St. Sergius of Radonezh reposed on this day in 1392. The destruction of Kiev by the Mongols in 1240 accelerated the development of the Principality of Vladimir, which subsequently took over Grand Duchy of Moscow. The first saints of the Mongol period were Russian princes and holy hierarchs from this area. St. Sergius of Radonezh was the first monastic saint of this period. Russian monasticism was established in the 11th century by the cave-dweller St. Anthony. His contemporary St. Theodoisus organized the individual monastics into a monastery in the city of Kiev. They did not have a coenobitic life (a monastery which provides for brethren) at Kiev Caves Monastery. The Kiev Caves Paterikonblatantly depicts the problems engendered by the monastery’s idiorrhythmic rule of life (each individual looks after himself financially). It took St. Sergius to change the situation in Russian monasticism. After he and his brother Stephen withdrew from the world, little by little, they began to receive new brethren. They carried on the principle of idiorrhythmic self-sufficiency, until St. Sergius decided to depart from it. Yet he did not stop there in his exploration of different ways of monastic life, going so far as to entertain a correspondence with Patriarch Philotheos (Kokkinos, d. 1379) of Constantinople regarding traditions of monastic spirituality. Continuing in St. Alexis’ footsteps (see my September 15 report), St. Sergius supported Moscow against other Russian principalities to the point that he went to Nizhnii Novgorod to announce the cessation (“interdict”) of all liturgies in churches there as long as the local prince refused to place himself under Moscow. Holy Trinity Monastery, which he founded, became the “mother ship” for many other Russian church centers. The saints who emerged out of St. Sergius’ coenobium, like St. Stephen of Perm, established monasteries and missions across the land of Rusʹ. One reason why St. Sergius’ relics and his Lavra became such an integral part of the Russian cultural code is given by the great Russian historian Vasilii Kliuchevskii (1841-1911): “Venerable Sergius, by virtue of his life, or rather the very fact that such a life was possible, caused the grieving people [of Rusʹ] to feel that not everything good in them had yet been extinguished and frozen; by his manifestation among his fellow countrymen, who were sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, he opened their eyes to themselves, helped them to peer into their own inner darkness and see there the still-smoldering sparks of the same fire of the light which had once illuminated them.” | 
