Blessed Procopius, Fool for Christ's sake, Ustyug Wonderworker

Right Procopius of Ustyug

Procopius of Ustyug
(+ 1303), holy fool for Christ's sake, wonderworker, righteous Memory July 8

He was a German by birth [1], the son of wealthy Latin parents, and arrived on a ship loaded with very large wealth for the purpose of trading from Hanseatic Lübeck to Veliky Novgorod on behalf of his father. He was captivated by the beauty of the churches and Orthodox singing, received baptism, distributed his property to the poor, became a monk at the Khutyn Monastery and began to act like a fool.

Fleeing from worldly glory, he was blessed by the abbot to travel to the “eastern countries.” In winter, without clothes, enduring various bullying, he reached Ustyug the Great, where he settled in a wretched hut.

The life of blessed Procopius was like this. He did not value the glory of the vain and fleeting world. During the day, insulted and beaten by people, he was tormented by many insults, and at night he did not give himself any rest, but walked around the city and all of God's churches and prayed to the Lord with copious tears, on his knees, asking God for help for the city and the people. In the morning, he again walked the city streets all day, being a fool. When the saint wanted to find peace from his many labors or to sleep a little, then he lay down on the street, in a garbage dump, or on a pile of garbage, or in a dilapidated, uncovered chapel, without covering his naked body. And winter frost, and snow, and summer solar heat, and heat and rain - the blessed one endured all this with joy and gratitude for God's sake. Just as he loved God with all his soul and body, so God loved and glorified him in the world from a young age. The blessed one received from the Lord the prophetic gift, as well as the gift of miracles.

Then the blessed one lived on the porch of the Cathedral Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He stayed there constantly: in winter and summer, day and night, right there, without entering anyone’s house and without worrying about food and clothing, he took a little food from the God-fearing parishioners and thereby nourished his body (and not every day); He did not accept any food from the rich.

The saint foresaw his day of death in advance. He reposed on July 8, 1303 near the Vvedensky Monastery, at the holy gate at the end of the platform. Three days later, his dead body was found under a huge snowdrift caused by a snowstorm.

He was buried with great honors near the cathedral church. The saint became famous during his lifetime for numerous miracles, the most important of which was the salvation of Ustyug from destruction by a stone cloud. In 1481, a temple was erected at the site of his burial by Ustyug warriors, in gratitude for his salvation during the campaign against Nizhny Novgorod. In 1495, the church was restored, and this time consecrated in the name of the righteous Procopius of Ustyug. Church-wide glorification of the saint followed at the Moscow Council in 1547.

Cancer with the relics of rights. Procopy of Ustyug

The relics of the saint were found and placed in a shrine in the Veliky Ustyug Prokopievsky Cathedral, where they rest to this day [2].
On the icons, Saint Procopius is depicted with three pokers, which he carried in his left hand. When the saint's pokers were positioned straight, it meant that in the summer there would be a bountiful harvest of bread and an abundance of other earthly fruits, and when his pokers were not turned upside down, it meant that a grain crop failure and a scarcity of other fruits of all sorts were expected, and a great famine occurred.

Leaving Novgorod

But the Novgorodians, having learned that Procopius accepted the holy faith and gave away all his property, began to praise and extol him.
It was hard for Procopius to hear such talk about himself. Human glory, which deprived his humble heart of peace, became an unbearable burden for him. Fearing because of her that he would lose his heavenly glory, he revealed his spiritual sorrow to Elder Varlaam and began to ask him for advice and blessings to retire somewhere where no one would know him. The elder at first restrained him, advising him better not to leave the monastery and even go into seclusion, but Procopius’ desire was adamant, as if something was drawing him from the monastery. And no matter how hard Varlaam tried, he could not stop him, and, having given instructions, the elder, with prayer and blessing, sent his student on his way. Without any means of subsistence, without taking anything even for the journey, Procopius left the monastery in poor clothes. Often a tired wanderer after a long day's journey had to remain without food, sleep on the street in the rain and wind, unless he met a compassionate person who would volunteer to feed and calm him down, for Procopius, no matter how hungry he was, never asked for anything and presented feeling stupid. He suffered a lot of ridicule and insults, curses and beatings from rude people along the way, he had to endure a lot in his old rags from the summer heat and insects, and from winter blizzards and bitter frosts. But he did not lose heart and did not lose heart, knowing that every day of his voluntary suffering, every step along this narrow and truly path of the cross brought him closer to eternal peace and the Heavenly Fatherland. Acting like a fool during the day, he did not give himself rest at night, spending it on kneeling and prayers. Moving in this way from country to country, from city to city, and going further and further to the east, Procopius reached Ustyug.

