Holy Righteous Tsarevich DIMITRY OF UGLICH (†1591)

Tsarevich Dmitry. Painting by M. V. Nesterov, 1899

The Holy Right-Believing Tsarevich Dimitri is the son of Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible and his seventh wife, Tsarina Maria Feodorovna Nagaya. He was the last representative of the Moscow line of the Rurikovich house. According to the custom of that time, the prince was given two names: Uar, after the name of St. Huara, on his birthday (October 21) and Demetrius (October 26) - on the day of his baptism.

After the death of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, his eldest son, the Christ-loving Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, ascended the throne. However, the actual ruler of the Russian state was his brother-in-law, the power-hungry boyar Boris Godunov. The good Theodore Ioannovich was completely immersed in spiritual life, and Boris did everything he wanted; foreign courts sent gifts to Godunov on a par with the tsar. Meanwhile, Boris knew that everyone in the state, starting with Tsar Theodore, recognized Demetrius as the heir to the throne and his name was remembered in churches. Boris Godunov began to act against the prince as against his personal enemy, wanting to get rid of the rightful heir to the Russian throne.

For this, Boris decided to remove the prince from the Moscow royal court. Together with his mother, the widowed queen Maria Feodorovna, and her relatives, Tsarevich Dimitri was sent to his appanage city of Uglich.

Ancient Uglich was “great and populous” at that time. According to the Uglich chronicles, it had 150 churches, including three cathedrals, and twelve monasteries. The total population was forty thousand. On the right bank of the Volga stood the Kremlin, surrounded by a strong wall with towers, where the future tsar was to live. Fate, however, decreed otherwise.

Trying to avoid dangerous bloodshed, Boris Godunov first tried to slander the young heir to the throne by spreading false rumors through his followers about the alleged illegitimacy of the prince (referring to the fact that the Orthodox Church considers only three consecutive marriages legal), and by forbidding the mention of his name during services.

Then he spread a new fiction that Demetrius had inherited the cruel temper and severity of Ivan the Terrible. Since these actions did not bring what they wanted, the insidious Boris decided to destroy the prince. An attempt to poison Dimitri with the help of Vasilisa Volokhova, Dimitri Ioannovich’s nurse, was unsuccessful: the deadly potion did not harm him.

Then, having decided on an obvious crime, Boris began to look for the killers. And he found it in the person of clerk Mikhail Bityagovsky, his son Danila and nephew Nikita Kachalov. They also bribed the Tsarevich's mother Vasilisa Volokhova and her son Osip.

On the morning of May 15, 1591, the mother took the prince for a walk. The nurse, driven by some vague premonition, did not want to let him in. But the mother resolutely took the hand and led the prince out onto the porch. His killers were already waiting there. Osip Volokhov took him by the hand and asked: “Is this your new necklace, sir?” He answered in a quiet voice: “This is an old necklace.” Volokhov stabbed him in the neck, but did not take his larynx. The nurse, seeing the death of the sovereign, fell on him and began to scream. Danilko Volokhov threw the knife, ran away, and his accomplices, Danilko Bityagovsky and Mikitka Kachalov, beat the nurse to a pulp. The prince was slaughtered like a virgin lamb and thrown from the porch.

At the sight of this terrible crime, the sexton of the cathedral church, locked in the bell tower, sounded the alarm, calling the people. People who came running from all over the city avenged the innocent blood of the eight-year-old boy Demetrius, arbitrarily dealing with the cruel conspirators.

The murder of the Tsarevich was reported to Moscow, and the Tsar himself wanted to go to Uglich to investigate, but Godunov kept him under various pretexts. Boris Godunov sent his people to Uglich led by Prince V.I. Shuisky for judicial trial and managed to convince the king that he younger brother, while playing “poke”, was captured by an epilepsy attack and during it he accidentally stumbled upon a knife.

This result of the investigation led to severe punishment Nagikh and Uglichians, as guilty of rebellion and arbitrariness. The Queen Mother, accused of lack of supervision over the prince, was exiled to the remote, meager monastery of St. Nicholas on Voskhe, on the other side of the White Lake, and tonsured into monasticism with the name of Martha. Her brothers were exiled different places into captivity; the inhabitants of Uglich were some executed, some exiled to a settlement in Pelym, and many had their tongues cut. Subsequently, by order of Vasily Shuisky, the bell, which served as an alarm, had its tongue cut off (as a person), and he, along with the Uglich rebels, became the first exiles in the newly annexed To the Russian state Siberia. Only in late XIX century, the disgraced bell was returned to Uglich. Currently it hangs in the Church of Tsarevich Demetrius “On the Blood”.

