The Canonization of 1547

Within fourteen years of his death, St. Alexander of Svir was glorified by the Russian Church at the council convened in 1547 by Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow — one of the great wave of Russian canonizations of 1547 and 1549 (the “Makarian councils”). His Life was written for the occasion by his disciple Irodion, and a liturgical service was composed; he is commemorated on 30 August (his repose) and 17 April (the uncovering of his relics).

Tradition: Russian Orthodox

The Makarian Councils

The canonization of St. Alexander belongs to a decisive moment in the history of the Russian Church. In 1547 and 1549, Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow convened two councils (the “Makarian Sobors,” Makar’evskie sobory) for the purpose of examining and glorifying the saints of the Russian land — a great, deliberate gathering-up of the Russian Church’s holy men and women into the calendar, in which many saints venerated locally were established for veneration throughout the Church, and new canonizations were made (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makaryev_Sobors, on the councils of 1547 and 1549 convened by Macarius for the canonization of Russian saints). The councils were part of Macarius’s larger program of consolidating the spiritual patrimony of Rus’ — the same program that produced the vast Great Menaion Reader (Velikie Minei Chetii), the twelve-volume compilation of saints’ Lives and church readings arranged by the calendar, for which Alexander’s Life was written (on the Great Menaion Reader, see The Life by Irodion).

St. Alexander was glorified in this wave. The standard accounts place his canonization in 1547, the year of the first Makarian council — making him one of the first saints canonized in that great wave, and one glorified with unusual swiftness, only fourteen years after his death in 1533 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Svirsky; the 1547 canonization is given in the standard accounts; oca.org, “Venerable Alexander, Abbot of Svir”). Some accounts describe 1547 as the beginning of his general (all-Russian) celebration, with the composition of his service, distinguishing the wave of glorification from any earlier local veneration; the collection reports the 1547 date as the fixed point of his canonization while noting this nuance (per METHODOLOGY §3.5).

[Disputed: whether 1547 marks a canonization from an existing local cult or an all-Russian glorification without prior local veneration. The sources agree that St. Alexander was glorified at the Makarian council of 1547, within the great wave of Russian canonizations, and that his service was composed then; they differ in how they describe any earlier local veneration between his 1533 death and the 1547 council. This collection reports 1547 as the year of his canonization and the swiftness of it — fourteen years after his death — without pressing a claim about the precise prior status of his cult (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makaryev_Sobors; oca.org).]

The Life Written for the Canonization

The canonization and the writing of the Life were bound together. Around 1545 — on the eve of, or in preparation for, the glorification — Alexander’s disciple and successor Irodion (Herodion Kochnev) composed the Life, at the direction of Metropolitan Macarius and with the blessing of Archbishop Feodosy of Novgorod, for inclusion in the Great Menaion Reader (the Life was written in 1545 by Herodion at Macarius’s directive for the Great Menaion Reader; Soboleva, “The Synaxarion Redaction of the Life of St. Alexander Svirsky,” Slověne; orthodoxwiki.org/Alexander_of_Svir). The near-contemporaneity of the Life is thus directly connected to the canonization: it is the text produced to establish and propagate the saint’s veneration, written by one who had known him, within a dozen years of his death (see The Life by Irodion).

This connection is important for reading the whole collection. The single near-contemporary source for Alexander’s life — including the vision of the Holy Trinity — is a canonization Life, written by a disciple to display and confirm the sanctity that the council of 1547 would ratify. That is what makes it early and firm; it is also what makes it hagiography, composed for veneration. Both facts are held together in the collection’s treatment of the Life (per METHODOLOGY §3.5; see Attestation and Tradition).

The Composition of the Service

With the canonization, a liturgical service (an akolouthia) was composed for St. Alexander — the hymns, troparia, and kontakia by which the Church commemorates him on his feast (oca.org; orthodoxwiki.org/Alexander_of_Svir, noting the composition of a service for the saint in connection with the 1547 celebration). The service is the form in which the Church’s reception of the vision and the sanctity is most fully expressed in worship: the vision of the Holy Trinity, the humility of the founder, and the wonders are woven into the hymnography, so that what the Life narrates the Church prays. The service is, in this sense, the Church’s own act of receiving Alexander as a saint — the liturgical counterpart of the conciliar decree.

The Two Feasts

St. Alexander is commemorated on two days in the calendar:

The first feast was established with the canonization; the second was added after the 1641 uncovering, when his universal celebration was affirmed on the two dates — the repose and the glorification-uncovering (oca.org, “Uncovering of the relics of Venerable Alexander,” oca.org/saints/lives/2010/04/17/101131, on the two feasts of 30 August and 17 April). The two feasts frame the two great moments of his cult: the holy death of 1533 and the incorrupt relics of 1641.

The Swiftness of the Glorification

That St. Alexander was glorified so quickly — within fourteen years, and among the very first of the Makarian wave — is itself a fact worth weighing. It testifies to the immediacy and strength of his veneration: a cult already so vivid within a generation of his death that the Church moved at once to establish it. In the Orthodox understanding, canonization is the Church’s recognition of a holiness already manifest in the veneration and intercession of the faithful, not the conclusion of a historical inquiry (this is the theology of glorification developed elsewhere in this repository). The swift canonization of 1547 is the Church’s ratification of a sanctity that his disciples and the northern country had already received — the same sanctity the Life was written to display and the service to celebrate.

See Also

References

  • “Makaryev Sobors.” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makaryev_Sobors. (The councils of 1547 and 1549 convened by Metropolitan Macarius for the canonization of Russian saints.)
  • Soboleva, A. N. “The Synaxarion Redaction of the Life of St. Alexander Svirsky.” Slověne = Словѣне. slovene.ru/ojs/index.php/slovene/article/view/153. (The Life written in 1545 by Herodion at Macarius’s directive for the Great Menaion Reader.)
  • “Venerable Alexander, Abbot of Svir.” Orthodox Church in America. oca.org/saints/lives/2021/08/30/102423.
  • “Uncovering of the relics of Venerable Alexander, Abbot of Svir.” Orthodox Church in America. oca.org/saints/lives/2010/04/17/101131. (The two feasts of 30 August and 17 April.)
  • “Alexander of Svir.” OrthodoxWiki. orthodoxwiki.org/Alexander_of_Svir. (The 1547 celebration and the composition of the service.)