July XXIV

St. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, C.

From his ancient accurate life, extant in Surius, and illustrated with notes by F. Bosch the Bollandist, Julij, t. 7, p. 19. See also Ceillier, t. 15, p. 40. Tillemont, t. 16, p. 127. Rivet, Hist. Litter. t. 2, p. 486. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, t. 1, l. 6, n. 44, p. 274, and Camuzat, Catal. Episc. Trecens p. 153, et Antiquitates Tricassinæ, &c., 8vo, 1610.

a. d. 478.

St. Lupus, called in French St. Leu, was born of a noble family at Toul, and being learned and eloquent, pleaded at the bar for some years with great reputation. He married Pimeniola, a virtuous sister of St. Hilary of Arles. After six years spent in holy wedlock, fired with an ardent desire of serving God with greater perfection, they parted by mutual consent, and made a mutual vow of perpetual continency. Lupus betook himself to the famous abbey of Lerins, then governed by St. Honoratus. He lived there a year, and added many austerities to those prescribed by the rule, yet always regulated his fervor by the advice of St. Honoratus. He sold great part of his estate for the benefit of the poor, when he renounced the world. After the first year, when St. Honoratus was made bishop of Arles, he went to Macon in Burgundy to dispose of an estate he had left there, in charitable uses. He was preparing to return to Lerins when he was met by the deputies of the church of Troyes, which, upon the death of St. Ursus, in 426, had chosen him bishop, the eighth from St. Amator, founder of this see. His resistance was to no purpose, and he was consecrated by the prelates of the province of Sens. In this dignity he continued the same practices of humility, mortification, and as much as possible even of poverty. He never wore any other garments than a sackcloth and a single tunic, lay upon boards, and allotted every second night entire to watching in prayer. He often passed three days without taking any nourishment, and after so rigorous a fast allowed himself nothing but a little barley bread. Thus he lived above twenty years; laboring at the same time in all his pastoral functions with a zeal worthy an apostle.

About the latter end of the fourth century, Pelagius, a British monk, and Celestius a Scot, broached their heresy in Africa, Italy, and the East, denying the corruption of human nature by original sin, and the necessity of divine grace. One Agricola, a disciple of these heresiarchs, had spread this poison in Britain. The Catholics addressed themselves to their neighbors the bishops of Gaul, begging their assistance to check the growing evil. An assembly of bishops, probably held at Arles in 429, deputed St. Germanus of Auxerre and St. Lupus of Troyes, to go over into our island to oppose this mischief. The two holy pastors, burning with zeal for the glory of Christ, accepted the commission the more willingly as it seemed laborious and painful. They came over and entirely banished the heresy by their prayers, preaching, and miracles. St. Lupus, after his return, set himself with fresh vigor to reform the manners of his own flock. In this he displayed so great prudence and piety, that St. Sidonius Apollinaris calls him, “The father of fathers and bishop of bishops, the chief of the Gallican prelates, the rule of manners, the pillar of truth, the friend of God, and the intercessor to him for men.”¹ He spared no pains to save one lost sheep, and his labors were often crowned with a success which seemed miraculous. Among other instances it is recorded that a certain person of his diocess, named Gallus, had forsaken his wife and withdrawn to Clermont. St. Lupus could not see this soul perish, but wrote to St. Sidonius, then bishop of Clermont, a strong letter so prudently tempered with sweetness, that Gallus by reading it was at once terrified and persuaded, and immediately set out to return to his wife. Upon which St. Sidonius cried out, “What is more wonderful than a single reprimand, which both affrights a sinner into compunction, and makes him love his censor!” This letter of St. Lupus and several others are lost; but we have one by which he congratulated Sidonius upon his promotion to his see, having passed from a secular prefecture or government to the episcopacy, which charge he shows to be laborious, difficult and dangerous. He strongly exhorts him, above all things, to humility. This letter was written in 471, and is given us by D’Achery.²

