The imperishable relics of Alexander Svirsky: the miracle of myrrh-streaming. Monk Athanasius Venerable Alexander of Svir

By rereading the lives of the saints again and again, Orthodox Christians are filled with the power of faith. Obedience, humility, restriction in food and comforts are examples of Christian achievement in the name of knowledge of the Most High God and the Holy Trinity.

The life of St. Alexander of Svirsky is a vivid example of chosenness and service to the Creator from birth to death. Living far from the center of Orthodoxy, in remote forests, little Amos did not have the opportunity to communicate in the circle of the priesthood; he received all revelations and knowledge from God Himself or the Most Pure Virgin Mary.

Icon of St. Alexander of Svirsky

Childhood and adolescence of the future saint

In the Ladoga village of Mandera lived a rather middle-aged married couple, Stefan and Vasilisa. They raised two sons and asked God for a youngest child, comfort and not old age. In one of the prayers, they both heard a voice saying that their prayers had been heard, the Creator would give a good marriage a child who would glorify the Church of Christ.

In June, on the 15th, 1448, Vasilisa gave birth to a son, who was named after one of the Old Testament prophets Amos, for the boy appeared on the day of veneration of Amos. Surprisingly, the middle of the 15th century, a far abandoned village, the beginning of the Christian era in Rus', and the villagers know about the Old Testament and its heroes. If we take into account that at that time ordinary people were mostly illiterate, then we can conclude that the parents of the future saint of Russia were church-going believers, drawing knowledge from sermons at services.

On a note! Born into a deeply religious family, Amos differed from his peers in his obedience and meekness, and was not a fan of noisy games or fun. The boy was indifferent to clothing and food, and from an early age he found pleasure in fasting and prayer, which sometimes frightened his mother.

The path to monasticism

The event of the young man coming of age changed his whole life. This was a meeting with the Valaam monks, who came to the village for the economic needs of the monastery. The great piety and strict ascetic life of the monks was known far beyond the borders of the already famous Valaam Monastery at that time.

Amos was deeply touched by the monks' stories about hermits who live in hermitages, and the young man began to ask the monks to take him with them. The monks were forced to refuse, because this required permission from the abbot of the monastery and the blessing of their parents.

The elderly parents decided that the time had come to marry their son, but the monk decided differently; after much prayer and fasting, he secretly left his father’s house and went alone to look for the Valaam Monastery. The first night found Amos near the lake, where he fell asleep right on the shore.

Important! In the middle of the night, the young man was awakened by a wondrous voice, blessing the traveler’s further path and commanding in the future to build a monastery of God in this place.

At the same moment, a traveler, an angel of the Lord, appeared near the traveler, who brought Amos to the Valaam monastery. Even the schema-monks were amazed at the steadfastness of the monk, who practically did not sleep, working hard during the day and spending his nights in prayer. The place of his prayers was a forest full of mosquitoes and midges, but, being in worship of God, the young man did not notice anything. So seven years passed.

Years of monasticism and hermitage

Amos lived for seven harsh years in the monastery, and in 1474 he was tonsured a monk with the name Alexander.

Several more years passed, and only then did the old parents learn about the fate of their youngest son. Soon they sold all their property and went to a monastery, living there under the names of Sergius and Varvara.

Icon of the Wonderworker Alexander Svirsky

His parents died, Alexander asked for the blessing of the abbot to settle on the island in order to live alone in a rock and perform a spiritual feat inaccessible to the understanding of ordinary Christians.

The venerable elder lived on the island for almost 10 years, and in 1485 he left Valaam, for God led him again to the shore of a lake unique in its beauty, which was later called Holy.

The holy hermit drew strength from God, leaving his descendants an example of faith. According to the Monk Alexander himself, one day acute pains so wracked the hermit that he did not rise from the ground for several days. At this time, the saint did not scold God, he sang His praises with the psalms of David, and a miracle happened. Suddenly a certain man appeared in the cell, made the sign of the cross on the patient and put his hand on the place of pain, and complete healing came along with the warmth.

The year was 1493, a simple hunter accidentally wandered onto the shore of a lake in pursuit of a deer and came across the saint’s cell. Andrei Zavalishin was pointed to this place by a marvelous light that was visible from afar.

The story of the monk so impressed the hunter that he began to often visit the saint, supporting him physically, and later took monastic vows and became known as Saint Adrian, the founder of the Ondru monastery.

Despite the promise to remain silent about what he saw and heard, Andrei Zavalishin told people about the holy hermit, and pilgrims reached out to the Monk Alexander of Svirsky for support in prayer and healing.

Construction of the monastery

For 23 years, Alexander Svirsky lived in a cell on the shore of the lake until the Life-Giving Trinity appeared to him, during night prayer a bright light shone and the three Men appeared before the Monk Alexander. Each of the Husbands, visible in the bright light, held a rod, and then the Creator Himself appeared with huge wings spread over the earth. In the history of Christianity, Abbot Svirsky is called the New Testament Abraham, for the Holy Trinity also appeared to him.

Image of the appearance of the Holy Trinity to the holy venerable Alexander of Svirsky

In fear and awe, the holy hermit fell to his knees and prostrated himself on the ground. A loud voice began to command the Monk Svirsky to erect the Church of the Holy Trinity in that place, promising His help.

The holy hermit continued for another 7 years:

• live in solitude;
• sleep in a cell near Lake Roshchinskoye;
• eat what you get in the forest;
• endure hunger, cold, illness.

The Alexander-Svirsky Monastery was built here.

A little time passed, the hermit was praying and thinking about how and on what site to build a church, when an angel appeared to him, dressed in a white robe and a doll, and indicated the place where the monastery should stand in the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, in the name Life-giving Trinity.

With the help of monks and parishioners, a wooden church was first built, and in 1526 a stone monastery was erected.

After much persuasion from the brethren, the holy Venerable Alexander of Svirsky accepted the priesthood and became abbot of the monastery of God.

Tracing the earthly path of Saint Alexander of Svirsky, one gets the impression that wherever his foot set, God’s abodes grew, and there the prophecy given to the parents of Amos came true. The priesthood did not change the lifestyle of the Wonderworker Alexander. He still wore patched clothes, spent nights on the floor in prayer, and chopped wood himself if it turned out that there was not enough.

Holy Trinity Alexander Svirsky Monastery

In the monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity, penances were imposed for idle talk and behavior; the abbot himself was an example of abstinence.

The days of the venerable saint on earth were coming to an end. Hegumen of Svirsky decided to lay the foundation of the Church of the Holy Mother of God, and the Most Pure Virgin Mary, holding the Child in her hand, surrounded by a host of angels and saints, visited him during one of the night prayers. Blinded by the bright light, Alexander Svirsky fell to his knees, but was raised by the gentle voice of the Mother of God, who said that she had come to look at the foundation of the Intercession Church and bless it with everything necessary.

And so it happened, the construction of the temple was easy, the builders did not lack anything.

Death and holy relics

The Monk Alexander had a presentiment of his departure to Heaven. Shortly before a sad event for those around him, the elder showed the depth of his attitude towards the mortal body. The monk said that after death they would tie him by the legs, drag him into a swamp, bury him in moss and trample the burial place with their feet.

For the first time, the church brotherhood refused to fulfill the command of their beloved abbot. On August 30, 1533, the Monk Alexander Svirsky was buried not far from the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, in the desert. This day is celebrated by the Orthodox as the feast of St. Alexander; the first service was held 12 years after the death of the elder.

More than a hundred years passed, the community decided to rebuild the Church of the Transfiguration, and during excavations the incorrupt relics of the saint were found. This happened on April 17, 1641, on this day the day of glorification of the relics of St. Alexander of Svir is celebrated.

Important! The path of pilgrims to the holy relics of St. Alexander of Svir, which bestows miracles of healing and blessings, does not become overgrown.

Documentary film about the holy wonderworker Alexander Svirsky

The one who establishes his heart in the Lord, whom the Lord has accepted under His sacred protection, has nothing to fear from the wiles of the devil or man, for for him “all things work together for good.”(Rom.8:28)

Alexander Svirsky - glorification on April 17/30, 1641. (memory August 30/September 12)

The saint's birthday, June 15, 1448, coincided with the day of remembrance of the prophet Amos, whose name was given to the boy at baptism. His parents, Stefan and Vassa (Vasilissa), were peasants in the Ladoga village of Mandera, on the banks of the Oyat River, a tributary of the Svir River. They had two children who were already grown up and living separately from their parents. But Stefan and Vassa wanted to have another son. They prayed earnestly and heard a voice from above: “Rejoice, good marriage, you will give birth to a son, in whose birth God will give consolation to His Churches.”

When Amos grew up, his parents sent him to learn to read and write, but learning was difficult for the boy. Having a hard time experiencing this, Amos often prayed to God for help. One day he went to the nearby Ostrog Vvedensky Monastery and began to pray fervently in front of the icon of the Mother of God. While praying, the youth heard a voice: “Arise, do not be afraid; and if you asked, you will receive it.” From then on, Amos began to excel in his studies and soon became ahead of his peers.

Amos grew up to be a special boy. He was always obedient and meek, avoiding games, laughter and foul language, wore scanty clothes and exhausted himself with fasting so much that he worried his mother. Upon reaching adulthood, he once met with Valaam monks who came to Oyat to buy things necessary for the monastery and for other economic needs. By this time, Valaam was already known as a monastery of high piety and strictly ascetic life. After talking with them, the young man became interested in their story about the hermitage (two or three together) and hermit life of the monks. Knowing that his parents wanted to marry him, the young man at the age of 19 secretly went to Valaam. Night found him on the left bank of the Svir, near a small lake located about eight miles from the river. Having prayed that the Lord would guide him on the path of salvation, Amos fell asleep.
I heard a voice in a dream:
- Oh, man! To the monastery of the All-Merciful Savior on Valaam, a good path is being built. Go in peace. There you will work for the Lord, and then you will return to this place and create a monastery here. Many will be saved by you.
The Life of the Saint tells that the Lord sent Amos a companion through a deserted area - his angel.
“And this path, which others go through with difficulty, many days, they passed very quickly, under the direction of a good companion.”

Amos lived in the monastery for seven years as a novice, leading a harsh life. He spent his days in labor, his nights in vigil and prayer. Sometimes naked to the waist, covered with mosquitoes and midges, he prayed in the forest until the morning birdsong.
In 1474 Amos took monastic vows with the name Alexander. A few years later, the parents accidentally learned from the Karelians who came to Mandera that their son had become a monk. Then Stefan, “inflamed with fatherly love,” went to Valaam to see Alexander and “calm down about his presence.” At first, Monk Alexander refused for a long time to talk with his father and did not even agree to go out to him on the porch of his cell, but then, yielding to the persuasion of the abbot, he agreed to a meeting.
Stefan, seeing his son, exhausted by work and fasting, dressed in thin clothes, began to persuade him to return home.
- My beloved child! - he said. - Listen to your father, go to your house and console the sorrow of your parents! Do according to your will in your home, but do not leave us, your parents, away. When we pass from life to the next life, you, child, serve us at the burial, and you will be the heir to our property, and then do as you wish!

The father's proposal was unacceptable - the monk could not leave the monastery and return to the world. But it was also impossible to contradict my father. The situation was hopeless, but the monk managed to find the correct answer. Without objecting to his father, he began to persuade him to go to the monastery himself.
- I tell you! - said the monk, - go now to your house in peace, and all that you promised me, you have collected your estate, sell it and give it to the poor, and you will have an endless treasure in heaven... Build about your house as I said, and go to the Most Holy Monastery Mother of God to the Island, and take tonsure there, and receive the salvation of your soul...
Stefan did not expect such an answer from his son.
Without saying a word to his son, he turned around and went to the monastery hotel. Alexander didn't stop him. Returning to his cell, he plunged into prayer, asking for the Lord’s help so that his father would follow his advice.
And the prayer of the Monk Alexander was heard.
“The humane God, who wants everyone to be saved, soon heard his prayer, and put His fear into the father’s heart and tenderness into his soul. After which, burning with the fire of divine love, he came to his son, the Monk Alexander, saying: “Behold, child, I will do everything that you commanded, as you said; I understood from your teaching that this short-lived light is nothing: it has taken up residence in my womb, and my entire inner being has been ablaze with the love of God, and to whom will I not name thee a son, but my father and teacher.”

So, instead of returning their son, Alexander’s parents themselves went to the monastery and, taking the names of Sergius and Varvara, ended their earthly life in the Ostrovsky Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos monastery, where they once prayed for the gift of a son.
After their death, the Monk Alexander, with the blessing of the abbot of the monastery, settled on a secluded monastery island, where he built a cell in a cleft in the rock and continued his spiritual exploits.
- May the will of the Lord be done, child, over you! - said the abbot...

That same day, taking with him nothing except the clothes that he was wearing, the Monk Alexander sailed to the mainland. In the northeastern part of the Valaam archipelago there is the Holy Island, open to all the Ladoga winds. Here, in a cave carved into the rock that has survived to this day, five hundred years ago the Monk Alexander of Svirsky labored in prayerful feats.

The cave is small...
When you walk into it, your shoulders touch the granite walls. The tiny light of a lamp burning in front of the images is enough to illuminate everything.
cell space. Apart from icons and lamps, there is only bare stone...
The Monk Alexander spent several years in this cave. As it is said in the Life, “from his great labors the skin on his body became so hard that it was not afraid of a stone blow.”
The saint was praying in a cave on Holy Island when, in response to his prayers, the voice of the Mother of God was heard:
- Alexandra! Get out of here and go to the place shown to you before, in it you can be saved!
And it became light...

