Patron of Bulgaria

The veneration of St. John of Rila as the heavenly patron of the Bulgarian people: his principal feast on 18 August (his repose) and the translation feasts (19 October and 1 July); his standing as the most beloved saint of Bulgaria, “the heavenly protector of Bulgaria”; and the great pilgrimage to his relics at Rila — the cult that binds the saint, the monastery, and the nation into one.

Tradition: Bulgarian Orthodox

The Most Beloved Saint of Bulgaria

St. John of Rila is venerated as the patron saint of the Bulgarian people and the most cherished of all Bulgarian saints — “the heavenly protector of Bulgaria,” in the standard phrase of the national broadcaster and the Church alike (St. Ivan Rilski — the heavenly protector of Bulgaria, Bulgarian National Radio; John of Rila, OrthodoxWiki). His name, Ivan, is among the most common in the country; his image hangs in countless homes and churches; and his monastery is the foremost national shrine (see The Heart of Bulgaria). He is, more than any bishop or tsar, the figure in whom Bulgarian Orthodoxy recognizes itself — the hermit who owned nothing and became the father of a nation’s faith.

The Feasts

The Orthodox calendar keeps St. John of Rila on more than one day, reflecting the events of his life and the journeys of his relics; the days are best set out plainly, since they are easily confused.

18 August — the repose. The principal feast is 18 August, commemorating his death around 946. This is the chief day on which the Bulgarian Church and the wider Orthodox world honor him, and it is the feast of the saint himself (Repose of Venerable John, Abbot of Rila, Orthodox Church in America [oca.org]; John of Rila, Wikipedia; see The Repose of St. John).

19 October — the translation to Tarnovo. A second major feast falls on 19 October, commemorating the translation of the relics to Tarnovo (dated, in the Slavic-synaxarion tradition that underlies this feast, to 1238) (Repose of Venerable John, OCA; OrthoChristian.com; see The Journeys of the Relics). In much Bulgarian usage 19 October is observed as a great feast of the saint, widely kept as a name-day and a popular commemoration.

1 July — the return to Rila (1469). The translation of the relics from Tarnovo back to Rila Monastery in 1469 is commemorated, in the Orthodox calendar, on 1 July (Repose of Venerable John, OCA, “Translation of the relics… from Trnovo to Rila”; see The Journeys of the Relics).

[Disputed: the assignment of the feasts varies by calendar and is often conflated. The repose is kept on 18 August; the translation to Tarnovo on 19 October (dated 1238 in the OCA/Slavic synaxarion, against the Bulgarian-scholarly 1195 dating of the event itself); and the 1469 return to Rila on 1 July in the OCA reckoning. Some popular and devotional sources differ — variously attaching the 1469 return or other commemorations to 18 August — and Old-Style/New-Style conversion adds further apparent dates; the three feasts above are the standard set.]

The Pilgrimage to the Relics

Since the great return of 1469 the relics of St. John have rested at Rila Monastery, and they are the destination of one of the most important pilgrimages in the Orthodox Slavic world (see The Journeys of the Relics). The faithful come from across Bulgaria and beyond to venerate the body of the wonderworker — for healing, for blessing, for the renewal of the bond between the people and their patron. The popular devotion extends to the cave and healing spring at the Old Hermitage, with its tradition of the narrow opening through which pilgrims pass (see The Holy Man and the Wild). On the feast days the monastery fills, and the cult that began at a tenth-century grave continues unbroken — the longest-running act of national devotion in Bulgarian history.

A Saint Who Belongs to the People

What distinguishes John’s patronage is its popular character. He was not a royal saint, not a founder of dynasties, not a bishop of the great cities; he was a herdsman who became a hermit and refused even a tsar’s gold (see The King and the Hermit). The tradition has never forgotten this. His patronage of Bulgaria is felt as the patronage of one who came from the people, lived in poverty, and owed nothing to power — a saint of the nation precisely because he was a saint of the poor and the hidden. It is this that has made him, through the medieval empires, the Ottoman centuries, and the modern state alike, the abiding heavenly protector of his land (see John of Rila in Bulgarian Identity).