God at that time afflicted the western empire with grievous calamities, and Attila with a numberless army of Huns overran Gaul, calling himself “The Scourge of God,” to punish the sins of the people. Rheims, Cambray, Besançon, Auxerre, and Langres had already felt the effects of his fury, and Troyes was the next place threatened. The holy bishop had recourse to God in behalf of his people by fervent prayer, which he continued for many days, prostrate on the ground, fasting and weeping without intermission. At length, putting on his bishop’s attire, full of confidence in God, he went out to meet the barbarian at the head of his army Attila, though an infidel, seeing him, was moved to reverence the man or God, who came up to him boldly, followed by his clergy in procession, with a cross carried before them. He spoke to the king first, and asked him who he was? “I am,” said Attila, “the scourge of God.” “Let us respect whatever comes to us from God,” replied the bishop; “but if you are the scourge with which heaven chastises us, remember you are to do nothing but what that almighty hand, which governs and moves you, permits.” Attila, struck with these words, promised the prelate to spare the city. Thus the saint’s prayer was a better defence than the most impregnable ramparts. It protected a city which had neither arms, nor garrison, nor walls, against an army of at least four hundred thousand men, which, after plundering Thrace, Illyricum, and Greece, crossing the Rhine, had filled with blood and desolation the most flourishing countries of France. Attila, turning with his army from Troyes, was met on the plains of Chalons by Aëtius, the brave Roman general, and there defeated. In his retreat he sent for St. Lupus, and caused him to accompany him as far as the Rhine, imagining that the presence of so great a servant of God would be a safeguard to himself and his army; and sending him back, he recommended himself to his prayers. This action of the good bishop was misconstrued by the Roman generals, as if he had favored the escape of the barbarian, and he was obliged to leave Troyes for two years. He spent that time in religious retirement, in great austerity and continual contemplation. When his charity and patience had at length overcome the envy and malice of men, he went back to his church, which he governed fifty-two years, dying in the year 479. The chief part of his body is kept in a rich silver shrine; his skull and principal part of his head in another far more precious, in the figure of a bishop, formed of silver, adorned with jewels and diamonds said by some to be the richest in France. Both are in the abbatial church of regular canons of St. Austin, which bears the name of St. Lupus. He was first buried in the church of St. Martin in Areis, of the same Order, then out of the walls, though long since within them. Many churches in England bear his name. The family name of Sentlow among us is derived from St. Leu, as Camden remarks.

It was by omnipotent prayer that the saints performed such great wonders. By it Moses could ward off the destruction of many thousands, and by a kind of holy violence disarm the divine vengeance.³ By it Elias called down fire and rain from heaven. By it Manasses in chains found mercy, and recovered his throne; Ezechias saw his health restored, and life prolonged; the Ninevites were preserved from destruction; Daniel was delivered from the lions, St. Peter from his chains, and St. Thecla from the fire. By it Judith and Esther saved God’s people. By the same have the servants of God so often commanded nature, defeated armies, removed mountains, cast out devils, cured the sick, raised the dead, drawn down divine blessings, and averted the most dreadful judgments from the world, which, as an ancient father says, subsists by the prayers of the saints.*

St. Francis Solano, C.

This saint was born at Montilia in Andalusia in 1549, performed his studies in the schools of the Jesuits, and in 1569 made his religious profession amongst the Franciscans in the place of his nativity. An extraordinary humility and contempt of himself and of worldly vanity and applause; self-denial, obedience, meekness, patience, and the love of silence, recollection, and prayer mental and vocal, formed his character. Whole nights he frequently passed without sleep on the steps of the altar, before the Blessed Sacrament, in meditation and devout prayer, with wonderful interior delight and devotion. Burning with holy zeal and charity, and an ardent desire of the salvation of souls, after he was promoted to the priesthood, he divided his time between silent retirement and the ministry of preaching. His sermons, though destitute of the ornaments of studied eloquence, powerfully withdrew men from vice, and kindled in their breasts an ardent desire of virtue. The saint was appointed master of novices, first in the convent of Arizava, two miles from Cordova, afterward in that of Monte. Then he was made guardian in the province of Granada. His whole life, says Alvarez de Paz, may be called a holy uninterrupted course of zealous action, yet was at the same time a continued most fervent prayer, abounding with heavenly illuminations and consolations. A perfect spirit of poverty emptied his heart of the love of all created things, that Christ alone might occupy and fill it; and he rejoiced in his nakedness and privation of earthly goods, that he might barely use them to serve the necessities of nature, without suffering them to enslave his heart, or to find any place in his affections, which he reserved pure and entire for spiritual goods. Interior humility and self-denial perfected the disengagement of his heart, and the extraordinary austerities of his penitential life subjected his senses, and rendered the liberty which his soul enjoyed complete; by which he was prepared for the spirit of prayer and the pure love of heavenly things. Earthly comforts used with moderation, and as supports of our weakness, may be sanctified by a good intention; but whilst they bolster up our weakness, they keep it alive and strengthen it; and if they are sought after, or made use of with eagerness and attachment, immoderately or frequently, they strongly nourish self love and sensuality, and produce a distrust of the solid food of devotion and divine love.