The monk got out of the cave, and behind the trunks of pine trees standing almost on a sheer cliff, he saw the quiet waters of Ladoga. A great heavenly light shone in the distance, over Svir...
The glory of his exploits spread far. Then the monk in 1485 left Valaam and, according to instructions from above, chose a place in the forest on the shore of the beautiful Roshchinskoye Lake, which later became known as the Holy Lake, near the river. Svir. Here the monk built himself a hut and lived alone for seven years, eating only what he collected in the forest. Let us note that in that year 1484, the earthly path of the venerable Herman of Solovetsky, returning to Solovki, was cut short on Svir. Having at one time encouraged the wonderworker Zosima to move to Solovki, Herman outlived his associate and, as stated in the Solovetsky Patericon, under Abbot Arseny, the successor of Saint Zosima, he was sent to Novgorod on monastic affairs, to the monastery of Saint Anthony the Roman. Returning, he gave up his spirit to God. “Those who accompanied the monk, because of the autumn impassability, did not dare to take him, and buried him in the Yablonovaya desert.” And so it turned out that the death on Svir of the Monk Herman, who inspired Zosima to found the Solovetsky Monastery on the White Sea, coincided with the beginning of the founding of another great monastery only now on Svir... And this coincidence can be called accidental, but what is accidental in God’s world?
All his life, staying far from historical events, the Monk Alexander, the luminary of monasticism, in the depths of the forests of the Russian North, created a different, spiritual history, having been rewarded with the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. At this time, the saint experienced severe suffering from hunger, cold, illness and devilish temptations. But the Lord constantly supported the spiritual and physical strength of the preacher. Once, when, suffering from painful illnesses, the monk not only could not get up from the ground, but also raise his head, he lay and sang psalms. And then a glorious husband appeared to him. Placing his hand on the sore spot, he marked the saint with the sign of the cross and healed him.
In 1493, the neighboring owner Andrei Zavalishin accidentally came across the saint’s home while hunting for a deer. Struck by the appearance of the righteous man, Andrei told him about the light he had seen earlier over this place, and begged the monk to tell him about his life.
- Child! - He sighed and answered Zavalishin. - I am a sinful man named Alexander. Previously, he lived on Valaam in the monastery of the Savior Almighty, where he was tonsured. Then I decided to leave the monastery and settle in silence in the desert to cry over my sins. I live here, and before your arrival I had not seen a single person. I eat the grass that grows here, but I haven’t eaten bread for seven years.
This answer amazed Andrey.
- Did you, father, have any illness from such a harsh life and excessive fasting? - he asked. - Did any thoughts bother you?
“At first it was difficult...” said Alexander Svirsky. “I was not yet accustomed to living in the desert.” I also had to suffer from finding my thoughts... I then fell ill with a heart disease, so that I could not stand and pray... Lying down, I said prayers, prayerfully flowing to the doctor and healer of human souls and bodies, Almighty God... And one day, when I was especially suffering from internal pain, the Glorious Man appeared before me and asked: “What is the matter with you? What are you suffering from? I showed him where it hurt. He, placing his hand and making the sign of the cross over me, said: “Behold, you were healthy, sin not, let no worse things happen to you, but work for the Lord your God from now on and forever.” And since then I have felt at ease.
From then on, Andrei began to often visit the Monk Alexander and, finally, according to his instructions, he himself retired to Valaam, where he took monastic vows with the name Adrian. Subsequently, he founded the Ondrusovo Monastery and became famous for his holy life (+1549; commemorated August 26/September 8 and May 17/30).
Andrei Zavalishin could not keep silent about the ascetic, despite the promise given to him. The glory of the righteous man spread widely, and monks began to gather to him. Then the monk secluded himself from all the brethren and built himself a retreat hermitage 130 fathoms from the common dwelling. There he encountered many temptations. The demons took on an animal form and whistled like a snake, forcing the saint to flee. But the saint’s prayer, like a fiery flame, scorched and scattered the demons.

In 1508, in the 23rd year of the saint’s stay in the reserved place, the Life-Giving Trinity appeared to him. The monk prayed at night in the waste hermitage. Suddenly a strong light shone, and the monk saw Three Men entering him, dressed in light, white clothes. Sanctified by Heavenly glory, They shone with purity brighter than the sun. Each of them held a rod in His hand. The monk fell in fear, and when he came to his senses, he bowed to the ground.
Raising him by the hand, the Men said: “Do not be afraid, O man of desires (glorified - a man worthy of love), for the Holy Spirit deigns to live in you with purity for the sake of your heart, and as you said in ancient times in abundance, and now I say in the same way, that you may create You will gather the church, and the brethren, and establish a monastery, as you have been pleased to save many souls and bring them into the understanding of truth.” - (Trust, blessed one, and do not be afraid).
Hearing this, the monk fell again to the ground and, shedding tears, confessed his unworthiness. The Lord again raised him up, saying: “Stand on your foot, strengthen yourself, and strengthen yourself, and do everything that you commanded.”
The saint asked in whose honor the temple should be erected. The Lord answered: “Beloved, as you see speaking to you in Three Persons, build a church in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Consubstantial Trinity. But I leave you My peace and give you My peace.”
After this, Saint Alexander saw the Lord, with outstretched wings, as if with feet, moving along the earth, and becoming invisible.
With the blessing of the Holy Trinity, the Monk Alexander of Svirsky built the Trinity Cathedral, and then founded the Holy Trinity Monastery itself. This is the special meaning of Russia's calling. According to its spiritual ideal, Holy Rus' should become a great temple of God and a monastery, a guardian of the purity of Orthodoxy, a novice of the Holy Trinity. Not in search of earthly prosperity, but in confessional service to God - the true calling of the Russian God-bearing people. This spiritual calling to Russia and the people was given from above, which is what the life of the saint of God and seer of the Holy Trinity, St. Alexander of Svirsky, tells us about.

In the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, this Divine descent is known as the only one. After this phenomenon, the monk began to think about where to build a church. One day, while praying to God, he heard a voice from above. Looking up into the heights, the monk saw an Angel of God in a mantle and a doll, just as St. Pachomius the Great saw. The angel, standing in the air with outstretched wings and raised hands, said: “One is Holy, One is Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, amen.” And then he turned to the monk: “Alexander, on this place may a church be built in the Name of the Lord who appeared to you in Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Indivisible Trinity.” And, having crossed the place three times, the Angel became invisible.

In the same year, the wooden Church of the Life-Giving Trinity was built (in 1526 a stone one was erected in its place). Immediately after the church was built, the brethren began to beg the monk to accept the priesthood. He refused for a long time, considering himself unworthy. Then the brethren began to pray to Saint Serapion, Archbishop of Novgorod (+1516, March 16/29), so that he would convince the monk to accept the rank. That same year the monk traveled to Novgorod and received dedication from the saint. Soon afterwards the brethren begged the monk to accept the abbess.
Having become abbot, the monk became even more humble than before. His clothes were all in patches, he slept on the bare floor. He prepared food himself, kneaded dough, baked bread. One day there was not enough firewood and the steward asked the abbot to send those of the monks who were idle to fetch firewood. “I am idle,” said the monk and began to chop wood. Another time he started carrying water the same way. And at night, when everyone was asleep, the monk walked around the cells, and if he heard vain conversations somewhere, he knocked lightly on the door and left, and in the morning he instructed the brethren, imposing penance on the guilty.

Towards the end of his life, the Monk Alexander decided to build a stone church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. The foundation of the temple was laid. One evening, after performing an akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos, the monk sat down to rest in his cell, and suddenly said to his cell attendant Athanasius: “Child, be sober and watchful, because at this hour there will be a wonderful and terrible visitation.” A voice like thunder was heard: “Behold, the Lord is coming and she who gave birth to Him.” The monk hurried to the entrance of his cell, and a great light shone around him, spreading over the entire monastery brighter than the rays of the sun. Having looked, the monk saw above the foundation of the Church of the Intercession, sitting on the altar, like a queen on a throne, the Most Pure Mother of God. She held the Child Christ in Her arms, and many angelic ranks, shining with indescribable lightness, stood before Her. The monk fell, unable to bear the great light. The Mother of God said: “Arise, chosen one of My Son and God! For I have come to visit you, My beloved, and to see the foundation of My church. And because you prayed for your disciples and your monastery, from now on it will abound for everyone; and not only during your life, but also after your departure I will constantly be from your monastery, generously giving everything you need. Look and observe carefully how many monks have gathered into your flock, who must be guided by you on the path of salvation in the Name of the Holy Trinity.” The monk stood up and saw many monks. The Mother of God said again: “My beloved, if anyone brings even one brick to build My church, in the Name of Jesus Christ, My Son and God, he will not destroy even his bribe.” And She became invisible. Before his death, the monk showed amazing humility. He called the brethren and commanded them: “Tie my sinful body at the feet with a rope and drag it into the swampy wilds and, burying it in the moss, trample it with your feet.” The brothers answered: “No, father, we cannot do this.” Then the monk indicated not to bury his body in the monastery, but in the waste hermitage, near the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Having lived 85 years, the saint departed to the Lord on August 30, 1533.

Monks, leaving the world, die to the world. This is not a figurative expression, but the reality of monastic life. But to those who find the strength to complete the appointed Path, who are “able” to be saved in earthly life, the Lord grants insight and the power of miracles, and sometimes - by God’s will - these wondrous lamps are revealed to the world again.
This happened with the Monk Alexander of Svirsky...

He went through all the steps of the ladder of monastic dying for the world. And when the Lord again revealed him to the world, the world saw the great wonderworker and seer, prayer book and confessor...

The Monk Alexander of Svirsky became famous for his wondrous miracles during his life and after his death.
In 1545, the disciple and successor of the venerable abbot Herodion compiled his life.
In 1547, local celebrations of the saint's memory began and a service to him was compiled.
In 1641, on April 17, during the reconstruction of the Church of the Transfiguration, the incorrupt relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky were found and a church-wide celebration was established for him on two dates: the day of his repose - August 30/September 12 and the day of glorification (discovery of the relics) - April 17/30.

In 1820, a chapel was erected in Mandera.
The inscription on it read:
- “Here was the residence of the parents of our Holy Reverend Father Alexander of Svir, the Wonderworker, Schemamonk Sergius and Schemanun Varvara, and the birth of the Reverend.”
Inside the chapel, in the form of an iconostasis, hung a half-length image of the Venerable Alexander of Svirsky, and on the sides, Schemamonk Sergius and Schemanun Varvara were depicted in full height. In former times, these images were located in the vestibule above the tombs of the saint’s parents.
The very grave of Alexander Svirsky’s parents was carefully preserved in the Ostrovsky Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos Monastery until the Bolsheviks destroyed the monastery. Many churches of the monastery were then blown up, and the tombstone from the grave of Schema-monk Sergius and Schema-nun Varvara was placed in the foundation of the barnyard under construction...

Now the grave of Saints Sergius and Barbara has been restored...

The transformation of parents Stefan and Vassa into monks Sergius and Varvara is the first of the miracles known to us performed by the Monk Alexander.

According to the Life, “Reverend Alexander, having learned about the death of his parents, wept contentedly for them; then, placing his hope in God, he reflected within himself, saying: “And I am mortal”...

And the rain fell, and the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not fall, because it was founded on rock (Matthew 7:25)

Source:
- edition of the Venerable Alexander Svirsky and his disciples.
- publishing house Danilovsky Blagovestnik

Second discovery of relics

The meaning of suffering...
I think that the present temporary sufferings are worth nothing in comparison with the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18)

The history of the second discovery of the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 2000, No. 5. (http://212.188.13.168/izdat/JMp/00/5-00/06.htm)

This year, the memory of St. Alexander of Svirsky coincides with the celebration of Easter, the Holy Resurrection of Christ - the day of the first discovery of his relics in 1641.

Two years ago, on July 30, 1998, the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky were rediscovered - after 80 years of captivity and removal from the ancient monastery by representatives of the atheistic authorities. The date of this important event for our Church has not yet been indicated in the Orthodox calendar. And this is not an accident. Not without obstacles were found the relics of God's holy chosen one, to whom the Lord Himself appeared in the form of three Light-Bearing Angels.
During the search for the honest relics of the mystic of the Holy Trinity using archival documents, the history of the removal of the shrine from the monastery in 1918 was restored. The relics of the Monk Alexander were the first to be damaged by the newly-minted atheists. Officially, the campaign to liquidate the relics began only three months after a detachment under the command of the Latvian rifleman August Wagner entered the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery for the first time. The task of the detachment was to requisition the monastery valuables and seize the main shrine - the incorruptible relics of the monk. However, at that time the relics were only examined - they were taken out of the shrine, but were not taken away. According to archival documents, the seizure of the relics of the saint took place two months later - on December 20, 1918 (SPbOIIRAN. F. 3. Op. 5. D. 64). Throughout 1918, the Bolsheviks approached the monastery six times and only on the sixth time they “arrested” the relics and took them away under the escort of the Cheka “for the purpose of mercilessly fighting the enemies of the communist idea and socialist thought” (Archive of the Museum of the Revolution. St. Petersburg. F. 2. Op. 4. D. 152). The search for the relics of the holy venerable Alexander of Svirsky was carried out by studying materials from the following archives: TsGASPb., TsGALI, Archive of the Leningrad Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Archive of the AIMK, Photo Archive of St. Petersburg, Photo Archive of the AIMKSPb., RGIA, Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Archive of the Military Medical Academy, Archive of the SMES, library archives of the BAN , National Public Library, library of the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The funds of the museums were carefully checked: History of Religion (Kazan Cathedral), St. Isaac's Cathedral, Museum of Ethnography, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.
When carrying out archival work, it was important to find answers to the following questions: could the relics end up in one of the museums in St. Petersburg and what is the appearance of the relics of the monk.
As a result of the search, it was established that the relics of the saint were actually taken out of the monastery on December 20, 1918 (SPbOII RAS. F. 3. Op. 5. D. 64) according to Zinoviev’s order and signed by local provincial district authorities on December 19 (TsTSGASPb . F. 143. Op. 1. D. 2. L. 16 vol., 17). The last direct document about the location of the relics indicates that the relics were still in January 1919 in the hospital chapel of Lodeynoye Pole, sealed by security officers (AIMC Archive. F. 67. D. 5).