A children's cemetery arose around the prince's grave and the chapel erected over it.

However, fifteen years after the murder of the Tsarevich, already being the Tsar, Shuisky testified in front of all of Russia that “Tsarevich Dimitri Ioannovich, out of the envy of Boris Godunov, slaughtered himself like a sheep without malice.” The motivation for this was the desire, in the words of Tsar Vasily Shuisky, “to stop the lips of lies and blind the eyes of unbelievers who say that the living one will escape (the prince) from the murderous hands,” in view of the appearance of an impostor who declared himself the true Tsarevich Dimitri. A special commission was sent to Uglich under the leadership of Metropolitan Philaret of Rostov. When they opened the prince’s coffin, an “extraordinary incense” spread throughout the cathedral, and then they found that “in his left hand the prince was holding a towel embroidered with gold, and in the other - nuts,” and in this form he suffered death. 3 July 1606 g . he was canonized. The holy relics were solemnly transferred and placed in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin - the family grand-ducal and royal tomb, "in the chapel of John the Baptist, where his father and brothers were."

Cancer of Tsarevich Dimitry of Uglich in the Arkhangelsk Cathedral of the Kremlin

Immediately after the death of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, rumors appeared that Tsarevich Dmitry was alive. During the reign of Boris Godunov, these rumors intensified, and by the end of his reign in 1604, everyone was talking about the supposedly living prince. They told each other that the wrong child had allegedly been stabbed to death in Uglich, and that the real Tsarevich Dmitry was now marching as an army from Lithuania to take the royal throne that was rightfully due to him. Began Time of Troubles. The name of Tsarevich Dmitry, which became a symbol of the “right”, “legitimate” tsar, was adopted by several impostors, one of whom reigned in Moscow.

In 1603, False Dmitry I (a poor and humble Galician nobleman Yuri Bogdanovich Otrepiev, who became a monk in one of the Russian monasteries and took the name Gregory as a monk) appeared in Poland, posing as the miraculously saved Dmitry. In June 1605, False Dmitry ascended the throne and for a year officially reigned as “Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich”; unprepossessing in appearance, he was by no means stupid person, had a lively mind, could speak well and Boyar Duma easily resolved the most difficult issues; Dowager Queen Maria Nagaya recognized him as her son, but as soon as he was killed on May 17 (27), 1606, she abandoned him and declared that her son undoubtedly died in Uglich.

In 1606, False Dmitry II (Tushinsky thief) appeared, and in 1608, False Dmitry III (Pskov thief, Sidorka) appeared in Pskov.

With the end of the Time of Troubles, the government of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov returned to the official version of the government of Vasily Shuisky: Dmitry died in 1591 at the hands of Godunov’s mercenaries. It was also recognized as official by the Russian Orthodox Church. This version was described in “History of the Russian State” by N. M. Karamzin. A.S. also adhered to it at one time. Pushkin. In his drama "Boris Godunov" he made Tsar Boris suffer from remorse for the crime he committed. And for 13 years in a row, the king dreams of a child killed on his orders, and the holy fool throws terrible words in his face: “... Order them to be slaughtered, just as you stabbed the little prince...”.

Saint Demetrius of Rostov compiled a life and a description of miraculous healings through the prayers of Saint Tsarevich Demetrius, from which it is clear that those with sick eyes were especially often healed.

During Patriotic War In 1812, the holy relics of the blessed Tsarevich Demetrius were saved from desecration by the priest of the Moscow Ascension convent John Veniaminov, who took them out of the Archangel Cathedral under his clothes and hid them in the altar, on the choir of the second tier of the cathedral church in the Ascension Monastery. After the expulsion of the French, the holy relics were solemnly transferred to their original place - to the Archangel Cathedral.

Since the 18th century, the image of Tsarevich Dimitri has been placed on the coat of arms of Uglich, and since 1999 on the flag of the city. The “Church of Demetrius on the Blood” was also built, erected on the site of his murder.

In 1997, the Order of the Holy Blessed Tsarevich Demetrius was established. It is awarded to individuals who have made a significant contribution to the care and protection of suffering children: the disabled, orphans and street children. The order is a cross with rays made of pure silver with gilding, in the middle of which in a medallion there is an image of Tsarevich Demetrius with the inscription “For works of mercy.” Every year in Uglich on May 28th it is held Orthodox holiday Day of Tsarevich Dimitri.

By blessing His Holiness Patriarch Moscow and All Rus' Kirill “Day of Tsarevich Dimitri” acquired the status of an All-Russian Orthodox children's holiday in 2011.