The mortified lives of all the saints who arrived at a familiarity with God in holy prayer, are but a comment upon, or sensible examples of, the indispensable gospel precept of dying to ourselves. By no other stops could St. Francis Solano have arrived at the perfection of spiritual life. A pestilence which raged at Granada afforded him an opportunity of exerting his heroic virtue in attending the infected; but a more noble theatre of action was opened to him by the mission into America, upon which he was sent. Peru and Tucuman were the countries in which he reaped the principal harvest; and the five last years of his life he preached chiefly at Lima, and induced the inhabitants of that great city, by sincere repentance, to appease the divine anger, which they had provoked by their sins. The reputation of his wonderful sanctity was enhanced by many miracles. Yet by humility he looked upon himself as the least among men, and he never appeared in public but when called abroad by zeal for the salvation of souls. Before his death he was purified by a lingering illness, and in his last moments repeated those words of the psalmist: I have rejoiced in those things which have been said to me: We will go into the house of the Lord. He departed this life on the 14th of June in 1610, the sixty-second of his age, and fortieth of his religious profession. F. Alvarez de Paz, an eye-witness, describes the stately and religious pomp of his funeral, at which the viceroy of Peru and the archbishop of Lima assisted, with extraordinary devotion. The saint was beatified by Clement X. and canonized by Benedict XIII. in 1726, and his principal festival was appointed on the 24th of July. See his life compiled by Didacus of Cordova; also by Alphonsus of Mondietta. See likewise the History of the Provinces of Peru, and the edifying account of our saint given by the pious and learned Jesuit F. Alvarez de Paz, l. 5, c. 14, t. 2, Op. p. 1752 and 1753; and Benedict XIV., De Canoniz. t. 1, Append. Also the Lives of Saints, published in High Dutch, by F. Maximilian Rasler, S. J.; and F. Charlevoix, Hist. de Paraguay, t. 1, l. 3, and 4.

SS. Romanus and David, MM.

patrons of muscovy.*

The history of the conversion of the Russians (now called Muscovites) to the faith of Christ, has been perplexed by the mistakes of many who have treated this point of history. The learned Jesuit F. Antony Possevin was betrayed into many falsities concerning this people.¹ And upon his authority some have pretended that the Muscovites received the faith from the Greek schismatics, and at the same time adhered to their schism; than which, nothing can be more notoriously false, as Henschenius and Papebrochius² show. F. Stilting, another learned Bollandist, has demonstrated by an express dissertation,³ that the Muscovites were at first Catholics, and that even in the time of the Council of Florence the Catholics and schismatics in Russia made two equal halves. The Greek schism was formed by Cerularius several years after the conversion of the Russians. The schism indeed of Phocius was a short prelude to it.

Cedrenus, Zonaras, and some others relate, that an army of Russians besieged Constantinople in the time of the emperor Michael III., when Photius held that see; and that being obliged to raise the siege, they obtained certain Greek priests from Constantinople, who instructed them in the Christian faith. This first mission Baronius places in 853, Pagi in 861; but this must either be understood of some tribe of Russians in Bohemia, where St. Cyril then preached; or these authors must have confounded together things which happened at different times; for the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenetta, who lived near that time, and could not but be acquainted with this transaction, says both in his life of his grandfather, Basil the Macedonian, and in his book, On administering the Empire, that the Russians besieged the city in the time of Photius, but that they were converted to the faith by priests sent at their request from Constantinople in the time of Basil the Macedonian and the patriarch St. Ignatius, whom that prince restored upon his ascending the throne in 867; which also appears from Zonaras.

The first plant of the faith in this nation was the holy queen Helen, called before her baptism Olga. She was wife to the duke Ihor or Igor, who undertook an expedition against the city of Constantinople, as Simeon Metaphrastes, the monk George, Cedrenus, Zonaras, and Curopalates relate. Having been repulsed by the generals of the emperors Romanus and Constantine, he was slain by the Dreulans in his return. His widow, Olga, with great valor and conduct, revenged his death, vanquished the Dreulans, and governed the state several years with uncommon prudence and courage. When she was almost seventy years old, she resigned the government to her son Suatoslas, and going to Constantinople, was there baptized, taking the name of Helen.* Many place this event in 952, which date seems most agreeable to the Greek historians; but Kulcinius and Stilting infer from the chronology of the dukes of Russia, that she seems to have been baptized in 945. We are expressly assured by Constantine Porphyrogenetta that it happened in 946. She returned into her own country, and by her zealous endeavors brought many to the faith; but was never able to compass the conversion of her son, who was probably withheld by reasons of state. She died in 970 or 978. Her grandson, Uladimir, who succeeded Suatoslas, asked by a solemn embassy, and obtained in marriage, Anne, sister to the two emperors Basil and his colleague and brother Constantine. Nicholas Crysoberga, the orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, a person always zealous in maintaining the communion of the see of Rome, at that prince’s request, sent into Muscovy one Michael with other preachers, who baptized Uladimir, and married him to the princess about the year 988.⁴ This duke founded near Kiow the great monastery of the Cryptæ in favor of the abbot St. Antony, and died, according to Kulcinius, in 1008. His two sons SS. Boris and Hliba or Cliba, called in Latin Romanus and David, were murdered by the usurper Suatopelch, their impious brother, in 1010. It was their zeal for the faith of Christ which gave occasion to their death. Jaroslas, another brother defeated the usurper, and obtained the principality; his daughter Anne was married to Henry I., king of France, in 1044, and became the foundress of the church of St. Vincent at Senlis. Romanus and David are honored in Muscovy on the 24th of July. Their remains were translated into a church which was built in their honor at Vislegorod in 1072, the ceremony being performed with great pomp, by George the fifth archbishop of Kiow, and several other bishops, in presence of Izazlas, Suatoslas, and Usevolod, princes of Russia, and a great train of noblemen. The synod of Zamoski, in 1720, which was approved by the Congregation de Propagandâ Fide, and confirmed by pope Benedict XIII., reckons among the holidays of precept which are kept by the Catholic Russians in Lithuania and other provinces, the feast of these two martyrs, celebrated on the 24th of July; and that of the translation of their relics on the 2d of May.⁵

