Russia to celebrate anniversary of St. Basil's

[gatewood1988]

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will celebrate the 450th anniversary of St. Basil’s Cathedral by opening an exhibition dedicated to the so-called “holy fool” who gave his name to the soaring structure of bright-hued onion domes that is a quintessential image of Russia.

The eccentrically devout St. Basil wore no clothes even during the harsh Russian winters and was one of the very few Muscovites who dared to lambast tyrannical Czar Ivan the Terrible.

Ivan, whose gory purges claimed tens of thousands of lives, feared St. Basil as “a seer of people’s hearts and minds,” according to one chronicle. He personally carried St. Basil’s coffin to a grave right outside the Kremlin. The cathedral, constructed to commemorate Ivan’s victory over Mongol rulers, was built on the burial site.

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[Alexander_Roman]

That Cathedral is actually not St Basil’s but is named for the Holy Protection of the Mother of God (her Protective Mantle). St Basil’s relics are enshrined therein.

Each cupola of that cathedral represents a different continent, or so Tsar Ivan the Terrible conceived of it. In other words, he saw Russia dominating the world spiritually as the “Third Rome” which he and other imperialist-minded folk there took very seriously.

Tsar Ivan had the eyes of the architects of the cathedral put out after the project was completed so that they could not recreate or copy it anywhere else . . .

After the Tsar returned from a war to capture a Russian city that did not want to be under his rule, St Basil came out to him offering to him a piece of bloody, raw meat.

The Tsar said to him, “Don’t be silly - I don’t eat meat during Lent!”

To which St Basil replied, “Then why do you drink the blood of Christians?”

Fools for Christ’s Sake are a popular category of Saints in the East. They pretend to be “out of their minds” in order to prophesy and to teach people about their sins.

St Theophilus of Kyiv, a fool for Christ’s sake, was once visited by the Tsar of Russia. When the Abbot and the Tsar entered his hermitage, they found St Theophilus lying on the floor, with arms crossed over his chest, all covered in mud.

The Tsar commented about how he wasn’t used to not having people stand in his presence, but the Abbot/Ihumen told him about Theophilus’ charism and that he was trying to tell them something . . . he just didn’t know what . . .

As it turned out, St Theophilus was telling the Tsar that he would die in an upcoming war . . . .

This made people very afraid of his predictions, since they invariably came true.

Alex