Excerpt characterizing Procopius of Ustyug

Finally, the sovereign leaves the army, and as the only and most convenient pretext for his departure, the idea is chosen that he needs to inspire the people in the capitals to initiate a people's war. And this trip of the sovereign and Moscow triples the strength of the Russian army. The sovereign leaves the army in order not to hamper the unity of power of the commander-in-chief, and hopes that more decisive measures will be taken; but the position of the army command is even more confused and weakened. Bennigsen, the Grand Duke and a swarm of adjutant generals remain with the army in order to monitor the actions of the commander-in-chief and arouse him to energy, and Barclay, feeling even less free under the eyes of all these sovereign eyes, becomes even more careful for decisive actions and avoids battles. Barclay stands for caution. The Tsarevich hints at treason and demands a general battle. Lyubomirsky, Branitsky, Wlotsky and the like are inflating all this noise so much that Barclay, under the pretext of delivering papers to the sovereign, sends the Poles as adjutant generals to St. Petersburg and enters into an open fight with Bennigsen and the Grand Duke. In Smolensk, finally, no matter how Bagration wished it, the armies are united. Bagration drives up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay. Barclay puts on a scarf, goes out to meet him and reports to the senior rank of Bagration. Bagration, in the struggle of generosity, despite the seniority of his rank, submits to Barclay; but, having submitted, she agrees with him even less. Bagration personally, by order of the sovereign, informs him. He writes to Arakcheev: “The will of my sovereign, I cannot do it together with the minister (Barclay). For God's sake, send me somewhere, even to command a regiment, but I can’t be here; and the entire main apartment is filled with Germans, so it’s impossible for a Russian to live, and there’s no point. I thought I was truly serving the sovereign and the fatherland, but in reality it turns out that I am serving Barclay. I admit, I don’t want to.” The swarm of Branitskys, Wintzingerodes and the like further poisons the relations of the commanders-in-chief, and even less unity emerges. They are planning to attack the French in front of Smolensk. A general is sent to inspect the position. This general, hating Barclay, goes to his friend, the corps commander, and, after sitting with him for a day, returns to Barclay and condemns on all counts the future battlefield, which he has not seen. While there are disputes and intrigues about the future battlefield, while we are looking for the French, having made a mistake in their location, the French stumble upon Neverovsky’s division and approach the very walls of Smolensk. We must take on an unexpected battle in Smolensk in order to save our messages. The battle is given. Thousands are being killed on both sides. Smolensk is abandoned against the will of the sovereign and all the people. But Smolensk was burned by the residents themselves, deceived by their governor, and the ruined residents, setting an example for other Russians, go to Moscow, thinking only about their losses and inciting hatred of the enemy. Napoleon moves on, we retreat, and the very thing that was supposed to defeat Napoleon is achieved. The day after his son’s departure, Prince Nikolai Andreich called Princess Marya to his place. - Well, are you satisfied now? - he told her, - she quarreled with her son! Are you satisfied? That's all you needed! Are you satisfied?.. It hurts me, it hurts. I'm old and weak, and that's what you wanted. Well, rejoice, rejoice... - And after that, Princess Marya did not see her father for a week. He was sick and did not leave the office. To her surprise, Princess Marya noticed that during this time of illness the old prince also did not allow m lle Bourienne to visit him. Only Tikhon followed him. A week later, the prince left and began his old life again, being especially active in buildings and gardens and ending all previous relations with m lle Bourienne. His appearance and cold tone with Princess Marya seemed to say to her: “You see, you made it up about me, lied to Prince Andrei about my relationship with this Frenchwoman and quarreled me with him; and you see that I don’t need either you or the Frenchwoman.” Princess Marya spent one half of the day with Nikolushka, watching his lessons, herself giving him lessons in the Russian language and music, and talking with Desalles; she spent the other part of the day in her quarters with books, an old nanny, and with God's people, who sometimes came to her from the back porch. Princess Marya thought about the war the way women think about war. She was afraid for her brother, who was there, horrified, without understanding her, by human cruelty, which forced them to kill each other; but she did not understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her the same as all previous wars. She did not understand the significance of this war, despite the fact that Desalles, her constant interlocutor, who was passionately interested in the progress of the war, tried to explain his thoughts to her, and despite the fact that the people of God who came to her all spoke with horror in their own way about popular rumors about the invasion of the Antichrist, and despite the fact that Julie, now Princess Drubetskaya, who again entered into correspondence with her, wrote patriotic letters to her from Moscow. “I am writing to you in Russian, my good friend,” wrote Julie, “because I have hatred for all the French, as well as for their language, which I cannot hear spoken... We in Moscow are all delighted through enthusiasm for our beloved emperor. My poor husband endures labor and hunger in Jewish taverns; but the news I have makes me even more excited. You probably heard about the heroic feat of Raevsky, who hugged his two sons and said: “I will die with them, but we will not waver!” And indeed, although the enemy was twice as strong as us, we did not waver. We spend our time as best we can; but in war, as in war. Princess Alina and Sophie sit with me all day long, and we, unfortunate widows of living husbands, have wonderful conversations over lint; only you, my friend, are missing... etc. Mostly Princess Marya did not understand the full significance of this war because the old prince never talked about it, did not acknowledge it and laughed at Desalles at dinner when he talked about this war. The prince's tone was so calm and confident that Princess Marya, without reasoning, believed him. Throughout the month of July, the old prince was extremely active and even animated. He also laid out a new garden and a new building, a building for the courtyard workers. One thing that bothered Princess Marya was that he slept little and, having changed his habit of sleeping in the study, changed the place of his overnight stays every day. Either he ordered his camp bed to be set up in the gallery, then he remained on the sofa or in the Voltaire chair in the living room and dozed without undressing, while not m lle Bourienne, but the boy Petrusha read to him; then he spent the night in the dining room. On August 1, a second letter was received from Prince Andrei. In the first letter, received shortly after his departure, Prince Andrei humbly asked his father for forgiveness for what he had allowed himself to say to him, and asked him to return his favor to him. The old prince responded to this letter with an affectionate letter and after this letter he alienated the Frenchwoman from himself. Prince Andrei's second letter, written from near Vitebsk, after the French occupied it, consisted of a brief description of the entire campaign with a plan outlined in the letter, and considerations for the further course of the campaign. In this letter, Prince Andrei presented his father with the inconvenience of his position close to the theater of war, on the very line of movement of the troops, and advised him to go to Moscow. At dinner that day, in response to the words of Desalles, who said that, as heard, the French had already entered Vitebsk, the old prince remembered Prince Andrei’s letter. “I received it from Prince Andrei today,” he said to Princess Marya, “didn’t you read it?” “No, mon pere, [father],” the princess answered fearfully. She could not read a letter that she had never even heard of.