The Catholic Russians in Lithuania and Poland keep no festival of any other Muscovite saints except of these two martyrs.* But the Muscovites honor several other saints of their own country; several among whom flourished, and doubtless were placed by them in their Calendar before their schism, as Papebroke and Jos. Assemani observe. Such are the queen Helen or Olga, on the 11th of July, who died, according to Kulcinius, in 978. Uladimir, her grandson, duke of the Russians, and son of Suatoslas on the 15th of July, who was baptized in 990, died in 1014, and was buried in our Lady’s church at Kiow.⁶ Antony, abbot, a native of Russia, who embraced the monastic state upon Mount Athos, and returning to Kiow, became the patriarch of that Order in his own country, and on a mountain half a mile from the town founded, about the year 1020, the great Russian monastery of Pieczari or the Cryptæ, in which the archimandrite of all the Russian monks resides, and the archbishop of Kiow has an apartment. Antony died in 1073, on the 10th of July, on which his festival is kept in Muscovy.⁷ This monastery is famous for the Cryptæ or vaults, in which the bodies of many saints and monks who lived above six hundred years ago, remain uncorrupted and fresh. Agapetus, disciple of Antony, at the Cryptæ, famous for miracles, honored on the 1st of June. Athanasius, monk at the Cryptæ, on the 2d of December; he was a native of Trapesond, who, by the liberality and protection of the emperor Nicephorus Phocas, founded the great monastery on Mount Athos in Macedonia. He is honored by the Greeks and Muscovites on the 5th of July.⁸ The lives of these and several other ancient monks of this house were written by Polycarp, who died in 1182. The grand duke Alexander, surnamed Newski, who died in 1262, and is honored on the 30th of April. Sergius, an abbot, is honored by the Muscovites on the 25th of September. He died in 1292, and was never involved in the schism, as Papebroke, Kulcinius, and Jos. Assemani show. This Sergius was born at Roslow, founded the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Rudosno (sixty Italian miles from Moscow), the richest and most numerous in Muscovy, in which are sometimes two or three hundred monks. The body of Sergius is kept there incorrupt, and is much visited out of devotion from Moscow, sometimes by the czars. These and several others who are named in the Muscovite Calendar with the most eminent saints of the eastern and western churches, lived either before or when this nation was not engaged in the Greek schism. But to these saints the Muscovites add some few who died since their separation from the catholic communion, as Photius, archbishop of Kiow, whose principal merit consisted in the obstinacy with which he maintained the schism. See Kulcinius, Specimen Ecclesiæ Ruthenicæ; Papebroke in the beginning of May, Comm. in Ephem. Jos. Assemani, in Calend. Univ. ad 25 Sept. t. 5, p. 254, &c.

St. Christina, V. M.

She suffered many torments, and a cruel death, for the faith in the persecution of Dioclesian, at Tyro, a city which stood formerly in an island in the lake of Bolsero in Tuscany, but has been long since swallowed up by the waters. Her relics are now at Palermo in Sicily. She is much honored both in the Latin and Greek church, and is named in the Martyrologies which bear the name of St. Jerom, that of Bede augmented by Florus, and others. See Ughelli, Italia Sacra, t. 5, and Pinius the Bollandist, t. 5, Julij, p. 495.

SS. Wulfhad and Ruffin, MM.

