyanin) was the first bishop of Novgorod the Great, ruling approximately 989–1030. A native of the Byzantine town of Cherson (Korsun) in the Crimea, he arrived in Kievan Rus around the time of the Christianization of 988. At Novgorod he cast the pagan idol of Perun into the Volkhov River and established the Peryn Monastery on that spot, built the first wooden Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, and constructed the Church of Joachim and Anne nearby. He died in 1030 and was first buried in the Church of Joachim and Anne; his remains were transferred to the present Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in 1598. The Russian Orthodox Church keeps his feast on February 10 and June 19.
St. John, known as Ilya before 1185, was the son of a priest and was appointed bishop of Novgorod by Metropolitan Ioann of Kiev in 1165, becoming the first to hold the archiepiscopal title after the office was elevated that same year. During the Suzdalian siege of Novgorod in 1169 he is said to have brought the Icon of Our Lady of the Sign to the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, and medieval accounts credit the Mother of God with saving the city. In 1185 he entered the Great Schema, taking the name Ioann (John). He died on September 7, 1186, and was buried in the cathedral's west gallery. He was canonized at the Moscow Council of 1547.
St. Euthymius II (baptismal name Ivan/Ioann), born to the priest Fedor and his wife Anna, became a monk at the Listitsa Hill Monastery and then at the Vyazhishchsky Monastery northwest of Novgorod. Elected Archbishop of Novgorod in 1429, he was consecrated in 1434, ordained in Smolensk by the Metropolitan of Lithuania. A prolific patron of architecture and culture, he built or rebuilt more than a dozen churches, including the Church of the Twelve Apostles and the Palace of Facets (completed 1433). He died on March 11, 1458, was buried at the Vyazhishchsky Monastery, and was formally canonized by the Moscow Council of 1549; his remains were found incorrupt and now rest in a glass sarcophagus.
Among the other prelates interred at the Sophia Cathedral are Bishop Luka Zhidiata, the first bishop after Joachim, who consecrated the stone cathedral and died in 1060, and Bishop Nikita, venerated as a saint, whose relics are displayed in a glass sarcophagus for veneration on certain feast days. Archbishop Nifont (Niphon) governed Novgorod from 1130 to 1156, undertaking extensive building projects including the Church of the Assumption in the Marketplace and serving as patron of the Church of the Transfiguration in the Mirozhsky Monastery in Pskov; in his first year he appointed Anthony of Rome as hegumen of the Antoniev Monastery.
Relics & Shrines
The hierarchs of Novgorod rest in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom (Sophia), the city's principal necropolis, which holds the burials of 32 bishops, archbishops, and metropolitans. The relics of Bishop Nikita are preserved in a glass sarcophagus and displayed for veneration on appointed feast days.
The relics of St. Joachim of Korsun were transferred into the cathedral in 1598. The incorrupt remains of St. Euthymius II rest in a glass sarcophagus at the Church of St. Evfimy at the Vyazhishchsky Monastery. The relics of St. John were desecrated during Soviet anti-religious campaigns on April 3, 1919.