It is clear that on his own initiative Zinoviev would not have decided to take such a serious step as confiscating, much less destroying, the relics. According to the archival documents we discovered, the fate of the relics of St. Alexander was monitored by: the Council of People's Commissars, the People's Commissariat of Justice, the Control and Audit Board, the All-Union Extraordinary Commission, as well as church authorities: the All-Russian Local Council and personally His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, Metropolitan Veniamin of Petrograd and Gdov, as well as the Olonets Diocesan Administration .
From the documents of the Council of People's Commissars (GARF) it clearly follows that the events taking place in the monasteries were reported to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, since the destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church already in 1918 became one of the most important directions of the policy of the Soviet government.
The campaign to eliminate the relics aimed at “exposing” the shrines: for this it was necessary to show that the relics of the saints are not an incorrupt body, but simply “a bunch of half-decayed bones.” Imagine the disappointment of August Wagner, who entered the monastery of Alexander Svirsky with an armed detachment and performed an autopsy of the relics! But Wagner nevertheless completed the task assigned to him to discredit the relics of the saint: a report appeared in the press according to which, instead of the incorruptible relics, a “wax doll” lay in the coffin. The color of the skin (yellow) and the extraordinary preservation of the face gave rise to this analogy with a wax doll. And so this blasphemous definition began to spread across all the numerous newspapers of that time. This confused many then, but the correlation of even this blasphemous examination with historical evidence is now obvious to us.
During the first discovery of the relics in 1641, the examination of the relics by order of Sovereign Mikhail Feodorovich was carried out by Metropolitan Afoniy of Novgorod, accompanied by Archimandrite of the Khutyn Monastery Paphnutius, Abbot of the Spiritual Monastery Euthymius, Abbot of the Vyazhitsky Monastery Joseph (Ivanovsky Ya. N. Holy Trinity Alexander-Svirsky Monastery. St. Petersburg. , 1882. P. 33). The examination was carried out by comparing the face of the Monk Alexander with his image on the “ancient icon of the 16th century placed near the relics.” This method of examining relics is only possible if the facial features are well preserved. From the same sources we learn about the safety of the saint’s body that “the body is intact, but nothing can destroy it” (ibid., p. 28). The solidity and softness of the body is emphasized by the message about the transfer of the relics to a silver shrine.
Archival materials and an oral survey of employees of St. Petersburg museums, subordinated to the People's Commissariat for Education in 1919-1922, made it possible to establish that the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky were never at the disposal of this structure. Further search was carried out using documents from the People's Commissariat of Health.
Archival data allows us to conclude that each specific action in relation to the relics of the saint was strictly preceded by specific orders emanating from the Center and excluding arbitrariness in the actions of local authorities; no documents on the destruction of the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky were found in the archives. The political situation in the region in 1919 was such that the relics could no longer be left in Lodeynoye Pole, nor could they be taken to the regional center: the position of the Bolsheviks in the North in general at that time was very precarious. One of the documents testifies to the confusion that the local authorities experienced: “... both chairmen (of the provincial and district executive committees) read me the case on the examination of the relics with all the testimony of the monks and witnesses, and asked me to find out whether the Center would find the remains of the saint a historical relic.” - this is what A. A. Krutetsky, an employee of the Department for the Protection and Registration of Monuments of Antiquity and Art, writes in a report dated January 31, 1919 (AIMC. F. 67. D. 5). The response of the People's Commissariat of Education is also available in this case - the head of the Archaeological Department Udalenkov wrote: “... recognizing the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky as an unconditional historical relic, the location of which should be in the temple... asks to take measures to protect this national historical value.” This resolution is dated February 21, 1919.
In the archives of the Central State Archive (F. 2815. Inventory 1. D. 27) there is a document from the Commissariat of Health dated February 18, 1919, indicating that the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky twice underwent a forensic examination in Petrograd. In the archives of SMES St. Petersburg. (February 1919) there are documents that, according to forensic experts, clearly prove that, in parallel with the true relics, there were false relics (a skull and three teeth), which were sent on December 27, 1918 to Petrograd by the Lodeinopolsky Chairman of the Cheka Kantor (that is, the same person , which made a request to the Center through expert Krutetsky) for a forensic examination.
Thus, the true relics (that is, the relics corresponding to the archival descriptions at the first discovery) continued to be in the chapel under lock and key on January 18, 1919, and the false relics went to Petrograd on December 27, 1918 in a box with paper and cotton wool. These relics were examined by “all forensic experts” on 08/01/1919 (however, their signatures are missing in the document), after which an order was received to return them to the Lodeynopolsky Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies and to “provide possible assistance” to the person returning the relics in Lodeynoye Pole.
The TsGA document dated March 18, 1919 (F. 2815. Op. 1. D. 27) reports that the relics of the saint were examined twice - on February 1 and 2, 1919, but in the archives of the SMES there is only one act, and that one was for examination false relics. One might think that the second examination was devoted to the true relics. The Bolsheviks were probably surprised by the safety of the so-called wax doll. However, there is no document confirming this in either the Central State Archives or the FSB Archives and, apparently, there should not be, since the false relics “came to light”, equipped with documents, in order to cover up the existence of the true relics. Subsequently, fake relics were exhibited, according to eyewitnesses, in Lodeynoye Pole and other surrounding towns. It was a box containing a skull and teeth - these “relics” were reported with ridicule in the open press back in 1932 (Klishko V. Karelian Wonderworkers (opening of the relics of Alexander Svirsky and Yevsey Sumsky). L., 1932).

Discovering the storage location of true relics
The Bolsheviks' interest in true relics could only be satisfied by research conducted at the Military Medical Academy, which by that time was the only one with an X-ray machine. It is known that the President of the Military Medical Academy V.N. Tonkov, who is also the head of the department of normal anatomy, was the first anatomist to use x-rays to study corpses. The study of the well-preserved ancient relics of the saint is one of the reasons why the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky ended up in the Military Medical Academy (this assumption was made by Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Major General of the Medical Service, former Deputy Head of the Military Medical Academy for Science V. O. Samoilov - author of a monograph on history of medical institutions in St. Petersburg and, in particular, the history of the Military Medical Academy).
The second reason, no less fundamental, was that against the background of the false relics examined by the Center, the true relics had to be hidden, and there was no better place than the fundamental anatomy museum at the Military Medical Academy, with a 150-year history and more than 10 thousand different exhibits, it was difficult to find.
The third reason is the trustworthiness of the head of the department of normal anatomy (which had a museum) V.N. Tonkov. This was a man whom the NKVD trusted, judging by the handwritten reviews of its employees. Taking advantage of this trust, again according to documentary evidence, V.N. Tonkov more than once rescued Petrograd scientists from arrest. Taking into account all the above arguments, we came to the VMA. And here, in the museum, we discovered the unlabeled mummy of an unknown man. According to the recollections of department employees, the “mummy” was demonstrated in the 40s of the twentieth century at lectures to cadets as a drug for natural mummification, but unnamed. According to the head of the anatomy museum M.V. Tvardovskaya, the mummy is of no value as an anatomical specimen, however, it has been preserved in an unlabeled form to this day.
A study of the collections of St. Petersburg museums based on documents from the TsGALI archive showed that the arrival of the relics of saints in Leningrad was accompanied by documents. Thus, in documents dated 1946, it is reported that the relics from the Moscow museum of the same name are transferred to the Museum of Religion and Atheism: Saints Seraphim of Sarov, Joasaph of Belgorod, three Vilna saints, Solovetsky venerables, the youth Gabriel of Bialystok and several icons with reliquaries (TSGALI . F. 195. Op. 1. D. 62. S. 1-2, 67). That is, the movement of the relics was not a matter of strict secrecy*. Against this background, the absence of documents regarding the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky acquires particular significance - this fact further emphasizes the intentionality of concealing documents about the relics of the saint.

Results of the examination of the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky
The appearance of the relics corresponds to historical and archival descriptions of the appearance of the relics of St. Alexander when they were first discovered. The discovered relics are in unusually good preservation: the body is intact, monolithic, not subject to decay, waxy in color, and very light. Modern scientists who took part in the examination of the relics (anthropologists, anatomists, specialists in craniofacial surgery) note the unique preservation and volumetric intravital configuration of the face, hands and feet. The face is like that of a person who has fallen asleep, which made it possible to conduct iconographic research. During identification, an anthropo-iconographic similarity was revealed with the image of the monk on the altar silver cross, made by Greek minters by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible (Russian Museum BK-2889), on the icon “Alexander Svirsky, Novgorod Wonderworker, with the hallmarks of life and miracles” (Moscow Kremlin Museums , Assumption Cathedral), on a double-sided external icon of the 19th century, where on one side there is a half-length image of the Monk Alexander, and on the reverse side there is the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God (from the Church of Zechariah and Elizabeth in the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery). On the end phalanges of the fingers of the right hand of the monk there are traces of the removal of particles by copies for reliquaries, which coincides with the data of the Synodal Archive on the removal of particles from the fingers for the Synodal sacristy (RGIA. F. 796. Inventory 30. Item 96. L. 5, 7). Experts noted the unusual position of the saint’s feet, but this sign was also noted during the first discovery of the relics and was described as follows: “The legs lay like those of a newly deceased person: the right metatarsus upward, the left turned to the side (see: Ivanovsky Ya. N. Life and miracles of St. Alexander of Svirsky. St. Petersburg, 1874. P. 21).
Modern anthropological research has revealed that the Venerable Alexander is a Vepsian by ethnicity. The territory of settlement of the Vepsians in the area between lakes Ladoga, Onega and White Lake dates back to the place of birth of the saint. It is worth adding to this that the Orthodox Church does not know of another saint of Veps whose relics would be in such amazing preservation.
The first examination of the relics of St. Alexander of Svir by our ancestors in 1641 took place with decorum, dignity and reverence. In the life there are indications that the discovery of the relics was accompanied by the flow of myrrh, fragrance and healing. Now, at the second discovery, all the aforementioned manifestations of God’s grace again took place at the saint’s shrine. But we are no longer the same as our ancestors were. While the relics of the saint were in the church of the holy martyrs Faith, Nadezhda, Lyubov and their mother Sophia, rumors began to spread throughout St. Petersburg about the falsification of the relics of the Monk Alexander. The reverend had to endure again everything that he endured in 1918, when Soviet newspapers wrote about the “wax doll.” Doubts now concerned the nature of mummification, age estimates and ethnicity.
To eliminate doubts, we present the opinions of experts. The specialist who gave the final word on the issue of embalming is the deputy director for science of the Moscow Institute of Biotechnology (the institute deals with issues of artificial embalming): “One of the signs of an embalmed body is that after drying it becomes dense and wrinkled.” The saint’s body was not only not wrinkled, but retained its volume. The consultant’s opinion, expressed in response to our message about myrrh-streaming, deserves special attention: “Artificially embalmed fabrics never release anything from themselves.” Thus, the opinion of a biotechnology specialist confirmed the conclusion of I. V. Gaivoronsky, professor of the Department of Normal Anatomy of the Military Medical Academy, that the mummy discovered in the Museum of the Military Medical Academy is a product of natural mummification.
Regarding the study of the age of St. Alexander of Svirsky. When assessing age based on the state of the bone skeleton, experts noted a discrepancy between the bone age and the passport age, only the reverend’s hand showed him to be an old man (on the radiograph - senile curvature of the fingers). But a similar discrepancy - within twenty years - was described in the 1990s when assessing the age of the relics of St. Philaret of Moscow, St. Innocent of Moscow, Archimandrite Anthony (confessor of Metropolitan Philaret, vicar of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra), whose passport age at the time of repose was 85 years, but the age determined by the bone skeleton was in all three cases less than 60 years. Thus, the condition of the skeletal skeleton of the Monk Alexander is no exception.
To determine ethnicity, a thorough study was carried out by a specialist anthropologist at the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. As a result, the following conclusion was made: “The object under study bears pronounced anthropological features, which in their entirety are characteristic only of the Vepsians.” In world practice, anthropological research methods are the only recognized ones in determining ethnicity. Using other, random approaches can either lead to false conclusions or indicate bias.

About the Diocesan Commission for the Examination of the Relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky
According to the canons, a commission consisting of priests must be created to examine the relics of saints. After the burial of the so-called Royal remains, recognized as such by the state commission, it became obvious that our Church attaches serious importance to scientific examinations, so a scientific examination was initially carried out. It lasted more than six months, and the abbot of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, Lukian (Kutsenko), regularly notified the ruling bishop, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Vladimir, about its results.
On July 28, 1998, an act was signed on the transfer of the relics of the Russian Orthodox Church. Scientific evidence of the “identification” of the relics was obtained, and well-known scientists of St. Petersburg, headed by corresponding member of RAMI Yu. L. Shevchenko, the current Minister of Health, signed their signatures. On July 30, 1998, the Military Medical Academy was closed for the summer holidays. Could the abbot of the monastery leave the myrrh-streaming relics within the walls of a secular institution for another month? Two reports were submitted to Metropolitan Vladimir. His Eminence appreciated this sign of God and put a resolution on the report: “Glory to God for His great mercy and love for the Holy Orthodox Church and Russia” and blessed the holding of prayer services in gratitude to God and Saint Alexander.
From the first day of their appearance in the St. Petersburg church in the name of the holy martyrs Faith, Nadezhda, Love and their mother Sophia, believers began to come and come to the relics of St. Alexander: lay people, priests, bishops, domestic and foreign. On August 16, 1998, His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II came to venerate the relics. Later we learned that His Holiness the Patriarch was confidentially warned that falsification was possible. No one can deny that His Holiness had the right to choose. And His Holiness the Patriarch made it, bowing to the ground in front of the shrine.
In fact, it turned out that all the hierarchs, priests, monks, tens of thousands of believers, headed by their Patriarch, who worshiped the relics (and the relics in the temple began to flow even more abundantly) formed the Commission for the Acceptance of the Relics. Now, if an official commission was still required, it was only to maintain church order, in order to sign an official document on the acceptance of the relics. For this purpose, with the blessing of Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, the Diocesan Commission was created. The commission submitted its findings to the ruling bishop for consideration. From the very beginning of the search for the relics of St. Alexander, Vladyka Vladimir was kept abreast of events, he was presented with fragments of the report on the progress of the search and examination of the relics. Thus, every step was taken with the blessing of Metropolitan Vladimir. In November 1998, having familiarized himself with the conclusions of the Diocesan Commission, he solemnly announced at the Diocesan Assembly that the most important event in the life of the St. Petersburg diocese over the past 1998 was the discovery of the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky.
On November 23, 1998, the relics of St. Alexander were reverently returned to the Holy Trinity Alexander-Svirsky Monastery. Currently, the saint’s relics are temporarily in the Church of Zechariah and Elizabeth - until restoration work is completed in the Transfiguration Cathedral, where they always rested. The flow of pilgrims from the cities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Finland does not stop visiting the relics. Through their prayers to the saint, miracles of healing continue to occur at his shrine, each time surprising us, sinners and those of little faith, with God’s boundless mercy towards people.