They were two brothers, the sons of Wulfere, the king of Mercia, second brother and successor of Peada. Having been privately baptized by St. Chad, bishop of Litchfield, about the year 670, they were both slain whilst they were at their prayers by their father’s order, who, out of political views, at that time favored idolatry, though he afterward did remarkable penance for this crime. His father Penda had persecuted the Christians, but his elder brother Peada had begun to establish the faith in his dominions. Florence of Worcester says, Wulfere was only baptized a little before his death, in 675, consequently after this murder; but Bede testifies that he was godfather to Edelwalch, king of the West-Saxons, almost twenty years before. But either he relapsed (at least so far as to be for some time favorable to idolatry), or this murder was contrived by some Pagan courtiers, without his privity, as Bradshaw relates it. The queen Emmelinda, mother of the two young princes, caused their bodies to be buried at Stone, which place took its name from a great heap of stones which was raised over their tomb, according to the Saxon custom. She afterward employed these stones in building a church upon the spot, which became very famous for bearing the names of these martyrs who were patrons of the town, and of a priory of regular canons there. The procurator of this house, in a journey to Rome, prevailed on the pope to enrol these two royal martyrs among the saints, and left the head of St. Wulfhad, which he had carried with him, in the church of St. Laurence at Viterbo. (Leland, Collect. t. 1, p. 1, 2.) After this, Wulfere and his brother and successor Ethelred, abolished idols over all Mercia. See the acts of these royal martyrs in the History of Peterborough abbey, and Leland’s Itinerary, and Collect. t. 1, p. 1. Also Cuper the Bollandist, t. 5, Julij, p. 571.

St. Lewine

Was a British virgin who suffered martyrdom under the Saxons before their conversion to the faith. Her body was honorably kept at Seaford near Lewes, in Sussex, till, in 1058, her remains, with those of St. Idaberga, virgin, and part of those of St. Oswald, were conveyed into Flanders, and are now deposited in St. Winock’s abbey at Berg. They have been honored by many miracles, especially at the time of this translation, as even the century-writers of Magdeburg mention. A history of these miracles written by Drogo, an eye-witness to several, is published by Solier the Bollandist, p. 608, t. 5, Jul See also Alford in Annal. ad an. 687, n. 21.

St. Declan

first bishop of ardmore in ireland

Was baptized by St. Colman, and preached the faith in that country a little before the arrival of St. Patrick, who confirmed the episcopal see of Ardmore, in a synod at Cashel in 448.* Many miracles are ascribed to St. Declan, and he has ever been much honored in the viscounty of Dessee, anciently Nandesi. See Usher; Bosch the Bollandist, p. 590, and Colgan in MSS. ad 24 Julij.

St. Kinga, or Cunegundes, V.

She was daughter of Bela IV. king of Hungary, and Mary, daughter to Theodorus Lascharis, emperor of Constantinople: was married 1239 to Boleslas the Chaste, sovereign of Lesser Poland, or of the palatinates of Cracow, Sandomire, and Lublin; but by mutual consent lived in perpetual chastity. Prayer, mortification, alms, and daily attendance on the poor in the hospitals, employed her time. Boleslas dying in 1279, she took the veil in the great monastery of Sandecz, which she had lately built for nuns of the Order of St. Clare. She died on the 24th of July in 1292. She was venerated with singular piety in the diocess of Cracow and several other parts of Poland, and her name was solemnly inscribed among the saints by Alexander VIII. in 1690. See her life by John Longinus commonly called Dlugos, with remarks by Bosch the Bollandist, t. 5, Julij, p. 661.

¹ B. 6, ep. 1.

² Spielleg. t. 5, p. 579.

³ Exod. 32:10.

* Sanctorum precibus stat mundus. Ruffin. Præf. in Vitas Patrum.

* Some derive the pedigree and names of the Muscovites from Mosoch, the son of Japhet, who, with his brothers Magog, Thubal, and Gomer, and their children peopled the northern kingdoms. (Ezech. 38:6, &c.) These are reputed the patriarchs of the Cappadocians, Tartars, Scythians, Sarmatians, &c. See Bochart, Phaleg. l. 3, c. 12, and Calmot. It seems not to be doubted, that the Moschi, mentioned by Strabo and Mela, and situated between Colchis and Armenia, near the Moschici Montes, were the descendants of Mosoch. As the Scythians from the coasts of the Euxine and Caspian seas afterward penetrated more northwards in Asia and Europe, and as the Cimmerii, who were the sons of Gomer, afterward settled about the Bosphorus and Mœotis, so some authors pretend that the Moschi passed into Europe, and settled near them on the borders of the Scythians and Sarmatians. But the Muscovites evidently take their name from the city of Moscow, built about the year 1149, so called from a monastery named Moskoi (from Mus or Musik, men, q. d. the Seat of Men), not from the river Moscow, which was anciently called Smorodina. (See J. S. Bayei, Orig. Russicœ, t. 8, Acad. Petrop. p. 390.) For the name of Muscovites was not given to this tribe of Russians before the beginning of the fourteenth century. It was assumed on the following occasion: In 1319, Gedimidius, great duke of Lithuania, having vanquished the Russian duke of Kiow, the archbishop Peter removed his see to Moscow, and from that town these Russians began then to be called Muscovites; for the duke John, son of Daniel, soon followed the archbishop, and transferred thither the seat of his principality from Uladimiria: though the archbishop of Kiow continued to take the title of Metropolitan of all Russia. See Herbersteinus (Chorographia Principatus Ducis Moscoviæ; also, in Rerun Muscovitarum Commentar.) and more accurately Ignatius Kulczynski, in Latin Kulcinius, a Basilian monk at Rome. (Specimen Ecclesiæ Ruthenicæ, printed at Rome in 1733, also Catalog, archiepisc. Kioviensium; and Series Chronol. Magn. Russiæ seu Moscoviæ Ducum.) Hence the name of Muscovites first occurs in Chalcocondylus and other Greek historians about that time. We are informed by these authors, and by Herbersteinius, that these Russians were tributary to the Tartar king of Agora in Asia from 1125 to 1506. But since they shook off that yoke they have subdued the Russians of Novogorod and other places in Europe, and have extended their dominions almost to the extremity of Asia in Great Tartary. See Bayer, Diss. de Russorum primâ expedit. Constantinopolitana, t. 6, Comm. Acad Petrop. et Orig. Russiæ, ib. t. 8. Also Jos. Assemani, De Kalend. Univ. t. 1, par. 2. c. 4, p. 275.