Veliky Ustyug

Having wandered around the city for a long time, persecuted and insulted everywhere, righteous Procopius finally chose as his permanent residence a corner of the porch of the huge high cathedral church of the Dormition of the Mother of God, cut down from wood. Here he began to stay summer and winter, without missing a single church service, spent his nights in prayer, and during the day he wandered the streets of the city.

One winter, during a severe cold, when the birds froze in flight, Saint Procopius wanted to find shelter in the houses of the poor, but no one accepted him. By the Providence of God, even the dogs, near which blessed Procopius wanted to warm himself, ran away from him. Taking this as the will of God, the saint no longer sought shelter and went to the Assumption Church, where he usually spent the night. Blessed Procopius was already freezing on the porch with the words of thanksgiving on his lips: “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” when suddenly there was a breath of unearthly warmth, and the Angel of the Lord touched his face with a beautiful paradise branch... The blessed one told the cleric of the cathedral church Simeon about this with a request not to talk about it until his death.

- How do you know that I won’t lay down before you? – asked the cleric. “If I didn’t know, I wouldn’t tell,” answered the holy fool. – Now I know a lot of things in advance.

Subsequently, Simeon made notes about the righteous Procopius, where he outlined this event from the life of the saint.

Received in Ustyug very inhospitably, he barely survived on meager alms, slept on a dung heap in severe cold, and often spent the night on the stone slabs of the porch of the cathedral church. One day, in a particularly severe frost, he came to ask for shelter from the same Simeon. The cleric's three-year-old daughter opened the door for him. Seeing her, the usually stern-looking Procopius beamed, entered the house and appeared before Simeon with “a bright vision and a sweet laugh.” He hugged and kissed the owner, greeting him with the words: “Brother Simeon, from now on have fun and don’t be discouraged!” - Why should I be in constant joy? – the cleric was surprised. Instead of answering, Procopius took his three-year-old daughter by the hand, led her to the middle of the room and bowed low to her, telling her parents: “Here is the mother of the great saint!” Indeed, the daughter of the cleric Simeon later became the mother of St. Stephen of Perm.

For some reason, the cleric immediately believed Procopius, received him in the house, and showed him respect. But other Ustyun residents did not take the absurd figure of the holy fool seriously; they were irritated by his endless attempts to instruct them.