And a truly great mystical meaning is hidden in the fact that the last to be found were the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky, lost by our church at the very beginning - exactly eighty years ago. Doesn't this mean that through the conciliar prayers of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Grace of the Lord returns again to long-suffering Russia?
A miracle, a great miracle happened these days in St. Petersburg.
465 years after his death, the great saint returned to us sinners again... And his return was like a light dispelling the evil clouds that had gathered over our Motherland... And is it any coincidence that precisely in those days when, contrary to the advice and wishes of the episcopate Russian Orthodox Church, in the Peter and Paul Fortress there was a ritual burial of the remains declared to be the remains of royal martyrs, and here, in St. Petersburg, a great miracle took place - the appearance of the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky...
When a prayer service was held in the X-ray room of the Forensic Medical Expert Service after completing research on the identification of the relics, myrrh began flowing, accompanied by a strong fragrance.
“All those present witnessed this miraculous manifestation...” says the report of the abbot of the Holy Trinity Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, Father Lucian, submitted to Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg and Ladoga.
“Glory to God for that great mercy and love for the Holy Orthodox Church and for Russia...” the Bishop wrote on the report. Numerous St. Petersburg residents who visited the Church of the Holy Martyrs Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia on Stachek Avenue, where the relics temporarily rest before being transferred to the monastery, can also testify to the wonderful fragrance spreading from the holy relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky.
“We bless you, our reverend father Alexandra, and honor your holy memory, mentor of monks and interlocutor of angels!” — just like three hundred years ago, the troparion sung with many voices “with one mouth” sounds here.

“O sacred head, earthly angel and heavenly man, most holy and God-bearing Father Alexandra, great servant of the Most Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, show many mercies to those living in your holy monastery and to everyone who flows to you with faith and love! Ask us everything that is useful for this temporary life, and necessary for our eternal salvation. Help with your intercession, servant of God, before the Lord against enemies visible and invisible. His faithful servants, who were in sorrow day and night, crying out to Him, may the painful cry be heard and may our belly be delivered from destruction. May the holy Orthodox Church of Christ abide in peace, and may our fatherland be founded in good order, indestructible in all piety. Be to all of us, holy wonder-worker and quick helper in every sorrow and situation. Most of all, at the hour of our death, a merciful intercessor appeared to us, so that we may not betray the power of the evil ruler of the world during the ordeals of the air, but may we be honored with an unstumbling ascension into the Kingdom of Heaven. Hey, Father, our dear prayer book! Do not disgrace our hope, do not despise our humble prayer, and intercede for us before the throne of the Life-Giving Trinity, so that together with you and with all the saints, we are unworthy, we are worthy to glorify in the villages of paradise the greatness, grace and mercy of the One in the Trinity of God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen".

Press service of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery
Note:
* The studied “drug” is not listed in museum catalogs of the 19th century. According to the department's staff, careful cataloging was carried out in the 19th century. At that time there could be no tendentious reasons to hide any exhibit. The “drug” was not included in the catalogs of the 20th century, apparently in order to hide it.

When we reach our resting place and it is given to us to know even as we are known (1 Cor. 13:12), then, looking at our entire life, we will see the connection between the trials we endured and the goal we achieved. Then we will thank the Lord with all our souls, who loved us so much as not to spare us when in our ignorance we asked for it.
He, indeed, “melted and tested” (Jeremiah 9:7; 1 Peter 4:12) in fiery temptation His chosen ones in order to purify them and turn them to Himself.
The time will come when we will bless the trial that made us shed many tears, and we will say, like David: “It is good for me that I suffered in order to learn Your statutes! (Ps.119.71).
The Apostle Paul said the words when he was still on earth, in the midst of the sorrow and distress that surrounded him: “what we considered misfortune will turn into good for us, and the glory that will be revealed will sweeten for us forever all the suffering we have endured.” He had a presentiment, a foretaste of heavenly glory, because in the midst of the fiery crucible he looked not at the visible, which is temporary, but at the invisible, which is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18).
May God grant us to live “by faith and not by sight” and with “patience of hope” to walk the earthly path, measuring the love of God not by our own experiences, but by the Cross of Jesus Christ!

Stichera, ch.6
“Today rise up your most radiant and all-celebratory memory, blessed one of God, convening the numerous fasting class, and the venerables of all ranks.”

Service of St. Alexander Svirsky.

Miracles of St. Alexander of Svirsky

And he immediately received his sight and followed Him, glorifying God (Luke 18:43).

They pray to the Monk Alexander of Svirsky for paralysis and relaxation (paralysis) of the body with insomnia, loss of appetite and deprivation of any members, if they want to have a male child.

“Wonderful is God in His saints”

Reverend Father Alexandra, pray to God for us.

Prayer

“O venerable and God-bearing Father Alexander! Ask us everything that is useful for this temporary life, and even more necessary for our eternal salvation. Be to us, the servants of God (names), miracle-working saint, a quick helper in every sorrow and situation. Most of all, at the hour of our death, a merciful intercessor appeared to us, so that we may not be betrayed in the ordeals of the air to the power of the evil world ruler, but may we be honored with a stumbling-free ascension into the Kingdom of Heaven. Hey, Father, our dear prayer book! Do not disgrace our hope, do not despise our humble prayers, but always intercede for us before the throne of the Life-Giving Trinity, so that together with you and with all the saints, even if we are unworthy, we may be worthy to glorify in the villages of paradise the greatness, grace and mercy of the One God in the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, forever and ever."

Such miracles, witnessed by many people, took place in the monastery founded by Alexander Svirsky.

Life does not end with burial - after their death, saints continue to participate in earthly history, coming to the aid of those who turn to them with all their hearts.
Immediately after the death of the saint, miracles of healing began at his tomb.
In the book “The Life and Miracles of St. Alexander, Abbot, Svirsky Wonderworker,” published in 1905 in the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, the description of these miracles takes up about sixty pages of compact text.
At the saint’s grave, the blind began to see, the paralyzed began to walk, and the demon-possessed were cured.
Twelve years after the death of Alexander Svirsky, the new abbot of the monastery Herodion, at the direction of the All-Russian Metropolitan Macarius, compiled the Life of his great teacher.

“The life of this Life-Giving Trinity was written down in the monastery of the Venerable Father Alexander in the monastery created by him in the summer of 7053, in the second tenth year after the repose of the Holy Father Alexander into the Christ-loving kingdom of the sovereign Grand Duke John Vasilyevich of All Russia, the autocrat by the command of the Lord Most Reverend Macarius, Metropolitan of All Russia and by for the welfare of the Most Reverend Theodosius, Archbishop of Velikago Novagrad and Pskov" .

And two years later, at the Council of Russian Bishops, Alexander Svirsky was canonized.
“For all the holy monasteries, and for all the holy churches of the great kingdom of Russia...,” the Council decided, “to celebrate everywhere on the 30th day of August the new miracle worker of Novgorod, the Venerable Alexander of Svirsky.”

The power of the prayer of Saint Alexander of Svirsky was extraordinary.

There is a known case...
They built a mill on a channel between two lakes. When the isthmus was excavated, water from the upper (Holy) lake rushed into the lower (Roshchinskoye) lake, the pressure was so strong that the monastery buildings were in danger. It seemed that they could no longer be saved, but the monk, having prayed to God, called on the name of Christ and with his right hand inscribed the Sign of the Cross on the rapids of the waters and - what a miracle! - the current stopped.

Equally great was the foresight of Saint Alexander of Svirsky...
Once, after the consecration of the temple built in the monastery on the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit, pilgrims made their donations. Among them was Gregory, who came to the monastery from Pidmozero. When Alexander Svirsky passed near him, Gregory wanted to put his contribution to the venerable phelonion, but the saint pushed his hand away.
After the service, the offended Gregory approached Alexander Svirsky and asked why he did not accept his offering.
- You don’t know me!- he said.
- Right!- answered the saint. “I don’t know you, and I haven’t seen your face, but your hand is so defiled that a stench comes from it.” Why are you beating your old mother?
Great fear then seized Gregory, who carefully concealed this sin. He asked for guidance on what to do, how to improve. The monk advised me to go and first ask for forgiveness from my mother...
Holy appearance... - Behold, the Lord is coming and His!.
Several years before his death, Saint Alexander, who laid the foundation of the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God, prayed at night to the Most Pure Lady for help and intercession of the monastery.
With him was his spiritual son Athanasius...
- Child, - the Reverend told him. - Be sober and watchful, because at this hour the visitation wants to be wonderful and terrible.
And immediately a voice sounded:
- Behold, the Lord comes and She who gave birth to Him!.
Coming out of the cell, the monks saw a great light above the monastery. Above the foundation of the altar, holding the Infant Savior in her arms, the Most Pure Queen sat on the throne, and there were many angelic ranks around.
From the inexpressible light the monk fell to the ground, but the Lady of the world turned to him:
- Arise, chosen one of My Son and God: behold, I have come to visit you, My beloved, to see the foundation of My Church, because the prayer of your lips has been heard, and so on, do not grieve!
And Saint Alexander saw many monks with bricks, stones, and tools who were going to the foundation of the church.
Meanwhile, the Mother of God continued:
-My beloved, even if anyone brings a single brick to protect My Church, in the Name of Jesus Christ, My Son and My God, he will not lose his reward.
When the vision ended, the monk raised the lying Athanasius, who, falling at the feet of the saint, sobbing, said:
- Explain, father, what this wonderful and terrible vision means? My spirit was almost separated from my body from this indescribable brilliant light?

The miracle of resolving infertility
In the Pskov region, on the Velikaya River, 45 versts from the city of Pskov, lived a certain nobleman Afanasy Feodorov Veniaminov. He was a kind and believing man and had a wife named Evdokia. Both of them were in great sorrow because they had no male children, but all daughters were born. They strongly prayed to God to give them a son. One day Athanasius said to his wife: “I heard about the Reverend Father Alexander that God works many miracles at his tomb and they even say that they found his honest and holy body in incorruption. Let us also make a promise to him, may he pray to God for us, so that we may be worthy to receive what we want from Him; I am convinced that everyone who seeks help from the saints with faith will receive it.” In their house they had an image of the Most Holy Trinity and the Reverend Father Alexander the Wonderworker, before whom they both prayed fervently. A year after their promise, they came to the monastery of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity and St. Alexander the Wonderworker, bringing with them a baby boy, and asked to serve a prayer service at the tomb of the Rev. Having venerated his Miracle-working and healing body, they thanked God and His Pleasant, the great Wonderworker, the Reverend Father Alexander, a lot, saying: “For God has given us this through his prayers.” Then, having arranged a good treat for the brethren and distributed enough alms, they went to their home, rejoicing and glorifying God and the Monk Alexander.

Miracle of the Paralytic
A certain nobleman Andrei Danilov Antonov, who lived in the village of Kusyage, not far from the Syas River, fell ill with relaxation of his entire body and suffered from insanity. His parents greatly mourned this; They took him to holy churches and spent a lot of money on doctors, but they were of no use.
One day they remembered the great Wonderworker, the Reverend Father Alexander, that at his tomb God was performing many healings, and, taking their son, they brought the Reverend Father Alexander to the monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity. Having stayed in the monastery for seven days, they prayed to God, the Most Pure Mother of God and the Monk Alexander the Wonderworker for the healing of their son, but they did not receive their request, and went back home. After that, they greatly lamented and cried, repenting that they had not prayed to the monk at first, having long heard about the glorious miracles that happened from his honest and multi-healing relics. And immediately the Reverend Father Alexander, who was quick to help, heard their sighing and did not despise their prayers, giving healing to the sick man, who rose from his bed as if he had never been sick.

About warriors
In August 1673, a certain royal warrior Mokiy Lvov, a resident of Gorodetsk, near Vezhetsk, came to the monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity and the venerable father Alexander, who told the following in the monastery: “When I was in military service, in the regiment of the boyar Vasily Borisovich Sheremetyev, against godless Crimean Tatars, we happened to be near the city of Konotop, where the godless Tatars unexpectedly attacked us, took many of us prisoner and took us to their land; where we, thirteen people, were given to one Murza, with whom we were in captivity for thirteen years, doing all kinds of hard work during the day, and staying in prison at night, in iron shackles. One night, sitting in prison, we cried a lot, praying to the Lord God and His Most Pure Mother, calling on all the saints for help. And then great fear and bewilderment fell upon us: we saw a great light in the prison that shone around us. When we came to our senses, we saw a handsome man with gray hair come in to us, and heard a voice saying from above: “O people! Call upon Saint Alexander of Svirsky for help, he will save you from real trouble.” And immediately the one who appeared became invisible and the light disappeared. We made a promise to the Monk Alexander of Svirsky. Two days after this, Greek merchants came and bought us from that Murza, and then brought us to Constantinople, from where we safely arrived in the God-protected reigning city of Moscow and we all went to our places of residence, through the prayers of the great Wonderworker, the Reverend Father Alexander.”