Old Style and New Style

The feast dates require one further word, because the Julian (“Old Style”) calendar still used liturgically by much of the Orthodox world stands at present thirteen days behind the civil Gregorian (“New Style”) calendar. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church adopted the Revised Julian calendar for fixed feasts in 1968, so that in Bulgaria the saint’s days are now kept on their nominal dates — 18 August, 19 October, 1 July — by the civil reckoning (on the calendar question across the Orthodox Churches, see Greece, Bulgaria, and the Other Autocephalous Churches). Where Old-Style observance persists, the same feasts fall thirteen days later on the civil calendar, which accounts for much of the apparent confusion of dates in devotional sources; the liturgical day is the same, only the calendar against which it is read differs (John of Rila, Wikipedia; Repose of Venerable John, OCA). This is the ordinary mechanism behind the doubled dates one meets throughout the literature of the Orthodox saints, and it should not be mistaken for disagreement about the feast itself.

Name-Days and Folk Piety

Beyond the liturgy, the saint lives in the texture of Bulgarian daily life. His name, Ivan (and its feminine Ivana, Yoana, and kindred forms), is among the commonest in the country, and the autumn feast of 19 October is kept as the principal name-day (imen den) of all who bear it — one of the busiest of the Bulgarian name-day calendar, an occasion of household celebration that carries the saint into homes far beyond the churchgoing (St. Ivan Rilski — the heavenly protector of Bulgaria, Bulgarian National Radio [bnr.bg]; John of Rila, Wikipedia). The same day has gathered further popular associations: since 1995 the Bulgarian Medical Association has kept St. Ivan Rilski as the patron of the country’s physicians and health workers, who celebrate their professional feast on 19 October, and many schools bearing his name mark the day as well (St. Ivan Rilski — the patron of Bulgarian doctors, Bulgarian National Radio [bnr.bg]). Thus the herdsman-hermit has become, in modern folk and civic piety, a patron of healers, of teachers and students, and of everyone named for him — the saint of the ordinary Bulgarian’s calendar as much as of the Church’s.

The Veneration of the Relics

The bodily relics of the saint are the living center of his cult. Since the return of 1469 they have rested at Rila, today in a reliquary in the main church of the Nativity of the Virgin (see The Revival and UNESCO), where on the great feasts they are exposed for the veneration of the faithful, who come in their thousands to kiss the casket and seek the saint’s intercession for healing and blessing (John of Rila, Wikipedia; rilskimanastir.org). The devotion is not confined to the relics’ resting place: it extends along the whole landscape of the saint’s life — to the cave and the healing spring at the Old Hermitage, with the tradition of the narrow passage through which pilgrims pass (see The Holy Man and the Wild) — so that pilgrimage to Rila is at once a journey to a tomb, a wilderness, and a spring. In this continuous traffic of the faithful to the body of the wonderworker, the cult that began at a tenth-century grave is renewed in every generation: the most enduring act of national devotion in Bulgarian history, and the concrete form of the bond between a people and its patron.

See Also

• The Bulgarian Church — John’s place in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and Slavic Orthodoxy
• The Repose of St. John — the death commemorated on 18 August
• The Journeys of the Relics — the translations commemorated on 19 October and 1 July
• John of Rila in Bulgarian Identity — the national saint and the people’s devotion
• The Heart of Bulgaria — the monastery that is the seat of his cult

References

• Repose of Venerable John, Abbot of Rila. Orthodox Church in America (oca.org), Lives of the Saints (repose 18 August; translation to Tarnovo 19 October [1238]; translation Tarnovo→Rila 1 July [1469]).
• John of Rila. Wikipedia and OrthodoxWiki. (Patron of Bulgaria; the feast of 18 August; the cult.)
• St. Ivan Rilski — the heavenly protector of Bulgaria. Bulgarian National Radio (bnr.bg). (John as patron and protector of Bulgaria; popular devotion.)
• OrthoChristian.com (orthochristian.com). (The translation feasts and the cult of the relics.)
• Rila Monastery official site (rilskimanastir.org). (The relics, the pilgrimage, and the cave devotion; the reliquary in the main church.)
• St. Ivan Rilski — the patron of Bulgarian doctors. Bulgarian National Radio (bnr.bg). (The 19 October name-day; the Bulgarian Medical Association’s adoption of the saint as patron of physicians since 1995; schools bearing his name.)
• John of Rila. Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Rila). (The Bulgarian Church’s Revised Julian calendar; the name-day; the veneration of the relics at Rila.)