Bibliography

Life of Rev. Procopy of Ustyug. SPb. 1893.
Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky. Lives of saints as a historical source. M., 1871.
Lives of the saints, set out according to the guidance of the venerable saints. Demetrius of Rostov. M., 1904.
Erzpriester Stephan Ljaschewski. Der Heilige Prokopij von Lübeck. —Hrsg. von Griech.-orthodoxe Kirche von Lübeck: Lübeck, 1948.
Ernst Benz. Russische Heiligenlegenden. Verlag: Waage, Zürich, 1953, 428-429, 283-292.
Ivan Kologriwow. Das andere Russland. Versuch einer Darstellung des Wesens und der Eigenart russischer Heiligkeit. München, Manz, 1958, 379 S.
Michael Evdokimov. Russian Pilger. Vagabunden und Mystiker. Salzburg: O. Müller, 1990, 238 S.
S. A. Ivanov. Byzantine foolishness. M.: International relations, 1994.
The life of the holy righteous Procopius, Christ for the sake of the fool, the Ustyug wonderworker. Archaeogr. and textol. preparation, trans. L. I. Shchegoleva. Compiled by: S. V. Zavadskaya. M., 2003.
Vlasov, A. N. Live stories and legends about the holy fools Procopius and John of Ustyug. SPb., Publishing house Oleg Abyshko, 2010, 640 p.

Saving the city

In vain, in 1290, for a whole week the blessed one tirelessly walked around the city and, until his voice became hoarse, called on the residents to repent and pray, proclaiming God’s wrath on the city of Ustyug: “For lawless and incomparable deeds, evil will perish by fire and water.” None of the careless townspeople listened to the holy fool; he alone prayed day and night for the salvation of the city from the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, mired in sin. The townspeople not only did not listen to him, but even wanted to expel Procopius, who was annoying with tearful prayers, from the temple. When the storm broke out, the residents rushed to the cathedral church, where the blessed one was already praying before the icon of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos. The people of Ustyug prayed with him long and earnestly. Fragrant myrrh flowed from the icon of the Mother of God and a fragrance spread throughout the temple. At the same time, a firestorm suddenly passed through the city. 20 versts from Ustyug, hot stones fell in a hail, crushing and destroying many trees, but at the same time, by the mercy of God, revealed through the intercession of Blessed Procopius, none of the people were hurt and even the cattle remained unharmed. Meanwhile, so much holy myrrh flowed from the miraculous icon of the Mother of God that those praying in the church filled the church vessels with it; the sick received healing from the anointing with this world. In the same year, the celebration of the Ustyug Icon of the Mother of God (July 8) was established in memory of the city’s deliverance from destruction. In 1597, the miraculous icon was transferred to the Moscow Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin.

Procopius himself now became revered, people listened to him, and gave him favor and love. They hung on his every word, perceiving it as an instruction and a warning. But the holy fool lived just as modestly, not recognizing any benefits.

Demise

He had a favorite place - on the high bank of the Sukhona River, not far from the cathedral. The holy fool loved to look into the distance from the steep bank and always prayed to the Lord to protect people crossing the wide, restless river. Everyone in the city knew that while Procopius was sitting over the cliff, you could safely go into the water and swim to the other side: even if you swim like an axe, an unknown force will support you on the water and help you overcome the river. In this place, which he loved, the holy fool asked to be buried when his time came to appear before the Lord.

One summer, while praying at night out of habit, Procopius felt a familiar touch on his cheek. He raised his eyes and a white angel stood in front of him and said:

- Get ready, Procopius, your earthly feat is coming to an end, on July 8 the Lord will take you to Himself.

He said and disappeared. The next day Procopius told everyone about the miraculous phenomenon and began to eagerly await the appointed day.

The night of July 8 was warm, Procopius went outside the city walls, knelt down and prayed for the last time, lay down on his side, curled up and died quietly.

According to the wishes of the blessed one, his body was buried on the banks of the Sukhona River, near the cathedral church in honor of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The stone on which blessed Procopius loved to pray for a long time was decorated with an image of his face and placed over his coffin. At the site of the repose of the blessed one, a chapel was erected, in which there was an icon depicting the saint.

Memory

In 1471, in Veliky Ustyug, at the burial site of the righteous Procopius, a temple was built - gratitude for the prayerful help of the blessed one, who saved the Ustyug squad from a dangerous disease in Nizhny Novgorod.

Saint Procopius then appeared to many warriors with the promise of healing from a terrible illness if they vowed to build a temple over his grave. The temple was consecrated in the name of the holy passion-bearers Boris and Gleb. This temple burned down on August 1, 1490 from lightning. In 1495, military men also built a new temple, consecrated in the name of blessed Procopius, since by that time the holiness of righteous Procopius had been witnessed by many miracles. At the same time, a tomb was erected over his grave. The church glorification of Blessed Procopius took place at the Moscow Council in 1547; his memory was established on July 8.

Through the prayerful intercession of the blessed one, many who turned to his prayerful help received healing from various illnesses.