Begged babies
“In 1998, in the church of the holy martyrs Faith, Nadezhda, Lyubov and their mother Sophia, the relics of St. Alexander Svirsky. My daughter Elena (names have been changed) and I venerated the relics of the saint with the same request that God would give her a child. The daughter got married early - at 18 years old. She is now 38 years old. All the years of marriage were years of waiting in vain for a child. And then a miracle happened: in September the daughter venerated the relics, and in October, as it turned out later, she became pregnant. A beautiful girl was born in due time. This miracle, granted by God through prayers at the relics of the saint, happened after 19 years of waiting... I thank the saint every day. Alexander Svirsky for the birth of baby Maria. He asked God, and God gave us such joy. This is a real miracle."

As if someone invisible picked up the baby
This happened in August 1998. A young woman entered the temple with a five-year-old girl in her arms. Small, thin, with lifelessly hanging arms and legs, she looked very tiny. In a conversation with her mother, it turned out that the girl cannot walk: her central nervous system was damaged from birth. The doctors could do nothing to reassure the unfortunate mother. Such a serious illness could only be healed by the power and will of God. And this happened right there, at the saint’s shrine, in front of the amazed people who filled the temple to capacity.
The mother, approaching the shrine of St. Alexander of Svirsky, with the help of a novice standing at the shrine, laid the girl on the surface of the glass covering the relics. For some time the child remained in a lying position. Then the mother, taking her off the shrine, sat the girl on the floor to venerate the saint’s relics herself. While praying, I didn’t notice how the girl disappeared. It turned out that she stood up on legs that had suddenly become stronger, as if someone invisible had lifted her, stood her up - and she walked, unsupported by anyone. Silence reigned in the temple, people parted, making a wide corridor for the girl and her mother, who, running ahead of her daughter, spread her arms over her so that at any moment she could pick up her dear creature. So they reached the exit from the temple, here the mother took the child in her arms, straightened up, and everyone saw on her face, wet with tears, what she experienced at that moment - joy, gratitude, confusion, fear and doubt: “what if she won’t be able to walk again?” ? A year later, the monastery learned that Verochka - that is the name of the healed woman - not only walks, but also runs.

No more need for crutches
“The second similar case of healing occurred with Andrey, a resident of Podporozhye. After he was in a car accident, his legs lost the ability to move. This handsome, tall, strong man dragged them behind him, leaning on crutches. No physical treatments or massages improved the position of the immobilized person. But faith in a cure did not leave him. Guided by this faith, Andrei stubbornly came to the monastery of St. Alexander of Svirsky to the shrine with his relics.
There were only four such trips with different time intervals between them. Each time, standing at the shrine, he earnestly asked the monk to help. What he promised in his prayers to the miracle worker, how this essentially unchurched man prayed, remained a mystery to everyone. One day, everyone in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in the Svirsky Monastery witnessed the manifestation of God’s mercy towards the cripple, who came to the relics of St. Alexander for the fourth time. This time, his legs became so strong that he put aside his crutches and took his first independent, hesitant steps.
Soon he came back to the monastery to serve a thanksgiving prayer - less than a month passed. Andrei entered the temple only leaning lightly on his stick.”
This certificate was signed by the brethren and the dean of the Holy Trinity Alexander Svirsky Monastery, Hieromonk Adrian. The events described took place in May–September 2000.

Power over demons
As you know, the Monk Alexander always helped those suffering from demonic demons and possession. And now in the monastery there are cases of helping such suffering people. And today, as in past centuries, those possessed by mental illness cannot, without fear, calmly pass through the monastery gates to the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
During the stay of the relics in the temple of the holy martyrs Faith, Nadezhda, Lyubov and their mother Sophia, the reaction of the possessed to the shrine could be seen almost daily: if they were led to the shrine or if holy water fell on them during a prayer service at the saint’s shrine, the cries of these people could be heard for the entire temple. There have also been such demonic “revelations”: “I won’t go, I don’t want to, I don’t love him!” The wicked cannot bear the touch of a sacred thing.
Only the Lord knows how the presence of a miracle worker near all of Russia, to whom God has given power over demons, will affect such people in the future. Perhaps one of them, through the efforts of personal repentance and purification of life, will be able to get rid of the devil's attack.

According to everyone's faith
With whatever needs they don’t go to the miracle worker! You are amazed at how varied the help provided by the saint’s prayerful intercessions can be.
50-year-old sick Elena, who suffered from congenital right-sided hemiparesis, after several prayers in the Church of Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia, received a miraculous healing from her weakness. At one of the prayer services, with reverence and prayer, I touched the Reverend’s foot with two fingers of my always cold right hand, paresis, and felt a life-giving warmth. At home during the meal, Elena mechanically took the spoon in her right hand, and then was able to hold the glass of drink. At the next prayer service, when she thanked the Lord and the Monk Alexander, the fingers of her right hand, without outside help, suddenly formed the sign of the cross. Seven years before this, Elena made the sign of the cross with her left hand.
Due to arthrosis, the servant of God Mary suffered from acute pain in her knee for 3 months, causing lameness. She was treated with possible medications. In the church, at the relics of the monk, I celebrated the Divine Liturgy, then a prayer service: in total I was on my feet for more than 3 hours. Leaving the temple, I felt that the pain had decreased and the lameness had gone away. On the 3rd day, the knee pain completely disappeared.
Servant of God Nadezhda received healing from erysipelas associated with thrombophlebitis - after she anointed them with myrrh from the relics of the monk. Before healing, the leg was swollen, bandaged with a bandage, soaked through with liquid, flowing profusely from the leg. A day later, when the woman returned to thank the monk, her leg was dry, there was no bandage, some redness remained only at the edges of the protracted trophic ulcer. Signs of erysipelas disappeared.
Servant of God Nina was healed from burns. After anointing with oil and myrrh, the pain from the burn went away immediately, skin regeneration began quickly. In addition, it indicates that vitiligo spots began to gradually disappear.
Servant of God Varvara happily reported that she began to read without glasses after venerating the relics.
And there are a great many such testimonies.

Faith conquers distances
“Almost all the inhabitants of the Svirsky Monastery know about this amazing incident. It occurred in a family living in Rostov-on-Don. Two Rostovites hurriedly came to the monastery to pray for the life of a man dear to them: for one of them he was a husband, for the other he was a brother. The one for whom they came to bow their heads before the cancer of the great miracle worker was at that time in serious condition after the third operation he had just undergone for cancer of the head of the pancreas. They took him in a hopeless state to “die at home.” But the relatives did not want to give up before the “inevitable end” and, despite their own ill health and advanced age, they set off on a long journey. With tearful prayer they fell to their knees before the relics of St. Alexander Svirsky. It was early Sunday morning. According to their daughter, who stayed with her father that morning, her father felt so good for the first time that he got out of bed and even dared to get behind the wheel of his car. Energy and strength were in full swing within him.
His wife and sister, returning from the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, were amazed by the cheerful appearance of the sick man and were not only happy for him, but overwhelmed with gratitude to God and the prayer intercessor - St. Alexander Svirsky, two weeks later they returned to the monastery again only to pay tribute of gratitude in the very place from which their fervent prayers were sent. The monastery itself, where the heavenly abbot, St. Alexander Svirsky, donations have been made, which the monastery so badly needs - traces of the destruction caused by the Bolshevik era are still very large. Everything described above happened in September 2000. In the summer of 2001, the women returned to the monastery again, but this time they were accompanied by a former patient. He himself personally wanted to thank St. Alexandra for the mercy shown to him. According to the testimony of the healed man, previously, living far from the northern monastery, he did not know the saint to whom his relatives turned with such faith and hope.”
This certificate is on the website of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery. It was signed by N. I. Skifskaya, who accompanied the pilgrimage groups, by the brethren of the monastery, by the dean hieromonk Adrian.
The great prayer book helps not only the Orthodox, but everyone who asks him about it with all their hearts. The servant of God Natalia (Catholic), a philologist by training, spoke about this incident. For two years she could not find a job in her specialty. The very next morning, after praying to the monk, she was awakened by a telephone call offering her a job as a translator.
Wonderful are Your miracles, O Lord!

Heavenly Restorer
I heard many similar stories while working as a monastery press secretary. But there were also meetings that told about miracles not of a personal nature, but of miracles that were significant to many people.
The monks noticed: the frescoes in the Trinity Cathedral, compared to the time when the monastery had just been restored, began to be renewed, as if on their own, acquiring a brighter, heavenly color. But it’s one thing when ordinary pilgrims or residents say that the frescoes have become brighter, and another thing is the opinion of a specialist. I had an unusual meeting that confirmed this.
A restorer came to us, who worked here in the 70s in a student team that was then engaged in the restoration of the monastery. They did quite a lot at that time... When I entered the Trinity Cathedral with this man, before I had time to tell him anything, he stopped and asked:
- Listen, who worked here? Someone obviously worked for you here. Tell me, which masters did your restoration?
- Nobody worked- I answer.
- But this cannot be!
- No,- I say, – after you, no human hand touched these frescoes.
- Can't be!– he repeated again.
–What has changed?
– You know, they became as if they were alive, and as if everyone was looking at you.
This was the testimony of the man who restored these frescoes with his own hands in the 70s. He confirmed that they became not only brighter, but seemed to be completely different. Interestingly, this update seems to be moving from top to bottom. And if at first nothing was visible below at all, all the images seemed blurred, then they began to appear brighter and brighter. Of course, these are special signs of God’s mercy for all of us.

But no less marvelous was the modesty of the monk
Alexander Svirsky shows us an example of the greatest humility...
They say that one day, when he was already the abbot of the monastery he founded, the fame of which spread throughout Rus', the monastery steward came to him and said, they say, the firewood is running out, and it would be necessary to send some idle monk into the forest to chop it .
- I'm idle...- answered the monk.
He took an ax and went into the forest.

“In 1641 from the Nativity of Christ, according to the command of the pious Tsar, they dismantled the dilapidated church in the name of our Reverend Father Alexander, where there was a tomb placed over his body... When they began to dig a ditch for the front wall, on the eastern side of the temple... found a coffin. The ground above him stood in the form of a cave, not supported by anything... The abbot was immediately shown the found coffin. He, going with the holy monks into the ditch, removed the top board from the coffin, and a strong fragrance from the relics of the monk spread everywhere, so that the whole place was filled with incense. There was no chopping at that time, and they saw the entire lying body of the venerable father Alexander, whole and unharmed, in a mantle and schema, wrapped in order, and the anallav on it was completely intact, part of the beard was visible from under the schema; both legs lay like those of someone who had recently died, the right foot up, and the left foot turned to the side, both shod in sandals. The fragrant myrrh spread throughout his body, like some growing flowers, and poured out like water. Seeing all this, those who were there were filled with horror and joy and glorified Almighty God, Who Glorifies His Saints...” (The Legend of the Finding of the Relics of Our Reverend Father Alexander, Abbot of Svir, Wonderworker).

I once read these lines and was amazed at the chronicler’s story, but I never thought that I myself would see the incorruptible body of Saint Alexander and be filled with horror and joy at the sight of the fragrant world. After all, the relics of the Svir miracle worker were considered lost; even their existence was questioned.

The fact is that once upon a time, it was from the shrine of St. Alexander that an all-Russian campaign to open the relics began, which was supposed to “expose the counter-revolutionary essence of the Orthodox Church and reveal the centuries-old deception of the people by the clergy.” A message then appeared in the Soviet press that on October 22, 1918, during the “registration” of the property of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, “in a cast shrine weighing more than 20 pounds of silver, instead of the incorruptible relics of Alexander Svirsky, a wax doll was discovered.” (True, Archimandrite Eugene, who was present at the opening of the relics, testified against this conclusion, arguing that the authentic remains of the saint were found in the shrine, and not a doll at all, as the proprietors said, but a few days later he was shot, and therefore there was no one to refute the official version ).

Be that as it may, the Bolsheviks removed what was found in the shrine from the monastery. (Soon an “island” of the Gulag began operating there.)

80 years have passed. The abbot of the reviving Alexander-Svirsky monastery, Lukian (Kutsenko), blessed the nun Leonida (Safonova) to work in the archives to search for information about the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky. In the world, nun Leonida, a nun of the Intercession-Tervenichsky Monastery, achieved the degree of candidate of biological sciences, worked as a senior researcher at the St. Petersburg Research Institute named after. Pasteur. First, she visited all the historical and ethnographic museums of the city, but the search did not yield any results. Unexpectedly, a document from the Central Historical Archive helped her. The document testified that the relics of the reverend underwent a medical examination in a subdivision of the People's Commissariat of Health in February 1919. Then it was decided to begin a survey of the city’s medical museums. Quite soon, the search led to the Military Medical Academy, where an anatomical museum has existed for more than 150 years. Back in the 40s, “an example of natural mummification” was demonstrated at lectures there.

Of course, this did not happen by chance: Saint Alexander was known as the “prayer book for kings.” Once upon a time, Ivan the Terrible prayed to the monk just before the capture of Kazan, and after the victory he declared him a “great and wondrous miracle worker” throughout Russia. Since then, every autocrat either came to venerate the relics or sent generous gifts to the monastery. All the Romanovs were admirers of the Monk Alexander. The first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Fedorovich, especially revered the saint. One of the first chapels erected by Peter I in the new capital of Russia was the chapel of Alexander Svirsky. The Emperor repeatedly visited the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery.

On December 30, 1997, nun Leonida saw the relics of St. Alexander for the first time at the Military Medical Academy of St. Petersburg. The examinations began. They took place first at the Military Medical Academy itself, then at the forensic medical service of St. Petersburg. During the first prayer invocation to the saint, myrrh was poured out on the relics. This happened in the X-ray room of the Forensic Medical Expert Service of St. Petersburg, in front of the SMES workers and nuns of the Intercession-Tervenichsky Monastery.

“The saint especially consoled us,” recalled nun Leonida. “After the first prayer call to him, after a prayer service was served before the relics in the forensic service, they began to flow myrrh. Myrrh was flowing especially strongly from my feet. Every wrinkle of the body was covered with peace. The saint seemed to answer us: “It’s me! I hear you.

