Childhood and Illness
Boris was born in 1660 at Moscow to the nobleman Iakov Lukich Ushakov and his wife Katherine, and was named at Baptism after the holy Passion-Bearer Boris. When his father was appointed voevoda of Chernyi Yar, a town on the Volga roughly 250 versts from Astrakhan, the family moved there.
His Life relates that from infancy the child showed an unusual inclination toward ascetic life, refusing milk on Wednesdays and Fridays and weeping until he was carried to church. He was then struck by a series of afflictions: a pestilence in 1662 left his legs lame, and a disfiguring condition of the face followed.
Tonsure and Repose
Moved by the sight of a wandering monk in the monastic habit, the child implored his parents to have such clothing made for him and to permit his tonsure, declaring that he would be made well once he received the angelic garb. He was tonsured into the great schema at the Church of the Resurrection in Chernyi Yar and given the monastic name Bogolep, the Russian rendering of the Greek Theoleptos, understood to mean 'similar to God.'
According to the Life, the child recovered briefly but soon fell ill again, and reposed on August 1, 1667, at the age of seven. He was buried beside the wooden Church of the Resurrection in Chernyi Yar.
Veneration and Miracles
The Life of Schemamonk Bogolep was compiled by the Chernyi Yar merchant Savva Tatarinov in 1731-1732. A stone Church of the Resurrection replaced the earlier wooden one in 1750.
Among the accounts of his veneration, the tradition relates that the saint appeared in visions and was invoked as a protector of Chernyi Yar, with reports of the town being defended against attack. In 1851, when an attempt was made to move his relics because the Volga was eroding the riverbank, the coffin is said to have slipped into the waters of the river. He is invoked especially on behalf of children.