The name, Russi or Rossi, seems not to be older than the ninth century. Cedrenus and Zonarus speak of them as a Scythian nation inhabiting the northern side of Mount Taurus, a southern region of Asiatic Scythia, now Great Tartary. They are a nation entirely distinct from the Roxolani, the ancient Sarmatians near the Tanais, though these Russians afterward became masters of that country, and took their name either from that of Roxolani abridged, or from Rosseia, which in their language signifies an assemblage of people. Constantine Porphyrogenetta tells us, that the language of the Russians and Sclavonians was quite different; and the monk Nestor, in the close of the eleventh century, the most ancient historian of Russia, in his chronicle assures us, that the Russians and Sclavonians are two different nations; but the great affinity of the present Russian language with the Sclavonian shows that the Russians, mixing with the Sclavonians, learned in a great measure their language.

It is well known that, anciently, the southern parts of Muscovy were inhabited by Goths, whom the Huns or ancient Tartars from Asia, expelled in the fourth century. Also that the northern part was peopled by Scythians, whom the Muscovites still call by the same name Tscudl, i.e. Scythians, and the lake Peipus, Tschudzhoi. We learn from Constantine Porphyrogenetta (l. De administ. Imper. c. 9.) that the name of Russia was given in the tenth century to the country of which Kiow was the capital, and which comprised also Czernigov, Novogorod, &c. Snorro Sturleson (Hist. regn. Septentr. t. 1, p. 6) says these people called their ancient capital, situated towards the gulf of Finland, Aldeiguborg or Old-Town, in opposition to which Novogorod or New-Town, took its name. The Waregians, invited by the Russians to defend them against the Khosares, who lived near the Black or the Euxine Sea, crossing the Baltic, settled among the Russians, it is uncertain in what age. See T. S. Bayer de Varegis, t. 4, Comment. Acad. Scient. Petrop. p. 275. Er. Jul. Biæner, Sched. Hist. Geogr. de Varegis heroibus Scandinianis et primis Russiæ Dynasts at Stockholm, 1743. Arvid. Mulleris De Varegia, 1731. Algol. Scarinus de Origlnibus priscæ gentis Varegorum, 1743.

We know not in what age the Sclavonians obtained settlements in the northern parts of Russia. They are first named in Procopius and Jornandes, were part of the Venedi, and with them from Sarmatia travelled into Germany; where they settled for some time on the coast of the Baltic, afterward in the centre of Germany near Thuringia, and in Behelm or Bohemia, where they long ruled and left their language In the reign of Justinian they crossed the Danube, and conquered part of Pannonia and Illyricum, where a small territory, fifty German miles long, of which Peter-waradin is the most considerable place, between me Danube, the Drave, and the Save, is still called Sclavonia: it was conquered by the kings of Hungary and is still subject to the house of Austria. The Slavi fell everywhere into so miserable a servitude, that from them are derived the names of Slavery and Slaves. The Sclavonian language is used in the divine office in Illyricum, &c. according to the Latin rite; in Muscovy, &c. according to the Greek rite. (See or SS. Cyril and Methodius, 22 Dec.) The Muscovites have no Russian Bibles; but with very little study can understand the Sclavonian, says Brusching.

In the year 892, Rurik, Simeus, and Tyuwor, three brothers from the Warengi on the other side of the Baltic, came by invitation into Russia, and ruled the Sclavonians and Russians united into one nation Rurik survived his brothers, and became sole sovereign. The Runic inscriptions in the borthers, Antiquities are not of an older date.