The examinations lasted several months. The main difficulty, the nun recalled, was overcoming the atheistic attitude of some members of the expert commission. They had to constantly overcome themselves internally in order to understand that what was happening was the acquisition of a shrine, and not “mummified remains.” But in the end, experts decided that the remains found in the Military Medical Academy really belonged to Alexander Svirsky... The holy relics were transferred to the Church of the Holy Martyrs Faith, Nadezhda, Lyubov and their mother Sophia. Soon the myrrh-streaming became permanent. Thousands of St. Petersburg residents and pilgrims from other cities witnessed this miracle.

I have been to this temple twice. I can’t tell you almost anything about my first visit. I remember a strange small church, without a dome, surrounded by typical multi-story buildings, the singing of “Our Reverend Father Alexandra, pray to God for us,” and the line for the shrine. What I don't remember is Alexander himself. When the nun, who was wiping the glass of the tomb with a towel, made a sign to me with her hand: “Pray,” my heart began to pound, everything floated as if in a fog. A wave of inexplicable trembling threw me to my knees in front of the coffin. I kissed the cancer and walked away. That's all.

The second time I came to church two months later. It was time between prayer services, the mothers were washing the floor. There was almost no one in the temple, and I was able to stay at the shrine for quite a long time. What struck me most was the appearance of the reverend’s hand—it looked as if it had been carved from ivory. In front of me under the glass were not remains, not a skeleton, not bones - it was exactly incorruptible body. The body, which spent more than a century in damp earth (during which time the coffin almost completely rotted), three centuries in the tomb and 80 years in the museum of the Military Medical Academy. It immediately occurred to me that the Bolsheviks, who opened the tomb in 1918, could really imagine that Alexander’s body was sculpted from wax. The hand of a saint is the hand of a strong man: strong, knobby fingers, a wide wrist. Such a hand should have known well what an ax, hoe, shovel is.

The saint's right foot rests on the arch of his left (this is what the chronicle draws attention to). Droplets of oily liquid were clearly visible on Alexander’s legs. Leaning towards the shrine, I felt an indescribable aroma. It was that same “fragrant myrrh.” Here I was again overtaken by that state of inner trembling that I experienced on my first visit to the temple. Just think, myrrh! I, who have difficulty distinguishing odors (the result of several years of smoking), clearly sensed an unearthly aroma, despite the fact that the temple smelled strongly of detergent and the lid of the shrine was tightly closed!

This fragrance was felt by everyone who entered the temple. And at times it became so strong that bees flocked to its smell! I learned from the candle maker that the nature of the myrrh flow changes during prayer services - sometimes it literally begins to flow down the saint’s feet. A friend of mine, a deskmate in my school past, treated my newborn daughter for cancer. When, a couple of hours later, he got home with her, his family were amazed - a persistent fragrance emanated from the child.

An absolutely amazing fact was also recorded. Some pilgrims who came in the summer and autumn of 1998 to venerate the relics of St. Alexander, approaching the shrine, asked to attach to it an icon of the saint, purchased right there in the temple. Soon these icons began to stream myrrh at home, during home prayers. Some noted a strong fragrance for several days.

Miracles at the relics of Alexander Svirsky:
1533-1998

The Monk Alexander was buried in 1533 in the waste hermitage, near the wooden Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, on the right side of the altar. After 14 years, the Svir miracle worker was canonized (in our Church this is a rare case). A small wooden church was built over the saint's body. During the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, it completely fell into disrepair, and the abbot of the monastery, Abbot Abraham, came up with the idea of ​​building a stone church over Alexander’s body. The king donated money for the construction of the church.

In the spring of 1641, the wooden church was dismantled, and soon the monks of the monastery began to witness unusual light phenomena. “On Thursday of Palm Week there was extraordinary thunder and lightning. Lightning fell to the ground and did not suddenly disappear, as usually happens, but fell to the ground and shone for a long time,” the chronicler wrote.

Workers were digging a ditch for the front wall of the future temple. Suddenly, in the altar area of ​​the old church (that is, in the middle of the altar), they came across a coffin. The ground above this coffin stood in the form of a cave, unsupported by anything. As soon as the abbot removed the top board of the coffin, all those present felt a strong fragrance from the relics. Looking inside, the monks saw the incorruptible body of the Monk Alexander. Thus, to the surprise of everyone, the coffin was found in a different place - east of the tomb of the saint.

Healings at the tomb of St. Alexander took place before, starting in 1533, the year of the saint’s death. Here are some of them.

One blind woman, named Anna, who begged for alms in the surrounding villages, came to the monastery on the day of the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. Falling down to the coffin, she asked for healing for her eyes, and her vision immediately returned to her.

In the vicinity of the monastery on the Oyat River lived the peasant Ivan Iudin. This peasant, as the monastery chronicle relates, “had a son named Sozont, who was weak in his legs from birth and completely unable to walk or stand on his feet.” Ivan had no other sons. Having heard about the miracles that happened through prayers to Saint Alexander (among those healed was his daughter-in-law Matrona, who got rid of a terrible tumor on her head), Ivan took his son to the monastery, where he met with the abbot and asked to serve a prayer service. At the end of the prayer service, Sozont was placed on the saint’s shrine and sprinkled with holy water, after which “the youth stood firmly and straight on his feet, and walked back and forth.”

Not far from the monastery on the Segezha River lived the young man Afanasy, the servant of the boyar Andrei. He had a relaxed right hand with which he could not do anything. Having prayed at Alexander’s tomb and made three bows, this young man, as the chronicler writes, suddenly exclaimed: “Having the seven prayers of Father Alexander!” - and raised his right hand up. The monastery knew Athanasius and his illness well; At the sight of such an obvious healing, “the clergy and the entire multitude of people were filled with horror and joy.”

Near the monastery in the village of Chagunitsa lived Tatiana, Tikhon’s wife, who suffered from relaxation of all her limbs. “For two years she suffered very seriously from that illness, dying many times, so that she had no hope of staying alive.” Through prayers to Alexander, she received complete healing and served a thanksgiving prayer service at the shrine.

Nowadays, healings from relaxation (paralysis) also most often occur at the tomb of St. Alexander of Svirsky.

After the relics were found under the altar of the old church and transferred first to the Church of St. Nicholas, and then to the stone Transfiguration Cathedral, amazing healings continued to occur at the tomb, including from such a terrible illness as demon possession.

Here are several modern miracles recorded by the clergy of the Church of the Holy Martyrs Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia and published in the newspaper “Orthodox Petersburg” (No. 10, 1998).

Elena lived to be 50 years old with congenital paralysis of her right arm. Medical procedures did not help. After several prayers at the shrine, I was able to fold my fingers for the sign of the cross without outside help. The fingers are still hard to control, but now the woman can hold light objects in her hand.

Raisa suffered from stomach disease for five years. Having anointed the skin over the sore spot with myrrh from the relics, she received relief from the pain.

Alla spoke about getting rid of headaches after praying to the monk, applying to his relics and anointing with oil.

Nina suffered from pain in her spine and joints. She stood for six hours at prayer services, which continued continuously at the saint’s shrine. After returning home, I received relief from the pain.

Olga was bedridden with rapidly developing cancer. Friends were miraculously able to put her in a car and take her to the temple to venerate the relics, after which the patient not only got back on her feet, but also got a job.

The relics of Saint Alexander performed the following miracles: they shone with extraordinary light; came out of hiding; spread fragrance; streamed myrrh; healed the paralytic, the blind, the demon-possessed, and the sick; for five centuries they resisted decay. Who was this man so richly glorified by God?

Hegumen Alexander

In the life of Alexander Svirsky we will find many ascetic deeds, miracles, and manifestations of grace-filled power. But this saint is famous not only for his asceticism and miracles.

Alexander Svirsky was born in 1448, when many disciples of Sergius of Radonezh, the great saint, through whose works and prayers the veneration of the Holy Trinity was established in Rus', were still alive. And so in the Novgorod land a man was born who was awarded see Trinity. This has not happened to any mortal since the time of Abraham.

Under Sergius of Radonezh, who blessed Dmitry Donskoy for the Battle of Kulikovo, the liberation of Rus' from the Tatars began.

Under Alexander Svirsky, who prayed for Ivan III, after standing on the Ugra River, the Tatar yoke was finally overthrown.

Sergius restored the monastic community in Rus' and founded the Trinity Monastery near Moscow, which later became the famous Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

Alexander, with his monastic exploits, strengthened monasticism in the north of Rus' and founded the Trinity Monastery, which later became the famous Trinity Alexander-Svirsky Monastery - a place of pilgrimage for the royal Romanov dynasty.

He was born north of Novgorod, in the Olonets land, in a village called Mandera on the Oyat River. The north of Rus' found it more difficult to accept Christianity, and this region remained pagan for a long time. (However, there were also such centers of holiness and piety in it as the ancient Valaam Monastery.) The time of Alexander is the era of Vasily the Dark, Ivan III and Vasily III; Rus', which won the Kulikovo Field, united around Moscow.

The Novgorod region suffered little from the Tatar raids. Alexander's parents (after the holy baptism of Amos), Stefan and Vassa, did not live richly, but they did not go hungry. Even in the times of Kyiv, Novgorod was famous for its universal literacy; Amos’s parents also knew how to read Scripture. But he was not given literacy, despite a strong desire to master book wisdom and the efforts of the teacher. The life tells how one day, having arrived at the monastery, the youth fell on his knees before the image of the Mother of God. He prayed that the Blessed Virgin would give him reason to understand the Divine Scripture. Amos's prayer was heard, and he soon began to read and surpassed his peers in learning.

Childhood passes quietly and calmly; teaching, working with parents in the field. Amos grows up withdrawn and silent; he hardly plays with his peers. More and more often, his parents find him with a book, he tries to imitate the great ascetics: he fasts strictly, sleeps little, and in winter he goes without a hat and wears thin clothes. All this worries Stefan and Vassa. They try to dissuade him, but Amos answers them with the words of Scripture: “Brain will not place us before God.” Parents, seeing such firmness, humble themselves. However, they hope that, having matured, Amos will change: he will abandon these “extremes” and be like everyone else. And they begin to look for a bride for him. Meanwhile, their son meets two monks from Valaam. They stand on the river bank and sing psalms. Amos bows to the ground and comes up for a blessing. The surprised elders enter into conversation with the young man. Amos asks about monastic life, about the monastic order. “What should I do, holy fathers? - he exclaims. - How can one become worthy of this angelic life? My parents want to marry me; I would run away, but I know my father will find me and bring me home. And it will only be trouble for him and sadness for me.” The wise elders, having listened to the young man, answer him like this: “Child, natural love is the love of a father and mother. We can't take you with us; We do not have an order from the abbot to take children away from their parents. But we see that the love of God has already deeply penetrated your soul. And therefore, hasten so that the evil spirits do not touch your heart.” The elders bless him to leave his parents' house and tell him how to get to Valaam.

That same day, the young man tells his parents that he is going to a neighboring village for some reason. They, suspecting nothing, let him go. Having stolen his parents' blessing, Amos comes to Valaam and takes monastic vows with the name Alexander. His parents know nothing about him and have been looking for him for three years.

Finally, Stefan learns from one of the wanderers that his son is in the Spasov Monastery. The father immediately goes to Valaam.

Twice the abbot comes to Alexander’s cell, persuading him to go to his father, and twice the young monk refuses. Meanwhile, Stefan threatens the abbot to commit suicide right at the gates of the monastery, “if they don’t show their son right away.” Finally, the tonsured man leaves his cell. His father rushes to him, hugs him, cries, whispers his dear name: “Amos. Amos. my son, let's go home."

Alexander gently removes him: “My Father, may you listen to my advice. Come home alone; distribute your property and go to a monastery.” And he adds: “If you do not do this, you will no longer see my face.”

Stefan storms off in anger. Alexander gets up to pray. What was going on at night in the souls of father and son? The next morning, Stefan comes to Alexander with a changed face: “I will do everything as you ordered,” he tells the young man. - You are right. You are not my son, but your father and teacher.”

Soon Stefan took monastic vows at the Ostrovsky Mother of God Monastery with the name Sergius. Alexander's mother Vassa also took on the monastic rank, taking the name Varvara.

The writer of the life - a student of the monk Herodion - says that on Valaam Alexander was sent to a bakery, where “he remained humbly, surpassing everyone with work; carried water and carried firewood from the forest on himself, tiring his body.” At night he left his cell and, “baring his body to the waist, stood there until the morning singing; so that his whole body was covered with many mosquitoes and midges.” He was the first to come to the monastery church, always standing in one place, concentrating on prayer, not even allowing himself to move his feet. Both during fasting and not during fasting, he consumed only bread and water, and then in small quantities. He wore such clothes that, in the words of the life writer, “barely covered his nakedness.”

Those in the monastery could not help but see these feats; There was already a rumor about Alexander as a great ascetic. But it was sad for the young monk to see that human glory was beginning to surround him—it was not what he was striving for. One day, while standing at prayer at night, the monk saw in the window of his cell an extraordinary light shining in the east. Having received the blessing of the abbot for the feat of living in the desert, Alexander left the monastery. He went east, to the then uninhabited places on the banks of the Svir River. There, in a beautiful forest replete with lakes, he saw a glow above one of the hills. This is where he settled. He was then 36 years old.

He sang psalms and worked. Grass served as his food. Alexander did not immediately get used to this food: at first he experienced such pain that he lay on the ground all day long, not having the strength to get up. For many years he had not seen a single human face. But “a city standing on the top of a mountain cannot hide, and having lit a candle, they do not put it under a bushel” (Matthew 5:14-15). One day a hunter, a certain nobleman Andrei Zavalishin, came to Alexander’s hut. Gradually, rumors about the great ascetic spread throughout the Novgorod land. Word reached John, another son of Stephen. He had been looking for his brother for many years, and now he came to Alexander. The hermit joyfully accepted him. Gradually the brethren gathered around the monk and a monastery was rebuilt.