Troparion, tone 4:
You stained the royal diadem with your blood, God-wise martyr, you took the cross in your hand by the scepter, you appeared victorious and offered an immaculate sacrifice to the Lady for yourself: for as a gentle lamb, you were slain from a slave. And now, rejoicing, you stand Holy Trinity, praying for the power of your relatives to be godly and for your Russian sons to be saved.

Kontakion, tone 8:
Resurrection today in the most glorious memory of your faithful joy, for a well-grown dream ( vine), you grew cold and you brought beautiful fruit to Christ for yourself; in the same way after your murder I observed your body imperishable, sufferingly stained with blood. Noble and holy Demetrius, keep your fatherland and your city unharmed, for this is your affirmation.

The history of the hospital church of the Holy Right-Believing Tsarevich Demetrius dates back to the end of the 18th century, when, according to the will of Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn and with his donations, a hospital was created, in the middle of the main building of which a temple was built. During its existence before its closure Soviet power the hospital temple helped many thousands of sufferers. Donations from pious people have always been of great importance to the temple.

In 1990, on the initiative of the hospital administration, the Church of the Holy Right-Believing Tsarevich Demetrius at the 1st City Hospital in Moscow was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On November 22, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' re-consecrated it.

Work on opening the hospital church began in the spring of 1990 with the blessing of the great elder, hieromonk Father Paul (Trinity), who knew the will of God and revealed it in written answers to questions. At the end of May 1990, the priest first came to the neurological departments of the hospital. The number of patients who wanted to receive communion exceeded all expectations.

In the summer of 1990, the first volunteer nurses came to help in the hospital departments.

On July 7, 1990, Mother Archpriest died after a serious illness. Arkadia Shatova - Sofia. A few weeks before her death, she said: “If I die, the temple will be given away.” Her prayerful intercession was confirmed in his letter received on December 3, 1990, shortly after the consecration of the temple. Pavel (Troitsky).

He wrote about. Arkady: “Congratulations to you, my dear Father! You have now received everything that your soul desired! The Patriarch consecrated the church under God, the service is underway.<...>I am very happy for you that you really wanted it and everything turned out this way. It’s all Sonyushka interceding for you.”

Agrippina Nikolaevna (10/15/1992), former cell attendant Fr., managed to visit the hospital church several times. Pavel (Troitsky) and Fr. Vsevolod Shpiller. Agrippina Nikolaevna, who graduated from the school of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, knew the priest. Grand Duchess Elizabeth and many other martyrs, confessors and ascetics of piety, was the connecting link between the famous monastery of labor and mercy and the still fragile, nascent community. Through the prayers of our dear departed: Father Paul (Trinity), Agrippina Nikolaevna, Mother Sophia - the Lord has mercy on the hospital church, its parishioners, the community and the school of nurses and covers the mistakes and infirmities of those who work here.

Hospital temple, the first in modern Russia, became a kind of center where believers who had anything to do with medicine began to flock: Orthodox doctors, nurses and those simply wanting to work hard, helping the sick and suffering. Thanks to the help of many benefactors and trustees, it became possible to carry out partial restoration and repair of the temple.

Over the past ten years, the temple has been repeatedly visited by the primates of the Local Orthodox Churches: Alexandria, Georgian, American. His Beatitude, the Beatitude of Feodosia, Metropolitan of All America and Canada, is a member of the Community's Board of Trustees.

The first bishop to visit the temple even before its opening was His Eminence Arseny, Archbishop of Istra, vicar of His Holiness the Patriarch. Vladyka Arseny devoted a lot of attention and love to the community, and with his help many difficult problems were solved.

Divine services are held daily in the hospital church of the Holy Right-Believing Tsarevich Demetrius. There are five priests and two deacons serving in the church. The rector of the Church of St. blgv. Tsarevich Dimitri is Archpriest Arkady Shatov. On Fridays, catechetical conversations are held in the church for those preparing for holy Baptism. Over the ten years of its existence, 655 people were baptized in the hospital and church. Since 1990, the priests of the hospital church have given communion to about 25,000 people in the hospital. Currently, the parish of the temple numbers about 1000 people.

In addition to the Church of St. blgv. Tsarevich Dimitri, in the 1st City Hospital in the 23rd building, in which a hostel and various services are located (prosphora, patronage service, icon-painting workshop), a house church was opened in the name of St. Venerable Martyr Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna.

With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', the clergy of the temple are preparing for consecration a house church in the name of the holy confessor Archbishop Luke (Voino-Yasenitsky) in Scientific center Cardiovascular Surgery named after. A. N. Bakuleva. Currently, the priest visits the sick departments of the center every Saturday.

