Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker – the most venerated saint in Rus’ since ancient times – was born in Asia Minor in the second half of the 3rd century in a Greek colony Patara in the Roman province Lycia into the family of wealthy Christians. As a young man he was raised by his uncle, the Bishop of Patara, who ordained him a priest. The saint’s life was an example of Christian ministry to God and people. When St. Nicholas’ parents died, he bequeathed their property, which he gave away for charity needs. St. Nicholas was the bishop of the city of Myra of Lycia in Asia Minor (now Demre in Turkey); his self-sacrificing life and miracles brought him glory even in his lifetime. The saint took part in the First Ecumenical Council in 325 AD where he denounced Arius’ heresy who denied the divinity of Christ. According to legend, for slapping the heretic Arius St. Nicholas was defrocked, but the Savior Himself and the Theotokos brought St. Nicholas the Gospel and an omophorion – the signs of priesthood. This event is called the Nicene Creed and is shown in almost all depictions of the saint. Saint Nicholas died in ca. 345 AD and was buried in the city of Myra. In 1087 the city of Bari.

St. Nicholas came to be venerated shortly after his death. In Constantinople his cult developed in the 4th – 7th centuries. In Rus the veneration of St. Nicholas started after the adoption of Christianity in the 9th century. On the Velikoretskaya icon of St. Nicholas the saint is shown full-length, in the centerpiece, surrounded by the traditional for this iconography series of border-scenes: St. Nicholas in a Monastic School, St. Nicholas Appears to Emperror Constantine in a Dream, St. Nicholas Rescues Demetrius from Drowning, The Establishment of the St. Sion Church, The Miracle of the Sailors St. Nicholas Rescues Three Generals from the Execution, St. Nicholas Saves Basil, the Son of Agricos from the Saracines, The Entombment of St. Nicholas.

According to legend, the Velikoretskaya icon was discovered in 1383 by peasant Semyon Agalakov on the banks of the river Velikaya in the Vyatsky Kray, in the vicinity of the village of Krutitsy. After the icon healed a crippled man, it became the object of pilgrimage. A wooden chapel was built on the place of its discovery on the bank of the river Velikaya. When the icon’s popularity grew, it was transferred to the city of Khlynov, the capital of the Vyatsky Krai, and housed in the main church of St. Prokopy of Ustyug. The translation of the icon from the village of Krutitsy to the city of Khlynov was later called the First Velikoretsky Cross Procession. This event laid the foundation of annual cross processions of the icon to the place where it had been discovered. Some time later, St. Nicholas Cathedral was built in honor of the Velikoretsky icon. The icon was lost or destroyed in the 1930s.

At the order of Ivan IV in 1555, a cross procession delivered the icon to Moscow’s Assumption Cathedral and then brought back to where it had been. It was exactly when the beginning of the construction of the St. Basil Cathedral was consecrated with the Velikoretsky icon, whose name was given to one of its altars. The icon has several copies, some churches and monasteries were built in its honor.

St. Nicholas is commemorated on December 7 (December 19, the old style), July 29 (August 11, the old style, the saint’s birthdate) and on May 9 (May 22, the old style, the translation of the saint’s relics).

Zhanna G. Belik,

Ph.D. in Art history, senior research fellow at the Andrei Rublyov Museum, custodian of the tempera painting collection.

Olga E. Savchenko,

research fellow at the Andrei Rublyov Museum.

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