But even after becoming abbot of the monastery, the monk took on more work than anyone else in the monastery. He cut down forests and built cells for the brethren, kneaded dough and baked bread, prepared firewood, and carried water. At night, when others were sleeping, he walked around the monastery. It often happened that in the room where wheat was usually ground, the abbot found the monks sleeping. Then he “took the part of the wheat prepared by everyone for grinding and, having ground it, put it in its original place, and he himself went to his cell.”

His fame thundered far beyond the borders of the Olonets region; people came to Alexander from all over Rus'. People who were possessed were brought to him, the sick were brought to him. They asked him for advice when they didn’t know what to do, they came for teaching and blessing. The small monastery grew.

One day, the monks decided to dig a ditch from one lake located on a hill to another, so that a channel would form and a mill could be built. Suddenly, water rushed into the channel with enormous force, threatening to flood the monastery itself. The abbot, as the chronicle testifies, said a prayer and, calling on the Name of Jesus Christ, “with his right hand he depicted a cross against the rushing water.” And immediately its flow stopped. On that channel the monks built a mill.

They said about Alexander that with his prayer he works wondrous miracles, foresees the secret and speaks of the future as if it were the present. Grand Duke Vasily Ioannovich asked for Alexander’s blessing and his prayers in order to receive “peace, health, salvation and prosperity and childbearing.” Meanwhile, Alexander still wore his old, patched cassock - all year round, even “when the ground was cracking from the severe frost.”

In 1507, the humble abbot received an amazing vision. One night, when the Monk Alexander, according to his custom, stood at prayer in the waste hermitage, a light that suddenly appeared and strongly illuminated the cell where he was praying. At that same moment he saw three men come in to him, dressed in white clothes. In appearance they were “beautiful and beautiful, shining brighter than the sun with an inexpressibly glorious bright light, and each of them had a staff in his hand.” Alexander was told that in this place he should found a church in the name of the Consubstantial Trinity.

The church was built - first wooden, and then stone. On August 30, 1533, Alexander Svirsky gave his last instructions to the brethren of the monastery. Then he said: “I am leaving you now, and I am commending you to Almighty God and His Most Pure Mother.” Everyone who was in the cell cried. One of the monks asked: “Father, where should we bury you?” Alexander responded like this: “Brothers, tie a rope around my sinful body and drag me into the depths of the swamp; there, having dug up the moss, trample it with your feet.” “Father, we cannot do this,” answered the monks. Then the monk said: “If you don’t do this, then bury me at the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord.” After this, having said a prayer and giving the brothers a final kiss, Alexander departed to the Lord, having only time to say: “In Your hands I commend my spirit.”

After death, as a student of the abbot wrote, “the face of the monk did not resemble the face of a deceased person, but shone, as in life.”

The sagacity of a saint

One day Alexander met a traveler in the forest. He, not suspecting that the abbot himself was in front of him, asked him if the abbot was healthy and if it was possible to see him. It was one of the local fishermen. The week before he had caught a large sturgeon; Fearing that the master would take the fish and not pay, he sold the catch to the merchants. But he found out about the caught sturgeon, and now the fisherman was in trouble.

“Our abbot is a very sinful man, deceitful and a drunkard, and you will not benefit from him,” said Alexander.

“I don’t know what you’re saying, father,” the fisherman was surprised. “I heard that he helps a lot of people.”

Then the monk, seeing his faith, said this:

“Man, go back to your house, because now you will not find the abbot in the monastery: he has left on some business. When he returns, I will tell him about you. And now, child, go and put your fences in the river. When you catch a lot of fish, including sturgeon, then take it to the landowner: he will stop being angry.”

In great bewilderment, the fisherman walked away. He failed to find the abbot; whether it will be possible to find him the next day is unknown, and then this strange beggar monk, as if in mockery, advises him to “catch a new sturgeon.” But over the past three years, only one sturgeon has looked into his net!

But there is nothing to do. The fisherman returned home and put lines in the river and soon, along with many other fish, he pulled a huge sturgeon ashore! Then he realized that the monk he met in the forest was Abbot Alexander. He went to his master, honestly told about everything and handed over the caught fish. And indeed, he, extremely surprised, quickly changed his anger to mercy and paid him well.

The monk was not meek and kind with everyone.

On the day of the consecration of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Alexander, lifting the edge of his vestment, collected donations for the construction of the monastery. Everyone considered it a blessing to put something in the phelonion. In the crowd was a certain Gregory, a resident of the village of Pidmozero on the Svir River. Many, due to the large crowd of people, approached the abbot from behind. When Gregory, in turn, extended his hand from behind the monk’s back, he suddenly rolled up the phelonion. Frustrated, Grigory tried to deposit the money again, but Alexander silently retracted his hand. He didn’t accept the money a third time, and didn’t even look up at the giver.

Gregory was forced to step aside. In the evening, he begged a monk he knew to take him to the monk’s cell.

“Father, you do not know me or my family,” he said. “Why did you accept an offering from everyone, but rejected my gift?”

Alexander looked up at him: “Your hands are defiled. We were commanded to honor our fathers and mothers, but you insulted your mother, beat her... and never repented of it.”

Gregory fell to his knees in front of the elder.

“Go, child, and beg the one who gave birth to you,” said the abbot. “Ask her forgiveness and repent.”

One day, a wealthy Novgorod merchant, Bogdan Semenovich Koryukov, came to the monastery. The merchant grieved that he did not have an heir to whom he could pass on his property.

Here is Alexander’s answer: “Refuse resoimism (at these words the merchant trembled all over); forgive debtors their debts; give to the poor; help widows and orphans; donate to those in prison. With these good deeds you will appease God, and he will grant you sons and daughters and many years of life. Finally, you will be awarded the monastic rank, and upon your repose you will be buried by your children.”

The merchant fell to his knees: “I see, holy father, the grace has been given to you to see our secret deeds.”

Having made a generous donation to the monastery, the merchant returned to Novgorod and began to lead a godly life. Soon, as the monk predicted, several sons and daughters were born to him. Before his death, Bogdan Koryukov accepted the monastic rank and was honestly buried by his children.

Apparitions of Saint Alexander

Quite a lot is known about the appearances of St. Alexander. I'll talk about two. Some time after his death, the saint appeared to the monk Herodion, his successor as abbot, the author of his life. “Hegumen Herodion was a disciple of the Monk Alexander,” says the legend about the appearance. “He had great faith, love and obedience towards his teacher, for which the monk loved him greatly and revealed to him all the secrets while still alive, and after death he appeared to him, in fulfillment of his will.”

And here is what the abbot himself wrote:

“One night I, humble Herodion, stood in my cell, doing my usual rule, and in my poor prayer I dozed off, lay down on the bed to rest and soon fell asleep. Immediately, suddenly, a shining great light appeared in the window of the cell. I got up and leaned towards the window to see: what does this mean? And I saw the Reverend Father Alexander walking around the Church of the Holy Trinity and in his hands carrying the Life-giving Cross of the Lord...”

In this apparition, Saint Alexander indicated the place on the gates of the monastery where the monks were to build a church in the name of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker. “I spent that whole night until Matins without sleep, praying to God, and glorifying God and the great Saint Alexander in miracles,” wrote Herodion.

A record of another phenomenon appeared in the chronicles of the monastery in August 1673. Then the royal warrior Mokiy Lvov, a resident of Gorodets (which is near Bezhetsk), came to the Holy Trinity Alexander-Svirsky Monastery to venerate the relics of the saint. From his words, the monastery chronicler recorded the following story:

“I was in military service in the regiment of boyar Vasily Sheremetev. During the campaign against the godless Tatars, we had to be near the city of Konotop, where the godless Tatars unexpectedly attacked us, took many of us and took us to their land. We, thirteen people, were given to one Murza, with whom we stayed for about thirteen years. During the day we did all sorts of hard work, and spent the night in prison, shackled in iron chains. One night we cried a lot, praying to God and calling on all the saints for help. And then great fear and bewilderment fell upon us: we saw a great light in the prison that shone around us. When we came to our senses, we saw a handsome man with gray hair and heard his voice:

“Call the Monk Alexander of Svirsky for help, he will save you from trouble.” Having said this, the one who appeared became invisible.

Two days later, Greek merchants came and bought us from that Murza, and then brought us to Constantinople, from where we safely arrived in the God-protected reigning city of Moscow, and everyone dispersed to their places of residence, through the prayers of the great miracle worker, Reverend Father Alexander.”

(Russian: Alexander-Svirsky Monastery; English: Alexander-Svirsky Monastery)

How to get there: from St. Petersburg by train, and from Petrozavodsk by train you can get to Lodeynoye Pole, from there by local bus you can get to the village of Staraya Sloboda (Svirskoye village).

Or: from St. Petersburg, from the 1st bus station, take a bus along the route "St. Petersburg - Pitkyaranta" or "St. Petersburg - Petrozavodsk", pass the city of Lodeynoye Pole and get off at the Svirskoye junction (249th km Murmansk highway), from there you can walk (5 km) or hitch a ride to the village of Staraya Sloboda.

Opening hours: visiting the monastery is possible daily from 8.00 am until the end of the evening service, until approximately 20:00. Inspection of the interior of the monastery by excursion groups of pilgrims and tourists is possible only during non-liturgical times, and is limited by the internal routine of the monastery. A visit to the temple where the Holy relics of St. Alexander of Svir are located is possible from Monday to Saturday from 10.00 to 17.00, and on Sunday from 12.00 to 17.00.

Holy Trinity Alexander Svirsky Monastery is an Orthodox male monastery in the Leningrad region, 21 km from the city of Lodeynoye Pole. Wherever you look, you are surrounded by snow-white walls of the monastery, a velvet-green strip of coniferous forest. Even during the life of its founder, the monastery developed as two connected to each other, but independently located complexes (departments): Trinity with fraternal cells, and Preobrazhensky - next to the cemetery. They are connected by a road running next to Lake Roshchinskoye.

The strengthening of the Orthodox faith in this region became possible thanks to the strict, pious ascetic lifestyle of the founder of the monastery. The holy monastery was founded in 1508 by the Venerable Alexander of Svir, a monk of the Valaam Monastery near the mouth of the Svir River.

Map of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery

The Monk Alexander was born on June 15, 1448, on the day of remembrance of the prophet Ammos, after whom he was named. When he turned 19, he learned about his parents’ intention to marry him and secretly left for Valaam. After seven years spent on Valaam as a novice, in 1474 Ammos took monastic vows with the name Alexander.

In better times, the monastery had 8 churches, a rich sacristy, expensively decorated icons, a rich book depository with ancient manuscripts, scrolls and books. Historians of the 19th century called the monastery the Northern Lavra, it controlled 27 monasteries and the desert of this region.

Before the revolution, a priceless shrine for all of Russia - the incorruptible relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky rested in the chapel of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, resting in a precious silver shrine donated by Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. The shrine was made by craftsmen at the Armory Chamber in Moscow; the cover of the shrine has been preserved and is in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. In addition, the monastery sacristy contained part of the staff of St. Alexander, found together with his relics in the coffin, the coffin itself, iron chains, a linen chasuble and armbands, as well as shrine covers sent as a gift from Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. Letters granted to the monastery from the Moscow kings were also kept here (most of the letters belonged to Boris Godunov).

In 1918, the monastery shared the fate of many Orthodox monasteries in Russia. The relics of St. Alexander were taken to the Military Medical Academy as an exhibit, the monks were dispersed, and some of them, led by their rector, Archimandrite Evgeniy (Trofimov), were shot. In 1918, in the western wall of the Trinity Cathedral, the brethren made a hiding place, which contained crayfish and part of the sacristy's belongings, which was later discovered. The Olonets Provincial Extraordinary Commission seized all the items and transported them to Petrozavodsk.

During the pogrom of the Svirsky Monastery, which was finally closed only in 1925, the relics of St. Alexander were disturbed. They took the relics out of the shrine and touched them. They wanted to take him with them, but the brethren begged him to leave, and they left him.
But the relics did not remain in the monastery for long. In December 1918 they were transported to Lodeynoye Pole. After this, the remains of the saint were put on display in the hospital chapel. All this was done for the “merciless fight against the enemies of the communist idea and socialist thought.”

The region of St. Alexander turned into “Svirlag”. During the Great Patriotic War, both monasteries suffered significant damage - the front line was not far away. In 1953, “Svirlag” was disbanded and a decree was issued to convert it into a mental hospital, and for hopeless patients. The camp guards and some of those unescorted took jobs as orderlies.

On September 22, 1998, the monastery was officially transferred to the St. Petersburg Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The second time the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky were discovered in 1998, on July 28 of the same year, they were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church and were first located in the courtyard of the Intercession-Tervinicheskiy Monastery in the Church of Saints Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia. On November 23, 1998, the relics of St. Alexander were finally transferred to their final resting place - to the Holy Trinity Alexander of Svirsky Monastery.

In the report, Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg and Ladoga was informed that myrrh flow had begun in the X-ray room in the SMES building during a prayer service. The flow of myrrh and the fragrance were so strong that bees from nowhere flocked to this smell of flower honey, they swarmed around the feet of the Reverend, crawled along the windowsill located next to the shrine. This fact caused great surprise among television operators who filmed this story for the NTV channel. The myrrh itself flowed down the Saint’s feet in streams, covering them, when dry, with another shiny oily layer. It was noted that in the evening hours, after the closing of the temple, when silence was restored there, after a large crowd of people, that blessed time came when, also, one could see the newly intensifying flow of myrrh - individual droplets of myrrh appeared between the fingers of the Reverend. Numerous pilgrims come to the Saint, at whose holy relics many miracles and healings are performed.

Scheme of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery

The monastery, as a single whole, developed in the 16th - 17th centuries, and consists of two independent ensembles - Trinity and Preobrazhensky. Until now, they are separated by special fences and have special names, based on the churches built in them. One of them is called Trinity, and the other, where the Venerable Hermitage was, is called Preobrazhensky.