During the operation of the temple, more than 700 thousand free meals were given out at the charitable refectory. Over the past 10 years, more than 65 thousand people have received assistance with food, goods, and medicines. During the celebration of the bright holidays of Christmas and Easter, the church community allocates large amounts of money to congratulate the employees and patients of the 1st City Clinical Hospital, at the Institute of Pediatrics of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, at Orphanage No. 12 and in other social institutions.

The church community operates a Sunday school, which educates one hundred children aged 5 to 17 years. There are clubs for nursing, painting, theater arts, a flora club for flower lovers, and youth club meetings (for older children).

Already more than a year There is a website on the Internet created by parishioners of our church. The main purpose of the site is to answer questions about faith and Christian life, arising both among believers and those only on the path to faith. During the existence of the site, answers to several hundred questions from the most different corners globe: from Russia, Ukraine, America, Germany, Austria, England, Italy, Canada, Latvia and other countries.

The community organizes broadcasts on the Radonezh radio station on Fridays from 20.00 to 22.00 (from 20.00 to 21.00 - children's hour, from 21.00 to 22.00 - youth hour). Broadcast frequencies 612 and 846 KHz.

The temple at the First City Hospital of Moscow has existed for more than two centuries. It was built at the end of the 18th century, and on September 22, 1801, it was consecrated in honor of Tsarevich Dimitri. During Soviet rule, the temple was closed. In 1990, the temple of Tsarevich Demetrius of Russia was returned Orthodox Church. Thanks to charitable donations, it was produced major renovation building and adjacent premises. In the summer of the same year, the first volunteer nurses came to help in the hospital departments. Currently, the church hosts Sunday and evening services for the health of patients and hospital workers. The temple at the First City Hospital has become a kind of spiritual center, where believers who are related to medicine come: doctors, nurses and ordinary volunteers who want to provide all possible assistance to the suffering. Orthodox clergy visit the hospital almost every day. They perform the rites of communion and confession, hold conversations with seriously ill people and find words of consolation for their relatives. After the resumption of services in the hospital church, more than 40 thousand patients took the rite of communion here, many of them did this for the first time in their lives.

The blessed Tsarevich Dmitry is part of the ensemble of the Golitsyn Hospital. It was once one of the main attractions of the capital. The entire ensemble, including several hospital buildings and buildings, was built by architects M. F. Kazakov and V. I. Bazhenov in 1801; The famous Russian painter I.K. Scotti worked on the painting.

The initiator of the construction was Prince D. M. Golitsyn, who bequeathed funds for the construction of “an institution pleasing to God and useful to people.” After the death of D. M. Golitsyn in 1793, construction began, he was led by cousin Prince - Privy Councilor A. M. Golitsyn. Thus, in 1802, a third free city ​​Hospital, to which people from all walks of life, except serfs, could turn for help.

Dimitri, Tsarevich, at the Golitsyn hospital is located inside one of the buildings of the medical institution and is a rotunda temple. The structure is cube-shaped in shape, with a six-column Doric portico. A huge hemispherical dome rises on a massive spherical drum, which is crowned by a neat, blind drum with a small head. From the facade and on the sides of the building there are round bell towers. Inside there is a circular colonnade with Ionic order made of artificial marble. The high arches in the walls are framed by two-column inserts of the Corinthian order. The walls of the niches are made using the grisaille technique, which imitates sculptural relief. The dome, whose diameter is 17.5 meters, consists of two parts: the lower, coffered (with recesses), and the upper, decorated with paintings.

Dimitri, Tsarevich, at the Golitsyn hospital

The temple was consecrated (in 1801) in honor of the Great Martyr. Demetrius, since the late Prince Golitsyn bore the same name. The ceremony was attended by the newly-crowned Emperor Alexander I (just a week ago his coronation took place, when he replaced his father on the throne). Alexander Golitsyn took advantage of this happy occasion and tried to draw the emperor’s attention to his brainchild, and also asked for permission to transport his brother’s ashes from Vienna (Dmitry Mikhailovich was ambassador in Vienna) to Moscow. And, I must say, it was very difficult, at least from a legal point of view.

Subsequently Temple of Demetrius, Tsarevich, at the Golitsyn hospital became a tomb for both brothers - Dmitry and Alexander.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the manager of the hospital was H. I. Tsinger (grandfather of the famous mathematician and philosopher V. Ya. Tsinger), he became famous for his courage during the war with Napoleon: remaining in occupied Moscow, H. I. Tsinger did not allow the French soldiers plunder and destroy the hospital temple. Subsequently, he received the title of hereditary nobleman.

