Ilya Muromets' Day

January 1 commemorates the Russian saint Rev. Ilya, the wonderworker of Murom. He was a warrior and monk, served the Fatherland during the reign of Vladimir Monomakh.

It is generally believed that Muromets's prototype was Venerable Ilya Pechersky, a monastic saint of the Orthodox Church, beatified in 1643.

Ilya Pechersky is a monk of the Kiev Pechersky Monastery. Holy Russian Orthodox Church, revered in the guise of the saints, commemorates on September 28 (October 11), in the Cathedral of the Reverend Fathers of the Kiev Pechersk Caves and December 19 (January 1).

Some researchers and Russian Orthodoxy consider the prototype of the epic character to be a historical strongman nicknamed "Chobotok", a native of the village of Karacharova near Murom. Some nineteenth-century historians also suggested that Karachev and Morovsk might have been his homeland.

Chobotok took monasticism in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra under the name Ilya and was canonized as "the Monk Iliya of Muromets" (canonized in 1643). Ilya Muromets died around 1188. Memory according to the church calendar - December 19 (January 1) .

The first written information about him dates back to the 1630s. Early tradition dates the life of Ilya to the 12th century. Researchers date the 11th – 12th centuries. In 1594, the ambassador of the Roman (Germanic) emperor Erich Lassot reported in his notes about Ilya Muromets and Chobotka as different people: most likely, seeing the destroyed tomb and relics in the cave, he did not assume that they could belong to the same person. He was told that Chobotok was a hero and wore his nickname since he once fought off the enemies with a chobot - that is, a boot.

In Murom there are numerous legends about Ilya. Muromites of Gushchins are considered to be his descendants, hereditarily possessing great strength (for example, one of the Gushchins, who lived at the end of the 19th century, was even forbidden to participate in fist fights). The hut of Ilya is believed to have stood on that spot in the village of Karacharov (now part of Murom), where the house of one of the Gushchins now stands. Nearby is the Trinity Church, which Ilya, according to legend, personally folded, carrying trunks of oak-firewood from the river.

Local veneration of the Monk Ilya began at the end of the 17th century, when the Pechersk archimandrite Varlaam (Yasinsky) established the celebration of the Cathedral of the Reverend Fathers of the Near Caves. General veneration of the church began after the permission of the Holy Synod in the second half of the 18th century to include the names of a number of Kiev saints in the general church month’s words.

Currently, the relics of Ilya Muromets rest in the Near Caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Part of the relics of Ilya - the middle finger of the left hand - is located in the Transfiguration Monastery of the city ​​of Murom.

In 1988, the Interdepartmental Commission of the Ministry of Health of the Ukrainian SSR conducted an examination of the relics of St. Ilya of Muromets. Studies of the relics showed that the reverend was a large man and had a height of about 180 cm (high growth for the Middle Ages). He found signs of a spinal disease (epic Ilya from birth to 33 years old was paralyzed). The cause of death was probably the blow of a sharp instrument (spear or sword) in the chest, through the left arm covering the chest. Death occurred at the age of about 40–55 years.

It is believed that he died during the capture of Kiev by Prince Rurik Rostislavich on January 2, 1203, accompanied by the defeat of the Pechersk Lavra by the Polovtsy allied to Rurik. In that case, he was to be born between 1150 and 1165. In the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra itself, it is believed that after a serious wound, Ilya decides to end his days as a monk and tonsure his hair at the Theodosius Monastery (now the Kiev Pechersk Lavra) .

The absence in Kiev-Pechersk Patericon of the mention of the life of the Monk Ilya indirectly indicates that the holy warrior managed to spend not so much time in monastic deeds.