Rurik fixed his seat near the lake Ladoga. His son lgor transferred his court from Novogorod to Kiow. His widow Olga received the faith, and was baptized at Constantinople. Their son Suatoslas died an idolater; but his son Wladimir the Great married Anne, a Grecian princess, received baptism, and was imitated by his subjects. He built the city which from him is called Wladimiria, which under his grandson, Andrew Bogolikskl, became the ducal residence. Wladimir I. is honored in the Muscovite Calendar Kiow still has its dukes. Jaroslas, son of Wladimir, was succeeded there by his son Wsevolod I. in 1078, in whose reign Ephrem, metropolitan of Kiow, established in Russia, pursuant to the bull of Urban II. the feast of the translation of the relics of St. Nicholas to Bari, on the 9th of May, never known In the Greek church; which shows their obedience to the pope, and their connection with the Latin church. The Greeks also were then Catholics. George duke of Russia at Wladimiria recovered Kiow, and in 1156 built the city of Moscow. Jaroslas II. succeeded his brother George II. in the great dukedom of Russia in 1238, and resided in Wladimiria. In his reign in 1244, the Russians were reunited to the see of Rome, part having been a little before drawn into the Greek schism. His son Alexander, in his father’s life-time prince of Novogorod, with his brother Feodor or Theodor, gained great victories over the tartars, who had long oppressed the Russians, and succeeded to the great dukedom in 1246. He is surnamed Newski or of Newa, from a great victory which he gained in 1241 on the banks of the Newa, ovor the Poles and the Teutonic knights in Livonia. Those knights, who by victories over the idolaters had made themselves masters of Livonia, had their own high master at Riga, who soon made himself independent of the grandmaster of the same order In Prussia. I his order, which was dismembered from the Knights Hospitallers, or of Jerusalem (afterward of Rhodes and Malta), to defend the Christians in Germany against the inroads of the barbarous northern infidel nations, long produced many incomparably great heroes, and models of all virtues. But enriched by great conquests, their successors, by pride, luxury, and continual intestine wars, gave occasion to several scandals. At length, Albert, marquis of Brandenburg, grand-master in Prussia, turned Lutheran, and received from the king of Poland the investiture of ducal Prussia. The knights expelled by him retired to Mariandhal in Franconia, and there chose a new grand-master. He is chosen by the twelve provincial commanders. William of Furstenburg, Heer-meister of Livonia, also declared himself a Lutheran, and in 1559 resigned his dignity to his coadjutor Gotthard Kettler. He also being a Lutheran, ceded part of Livonia to the Danes, and the chief part to the Poles, receiving from the latter the investiture of Courland and Samogitia as secular dukedoms; Livonia fell under the power of Charles XI. of Sweden, but was added to the empire of Muscovy by Peter the Great.

To return to the grand duke Alexander Newski, he received an embassy from the pope in 1262, the contents of which are not recorded. He died crowned with glory at Gorodes near Nischui-Novogorod in 1262, on the 30th of April, on which day his festival is kept in Muscovy, and he is honored as one of the principal saints of the country. The tezar Peter the Great built, in his honor, a magnificent convent of Basilian monks on the banks of the Newa in Livonia, not far from his new city of Petersburg, the archbishop of which city resides in it. The empress Catharine instituted, in 1725, the second Order of Knighthood in Russia under his name. Their daughter the empress Elizabeth caused his bones to be put in a rich shrine covered with thick plates of silver, placed at the foot of a magnificent mausoleum in this mo mastery. The Muscovites relate wonderful things of his eminent virtues, and miracles wrought at his tomb. Tope Benedict XIV. proves that, upon due authority, all this may be admitted even of one who had died in a material schism, or with inculpable ignorance. But this prince lived and died in communion with the see of Rome, though he has never been placed in the Calendars of the Catholic Church.

Daniel, fourth son of Alexander, left by his father duke of Moscow, after the death of an uncle and three brothers became Grand Duke, and from his reign in 1304, Moscow became the ducal residence, till Peter I. gave a share in that honor to his new city of St. Petersburg.

In the reign of Basil or Vasili II. In 1415, Photius, metropolitan of Russia, residing at Kiow, having espoused the Greek schism, was deposed by the council of Novogrodek, under the protection of Alexander Vithold, grandduke of Lithuania. Retiring into Great Russia he there exceedingly promoted the schism. Gregory, who succeeded him at Kiow, assisted at the council of Constance. Iwan or John IV. is the first who took the title of Tczar in 1552. This word in the Russian language signifies king. In the Russian Chronicles that title is given to the Greek emperors. In their Bibles it is used for king, both in the Russian and Sclavonian language.

In Feodor or Theodore ended, in 1598. the race of Rurik. After two others who had been chief ministers and two false Demetriuses, in 1613, Michael, of the family of Romanow, allied to that of the preceding tczars was chosen great duke. The third of this family was Peter the Great, founder of the Russian empire.

¹ Possev. L. De Rebus Moscoviticis.

² Præf. ad Ephemer. Græco-Moschas, n. 11, p. 3.

