Section 07: Death and Veneration

Olga’s repose on 11 July 969 and the beginnings of her cult. The first file treats her death and her insistence on a Christian burial without a pagan funeral feast — the woman who once turned a funeral feast into a massacre now refusing one for herself; the second treats the early veneration and the relics tradition: the translation of her body by Vladimir, the incorrupt-relics and window-in-the-tomb tradition, and the disputed date of her formal canonization.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Equal-to-the-Apostles)

Contents

File Topic
Repose 969 Her death on 11 July 969; the plea to Svyatoslav; the priest Gregory and the Christian burial without a pagan funeral feast; the Chronicle’s great eulogy placed at her grave
The Early Cult The early veneration (the Chronicle eulogy, Jacob the Monk’s Encomium); the relics tradition — translation to the Church of the Tithes, the incorrupt body and the window in the tomb; the loss of the relics in the 1240 Mongol sack; the disputed canonization date (1284? / 1547)

How to Use

  • Read Repose 969 for the sealing of the life’s arc: the deliberate Christian repudiation of pagan death-ritual at her own grave.
  • Read The Early Cult for how the veneration began and how its relics-claims are pinned to their sources — early near-contemporary praise distinguished from the developed later cult.

Cross-References