St. John of Rila
19 October/ 1 November
Venerable St. John of Rila, a great spirit-filled ascetic struggler of the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church, is the heavenly patron of the Bulgarian People. He
was born in the year 876 in the village of Skrino in Sardica Province (which
today is Sofia). Orphaned at an early age, the boy hired himself out to
strangers as a shepherd. It happened that a rich man beat him because a cow and
its calf had gotten lost. For a long time, the little boy wept and prayed that
God help him. At the time he located the cow and the calf, the water level of
the Sturma River had risen sharply. The young shepherd prayed, made the sign of
the cross over his outer clothing, laid it on the surface of the water, picked
up the calf and carried it across, as if on dry land, to the other shore, where
the cow was waiting for them. The rich man, who had been hiding in the woods,
was terrified upon witnessing this miracle; giving the boy a generous reward, he
released him from service. The boy gave away his fortune, and went off to his
native village. When and where he received monastic tonsure is unknown. At
first he took up his struggle on a high, barren hill, where he his only
sustenance was drawn from plants that grew in the wilderness. His hut was made
of brushwood. One night soon after he settled there, he was attacked by
bandits, was beaten, and was driven away. He then made his dwelling in a deep
cave. Soon thereafter, his nephew, St. Luke, moved in as well. The place was so
bereft of people that when Luke appeared, St. John at first thought that it was
a machination of the demons. On realizing that the youth was in fact seeking
salvation of his soul, he lovingly accepted him. However, they were not to live
together for very long. St. John’s brother located the spiritual strugglers and
forcibly took away his son. Along the way home, the youth was bitten by a snake
and died. The brother repented of what he had done, and asked forgiveness of
the Venerable One. The desert dweller would often visit the righteous youth’s
grave; it was his favorite place to rest. The Venerable One spent eleven years
in the cave in the wilderness. After that, he moved to the wilderness of Rila,
where he took up residence in the hollow of a tree. He fasted a great deal,
prayed, and constantly wept; he ate only grass. Taking note of the Saint’s
patient suffering, God had bean plants spring up to provide him with sustenance
for a long time. It was the appearance of those beans that caused people to
learn of his spiritual struggles: It happened that a flock of sheep was
startled by something, and ran off along the mountain ridges. They stopped at
the place where the Saint lived. The shepherds following after their flock were
stunned to see a hermit tenderly feeding the sheep. He said to them, “You have
come here hungry. Pluck some of my beans for yourselves, and eat.” All ate
until they were full. One of them hid away a lot of beans for later. Along the
way home, he offered them to his companions. However, not a single bean was to
be found in the stolen bean pods. In repentance, the shepherds contritely
returned to the Elder. He forgave them, and with a smile said, “You see,
children, God provided those beans for sustenance in the wilderness.” From that
time on, people would bring to the Venerable One those who were sick or
possessed by evil spirits, and he would heal them through prayer. To avoid fame,
the spiritual struggler left his beloved tree-hollow and settled onto a high and
almost inaccessible cliff, where he spent seven years under the open sky. Word
of the great desert-dweller reached King Peter of Bulgaria (927-969), who wanted
to meet him. However, St. John wrote him a letter, humbly declining the
meeting. Later, the desert-dweller took under his care monastics who
established a monastery and a church in the cave where St. John had previously
lived. He wisely shepherded his flock until his repose, at the age of 69, on
August 18, 946. Five years before his death, he wrote his Testament to
Disciples, one of the finest compositions in the body of ancient Bulgarian
literature. The spiritual struggler’s life and the signs of God’s mercy shown as
the result of his prayers were the best possible testimony regarding the
Christian Faith in the newly-Baptized Bulgarian land. In the troubled time of
war between Bulgaria and Byzantium – during the reign of King Samuel (976-1014),
St. John of Rila appeared to his disciples, and directed that they move his
relics to Sardica (Sofia), where Patriarch Damian of Bulgaria (927-972) had
taken refuge. It is thought that the translation of the relics took place in the
year 980. Some time later, St. John of Rila’s right hand was taken to Rus’,
after it first was taken to Rila, where the Church of Venerable St. John of Rila,
and a side-chapel of the Holy Martyrs Flor and Laurus was erected, Those
Martyrs are celebrated on August 18, the day of St. John’s repose. Since
antiquity, Russian people have known of and loved St. John of Rila. It was in
Russian source materials (the 12th Century Mazurinsky Chronicle) that the date
of the Venerable Saint’s repose was recorded. In 1183, among the treasures of
Serdets seized by King Bela II of Hungary (1174-1196) during his campaign
against the Greeks was the reliquary containing the relics of St. John. They
were taken to Esztergom. In 1187, after richly decorating the reliquary, he
returned the Holy Relics with great solemnity and honor. On October 19, 1238,
St. John’s relics were translated with great solemnity to the new capital,
Veliko Tarnovo, and were installed in a church dedicated to the Saint. On July
1, 1469, the Holy Relics of St. John of Rila were returned to the Rila
Monastery, where they remain today, and where they afford grace-filled help to
all of the Faithful.