³ Dissert. de Russorum Conversione et Fide apud Acta Sanctor. t. 41, seu vol. 2, Septembris.

* Constantine Porphyrogenetta succeeded Leo the Wise in the empire in 911; in 919 he associated in the throne his Drungar or admiral Romanus Lecapenus, whose daughter Helena he had married. Romanus reigned in the year 944; from which time his covetous daughter Helena had a great share in governing the empire. Constantine was buried in his studies, and dying in 959. fifty-four years old, left the empire to his impious son Romanus II., who is said to have poisoned him, and who died in 963, leaving the empire to Nicephorus Phocas, his valiant general, who had often defeated the Russians and Saracens. His daughter Anne was married to Wladimir, duke of Russia. Constantine Porphyrogenetta (l. de Cœm. Anlæ Byzant. l. 2, c 15) relates, that on Wednesday, the 9th of September, 946, Olga, princess of Russia, was received with great pomp at Constantinople by Constantine (himself) and Romanus, emperors; and describes her different receptions at their court, the banquets which they prepared for her, the presents in money which they made to her uncle of thirty miliaretia (each of which contained two ceratia, each ceratium twelve folles, of which five hundred made a pound of silver), eight to her priest Gregory and to each of her friends, to herself five hundred miliaretia in a gold dish studded with diamonds and precious stones. At each other entertainment like presents were distributed. The dessert of sweetmeats was served on a little gold table, in dishes made of or studded with precious stones.

⁴ See the Annals of the Russians in Hebersteinius, in Rerum Muscovit. Comment, and Jos. Assemani, in Calend Univ. t. 2, p. 265, and t. 3.

⁵ Syn. Zamosciania, tit. de Jejun. et Fest. p. 121. Jos. Assemani, de Calend. Univ. t. 4, p. 65, t. 6, p. 497.

* The United Russians, who, renouncing the schism, embraced the communion of the Roman Church, are chiefly subject to Poland, and ever since Clement VIII. have a metropolitan of Kiow (since Kiow was conquered by the Muscovites these have established there their schism with a metropolitan of their communion), an archbishop of Plosco, and bishops of Kelma, Presmilia, Liceoria, and Leopold, with several convents of Basilian monks, who all follow the Greek rites; though several Russians in the Polish dominions still adhere to the Greek schism. See Urban Cerri’s (secretary to the Propaganda) Relation, p. 56, and Mamachi, Orig. et Antiquit. Christ. l. 2, c. 17, t. 2, p. 180. Papebroke, Not. in Ephemer. Græc. Mosch. t. 1, Maij Bollandiani, p. 54, &c.

The metropolitan of Moscow was declared patriarch of all the Russian schismatics by Jeremy, patriarch of Constantinople in 1588, and was acknowledged in that character by the other Oriental patriarchs. But the czar Peter I. having learned from the experience of above a hundred years that the patriarchs made use of their great influence and authority in matters of state, after that dignity had been vacant nineteen years, caused it to be abolished, and an archbishop of Moscow to be chosen in 1719. For the government of the church of Muscovy, and receiving appeals, he appointed a council of eleven bishops and other clergymen, the president of which the czar nominates. See John Von Strahlenburg (Historical and Geographical Description of Russia and Siberia, an. 1738) and Le Quien. (Oriens Christianus, l. 1, p. 1296.) Some Catholics enjoy the exercise of their religion in several parts of Muscovy. Kulcinius observes that many saints have flourished in this nation since it has been engaged in schism. Possevinus and Papebroke take notice that the Greeks since their schism have been reunited to the Latin church fourteen times. The latter of these learned authors also remarks, that even when the archbishops wore most turbulent schismatics, no one will say that all the people were involved in the same guilt; even ignorance might excuse many, as Baronius answered, with regard to monks who lived under a schismatical abbot (ad an. 1036). As for Polish Russia, F. Kulesza, a learned Polish Jesuit, in a book entitled, Fides Orthodoxa, printed at Vilna, assures us, that all the archbishops of Kiow have been Catholics, except two, Photius and Jonas II., till in 1686 It was given up to the Muscovites. By the intrigues of this Photius, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the Greek schism was propagated through all Muscovy.

⁶ See Jos. Assemani in Calend. t. 6, p. 480, on the 15th of July, et t. 4, p. 34, to 52.

⁷ See Jos. Assemani in Calend. p. 471, t. 6, ad 10 Julij.

⁸ Id. ad 5 Julij, p. 462, et t. 1, p. 21, 29.

* Ardmore (so called from its situation on an eminence) stands on the sea-coast, not far from the month of the river now called Broad water or Black-water. The see was united to that of Lismore after the arrival of the English in Island; and this again to Waterford See St. Carthag’s life, 14 May.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 3, pp. 196–205). New York: P. J. Kenedy.