And in 1918, the monastery was closed, the crypt was plundered, and the ashes of the Golitsyns were reburied in the courtyard (it is still not known where exactly). was used as a hospital office space and a canteen.

Restoration work began in 1970, and in November 1990 the temple was consecrated again. In 1991, the St. Demetrius Sisterhood was formed, and a year later, Patriarch Alexy II consecrated the St. Demetrius Sisterhood medical School sisters of mercy at the temple.

Let's continue the story about the Church of Tsarevich Dimitri “on the Blood”. Today we will go inside. Please note that the frescoes on the walls are very unusual for the painting of Orthodox churches.

In the temple there are things with the help of which the body of Tsarevich Dimitri was transported to Moscow: a stretcher, a shrine, a mica lantern. There is also a bell here that called the people of Uglich to riot on the day of the death of the prince. The bell was then thrown from the bell tower, his ear was cut off, his tongue was torn out, he was beaten with whips and sent into exile in the distant city of Tobolsk. It has been there for several hundred years. I showed the bell in the previous post.

Historians are still arguing about what actually caused the death of Tsarevich Dmitry. If he was killed, then you can try to answer the basic question of any murder: “Who benefited from this?”

It would seem that the murder was beneficial to Boris Godunov - he was the Tsar's brother-in-law, the brother of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich's wife, and, therefore, the closest contender to the throne after the Tsarevich.

But it's not that simple. There is a reliable fact that at the time of Dmitry’s death, Fyodor’s wife, Tsarina Irina, was expecting a child. She gave birth to a girl who died in infancy, but then no one could know this. Boris Godunov had to assume that a legitimate heir was about to be born, and why did he need to kill the illegal one?

Godunov was very clever man, and could not help but understand that all suspicions of murder would fall on him. Therefore, he composed the investigative commission in such a way that its members did not trust each other, that is, they could not agree. And the head of the commission, Vasily Shuisky, was simply an open enemy of Boris Godunov. It turns out that Godunov demonstrated that he was not involved in any way in the death of the prince and was not afraid of an independent investigation.

In addition, Maria Nagaya was the seventh (or even eighth) wife of Ivan the Terrible. This marriage, like several previous ones, was not blessed by the Orthodox Church, and it was considered illegal, and the child was illegitimate and did not pose a threat to Godunov’s dynastic aspirations.

Of course, the death of Tsarevich Dmitry became a card in political games Russia. After the Time of Troubles, having already become a ruler, Vasily Shuisky, trying to fight off a whole bunch of False Dmitrievs, transferred the remains of the prince to Moscow, to the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin, and ordered the child to be canonized as a saint.

It turned out quite ridiculously, with this Shuisky seemed to admit that he himself falsified the results of the work of his investigative commission. After all, only children who were innocently killed were canonized, and those who died as a result of an accident could not be counted among the saints. It was stupid.

Although it is impossible to completely remove suspicions from Boris Godunov, it is possible to expand the circle of possible culprits Uglich murder. And it is not difficult to find a person who could benefit from the death of the prince no less than Godunov. His name looms everywhere where the murdered prince is mentioned. This man is Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky.

In fact, if we assume that the remaining unknown killers were people of Vasily Shuisky, a truly ingenious plan for seizing the Russian throne is revealed to us. Shuisky killed two birds with one stone. On the one hand, he got rid of one of the contenders for the throne, on the other, he forever compromised the second in the eyes of the people.

Having headed the investigative commission, Shuisky does everything to ensure that Dmitry is declared dead from an accident. He knew: nothing would save Godunov, fairly tainted by previous crimes, from the harsh popular rumor. To carry out his plan, he did not even need to somehow influence the other members of the commission: being Godunov’s people, they went out of their way to prove the version of the accident.

Even if Shuisky had been caught in the dishonest conduct of the investigation, he would have remained clean in the eyes of Godunov: after all, he did everything to divert suspicion from the ruler. No one could suspect Vasily Ivanovich of involvement in the death of the prince: in 1591 no one considered Shuisky as a contender for the throne. Boris Godunov did not suspect him either.

However, the atrocities of foreigners in Moscow, the marriage of False Dmitry to a Polish woman and disdain for the rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church quickly exhausted the people's patience; the impostor was overthrown as a result of an uprising, led, naturally, by Vasily Shuisky!

Having taken the Russian throne, Shuisky could not hold on to it. His short reign was spent in continuous military operations against more and more impostors, uprisings and foreign invaders. By the summer of 1610, defeated on the battlefields, betrayed by his comrades, Tsar Vasily Ivanovich was left alone. On July 17, he was dethroned and tonsured a monk, and a week later Polish troops were at the walls of Moscow. The Great Troubles began.