The ancient buildings of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery have not survived - a consequence of the destruction of the monastery by the Poles and Swedes in 1618. The first stone building of the monastery that has survived to this day is the church in the name of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, begun during the lifetime of the Venerable Alexander himself. The church was heavily destroyed by the Swedes and Poles in 1618, and was practically rebuilt from the ruins on the old foundation in 1619 - 1620.

In the years 1647-1674, a three-tiered belfry was erected in the Trinity Monastery, placed on a wide quadrangular base and topped with three tents. On the third tier there was a “combat” clock, dismantled in the 19th century during the reconstruction of the belfry.

Trinity Cathedral, which is the center of the Trinity ensemble, is already the fourth, built on the spot where the Church in the name of the Holy Trinity was originally built by the Monk Alexander, at the behest of God.

The cathedral preserves paintings executed in 1715 by an artel of Kostroma craftsmen, under the leadership of Leonty Markov, and an iconostasis with icons from the late 17th century. The monastic archives mention the names of famous Tikhvin icon painters Gavrila Sazonov, Peter and Ivan Falileev, Ivan Ivanov, as well as the Tikhvin “icon painter” Herodion Sergiev. The walls and pillars of the Trinity Cathedral were painted by Herodion Sergiev and Ivan Ivanov. The frescoes were preserved, however, in the 1960s they were 50 centimeters behind the wall, and restorers nailed them with special gesso nails.

The Church of St. John of Damascus, or "Hospital", was built in 1716 north of Trinity Cathedral.

These churches are located in the Trinity part of the monastery, the cell buildings of which were adapted in the 60s of the twentieth century as hospital wards (designed by architect A. N. Naumova), and are still occupied by a psychiatric hospital.
The Transfiguration part, at present, completely belongs to the monastery, and on its territory, as before, the holy relics of St. Alexander of Svir rest in the Transfiguration Cathedral.

The current Transfiguration Cathedral was built in 1641, under Abbot Abraham, and the chapel in the name of St. Alexander of Svirsky - in 1716. In 1856 - 1857, engineer Gorting-Gortitsky replaced wooden floors with metal ones. At the same time, under the leadership of architect Tukhtarev, some door and window openings were expanded. In 1900, Archimandrite Agafangel built an extension to the western side of the cathedral with choirs for the brethren, decorated with turned wooden railings. The bell tower and Zakharyevskaya Church connected to it give the cathedral a special elegance.

The Church of the Holy Prophet Zechariah and Elizabeth was built in 1668 under Abbot Macarius. After the fire in 1784 and renovation in 1833, the church changed a lot. From the original cathedral, a window above the entrance of the southern facade has been preserved, having a frame of two columns with a triangular pediment.

There is a well in the monastery, which was dug by the hands of the Reverend. It has been restored, but at the moment you can’t drink water from it yet, because for many years there was a gas station next to it.

The courtyard of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, today, is located in the Vesyoly village of the Nevsky district of the city of St. Petersburg.

Official website of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery: www.svirskoe.ru

Twice in the entire history of mankind the Trinity God was revealed to the bodily human gaze - the first time to Saint Abraham at the Oak of Mamre, signifying the great mercy of God towards the human race; the second time - on Russian soil to the holy Venerable Alexander of Svirsky. What this appearance meant to the New Testament saint - we will not dare to answer. Let us only strive to honor this land, that monastery that was erected in the north of the Russian land at the behest of God the Trinity and the “New Testament Abraham” himself - our venerable father and wonderworker Alexander.

The Monk Alexander is one of the few Russian saints who was canonized shortly after his righteous death - namely, 14 years later. His disciples and many of his admirers were still alive, so the Life of St. Alexander was written, as they say, “hot on the heels” and is particularly authentic, it contains no “pious schemes,” it reflects the unique face of the holiness of “all Russia, the wonderworker Alexander.”

Rev. was born. Alexander on June 15, 1448 in the village of Mandera on the Oyat River on Novgorod land, opposite the Ostrovsky Vvedensky Monastery. They named him Amos. His parents Stefan and Vassa were poor, pious peasants; they gave their children a Christian education. When Amos came of age, his parents wanted to marry him, but he only thought about leaving the world for the sake of saving his soul. He learned about the Valaam monastery early and often remembered it and, finally, by the will of God, he met the Valaam monks. Their conversation lasted for a long time about the holy monastery, about their rules, about the three kinds of life of monastics. And so, inspired by this conversation, he decided to go to “northern Athos.” Having crossed the Svir River, on the shore of Lake Roshchinskoye, the Reverend heard a mysterious voice, announcing to him that he would create a monastery in this place. And a great light dawned on him. When he came to Valaam, the abbot received him and tonsured him with the name Alexander in 1474. He was then 26 years old. The novice monk zealously began to strive in labor, obedience, fasting and prayer. Then his father came to Valaam looking for him; The monk managed not only to calm the irritated father, but also to convince him to become a monk along with his mother. And the parents obeyed their son. Stefan took monastic vows with the name Sergius, and his mother with the name Varvara. Their graves are still venerated in the functioning Vvedeno-Oyatsky Monastery.

Alexander continued to asceticize in Valaam, amazing the strictest Valaam monks with the severity of his life. At first he labored in a hostel, then in silence on the island, now called the Holy Island, and spent 10 years there. On the Holy Island there is still a narrow and damp cave, in which only one person can hardly fit. The grave excavated by the Monk Alexander for himself has also been preserved. One day, while standing in prayer, Saint Alexander heard a divine voice: “Alexander, get out of here and go to the place shown before, where you can be saved.” The Great Light showed him a place in the southeast, on the banks of the Svir River. This was in 1485. There he found “the forest was very red, this place was full of forests and a lake, and red everywhere, and no one there had ever lived before.” The monk placed his hut on the shore of Lake Roshchinskoe. Half a mile away from it there is Lake Svyatoe, separated from it by Stremnina Mountain. Here he spent several years in complete solitude, eating not bread, “but the potion growing here.” God revealed his lamp to boyar Andrei Zavalishin, and through him later to many people. The monastery began to grow, and the fame of the gift of insight and healing of physical and spiritual ailments given to its abbot soon spread throughout all the surrounding lands. During his lifetime, the Orthodox people blessed Alexander of Svirsky as a saint.

In the 23rd year of the Venerable’s settlement, in 1507, in the desert near the Svir River, on the shores of Lake Roshchinskoye, a great light appeared in his temple and he saw three men entering him. They were dressed in light clothes and illuminated by the glory of heaven “more than the sun.” From their lips the saint heard the command: Beloved, as you see Him speaking with you in Three Persons, build a church in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Consubstantial Trinity... I leave you My peace, and I will give you My peace.”

Hearing this, the monk fell again to the ground and, shedding tears, confessed his unworthiness.

The Lord again raised him up, saying: “Stand on your foot, strengthen yourself, and strengthen yourself, and do everything that you commanded.”

The saint asked in whose honor the temple should be erected. The Lord answered: “Beloved, as you see speaking to you in Three Persons, build a church in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Consubstantial Trinity. But I leave you My peace and give you My peace.”

After this, Saint Alexander saw the Lord, with outstretched wings, as if with feet, moving along the earth, and becoming invisible.

The Lord Himself honored the saint with a Trinity visitation, and in remembrance of the appearance of the Holy Trinity to him, the memory of the saint was celebrated locally before the revolution on the Feast of Pentecost.

At the site of the appearance of God the Trinity, a chapel was subsequently built, and to this day the human soul trembles at this place, thinking about the closeness of God to His people. What is striking in the Life of St. Alexander is that despite the great abundance of divine visits given to him, he always remained a humble monk, wanting to serve the brethren and simple villagers who came to the monastery in everything.

Several years before the death of the Reverend, God put into his heart the good idea of ​​creating a stone church in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos with a meal. And then one night, when the laying was already completed, at the end of the usual prayer rule, the Reverend saw an extraordinary light that illuminated the entire monastery, and at the foundation of the Church of the Intercession, on the altar, in royal glory, the Most Pure Mother of God sat on the throne with the Eternal Child, surrounded by a host of ethereal forces heavenly. The monk fell face down on the ground before the majesty of Her Glory, since he could not contemplate the radiance of this inexpressible light. Then the Most Pure Lady commanded him to stand up and consoled him with the promise to remain constant with the Monastery and to help those living in it in all their needs, both during the life of the Reverend and after his death.

“A year before his death, the Reverend, calling all the brethren to him and announcing to them that the time would soon come for his repose from this temporary, sad and sorrowful life into another eternal, painless and always joyful life, appointed after him four priestly monks: Isaiah, Nicodemus, Leontius and Herodion to elect one of them as abbot. Then, until his death, he did not cease to teach his brethren to live a godly life. The Monk Alexander died on August 30, 1533, at the age of 85, and, according to his dying will, was buried in the funeral home. desert, near the Church of the Transfiguration, on the right side of the altar. In 1547, he was canonized.

Everyone who had various ailments, coming to his honest tomb and falling with faith before him, received abundant healing: the blind received their sight, the paralytic were strengthened in their limbs, those suffering from other diseases received a complete recovery, demons were driven away from the possessed, childbearing was given to the childless.

Our All-Good God, wondrous in His Saints, glorifying His Saint in this temporary life, creating with his hand signs and wonders, deigned to place his incorruptible, honest and holy body after death, like a great luminary, in His Church, so that it would shine there with its glorious miracles.

“Alexander Svirsky,” noted Archimandrite of the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius Macarius (Veretennikov), “perhaps the only Orthodox saint to whom, just like the forefather Abraham, the Holy Trinity appeared”... And a truly great mystical meaning is hidden in what exactly With the opening of the shrine of St. Alexander of Svirsky, the satanic campaign launched by the Bolsheviks to liquidate, falsify and discredit Russian Orthodox shrines began in 1918, during which 63 crayfish with holy relics were opened and removed from the monasteries. All of them, by the grace of God, have now been acquired by the Russian Orthodox Church. And the last - and this also has a mystical meaning - were the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky, lost by our Church exactly 80 years ago.

For the first time, the incorruptible relics of the saint were discovered in April 1641, when, according to the order of Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, the monks of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery dismantled the dilapidated church over the tomb of the saint in order to erect a new one made of stone. And this discovery was a true triumph of Orthodoxy, since in a completely intact coffin lay a body, not at all damaged by decay, in intact and incorruptible clothes. Life testifies that when they removed the top board from the coffin, “a strong fragrance from the relics of the monk spread everywhere, so that the whole place was filled with incense, but at that time there was no incense, and they saw the entire body of our venerable father Alexander lying, safe and sound. , in a mantle and schema, wrapped in rank, and the anallav on him was completely intact, part of the beard was visible from under the schema; both legs lay, like those of someone who had recently died, the right foot up, and the left foot turned to the side, both shod in sandals, according to rank. "The fragrant myrrh spread throughout his body, like some growing flowers, and poured out like water. Seeing this, all those who were there were filled with horror and joy and glorified Almighty God, who glorifies His saints."

In 1918, a detachment of security officers sent to the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery to carry out the order to liquidate the relics shot the monks who tried to counteract the desecration of the shrine, the monastery was robbed, and the shrine containing the relics of the monk was opened. This was the first opening of holy relics by the Bolsheviks...

The preservation of the body of the saint, who completed his journey four centuries ago, in 1533, so amazed the commander of the detachment, August Wagner, that he could not come up with anything better than to call the holy relics a “wax doll.” And although this contradicted the evidence, this is what Wagner called the relics in his report.

The holy relics were transported in the strictest secrecy to Lodeynoye Pole and hidden in the hospital chapel, and in January 1919 they were taken to Petrograd and placed in the closed anatomical museum of the Military Medical Academy, where they remained as an undocumented “exhibit” until the abbot of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, revived in 1997, Lucian did not bless the nun Leonida to begin the search for the relics of the great elder monk. The history of the search undertaken deserves a separate narration, but we will only say that the main part of the documents was destroyed and the search for the relics of the saint, according to Mother Leonida, “could only be based on the belief that the relics of the saint who saw the Holy Trinity could not be destroyed by any hellish forces... on the belief that these relics are under the special protection of the Lord...".

Based on archival research, anthropological, iconographic and x-ray studies, it was concluded that the mysterious “exhibit” of the museum is a fully preserved mummy of a man, which, in terms of age, ethnicity, and external features, fully corresponds to the description made during the first discovery of the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky in 1641. The identity of the “exhibit” as a canonized saint was also confirmed by the damage to the right, blessing hand: their nature left no doubt that these damages were caused by the removal of pieces of flesh for reliquaries.

On July 28, 1998, a significant event in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church took place in St. Petersburg. Here the relics of the great Russian saint, St. Alexander of Svir, were rediscovered.

According to ITAR-TASS (August 10, 1998) about the discovery of the greatest shrine, the remains were “identified by specialists of the Forensic Medical Expert Service (SMES) of St. Petersburg. ... It was noted that “natural mummification of such high preservation is inexplicable to modern science "...Immediately after receiving the conclusion, a prayer service to the saint was served in the X-ray room of the SMES. Those present "witnessed the beginning of the myrrh-streaming of the relics, accompanied by a strong fragrance." In connection with this, the initial IC of the Academy, Colonel General of the Medical Service Yuri Shevchenko, decided to immediately transfer the shrine to the Russian Orthodox Church."

The body of St. Alexander of Svirsky has not been subject to decay for five centuries. And great miracles were performed at his tomb - even cancer patients were healed!

On September 12, on the 473rd anniversary of the saint’s death, the relics were so fragrant that a wonderful aroma filled the entire Transfiguration Church.

Pilgrims from all over the world come to see the incorrupt, myrrh-streaming flesh of St. Alexander. Before our eyes, despite the pouring rain, a delegation of Greek monks from Athos arrived by helicopter, followed by the Americans.

Archimandrite Lucian, rector of the Holy Trinity Alexander Svir Monastery, welcomes pilgrims:

Christians from all over the world are attracted by the miracles of Svir!

The wife of the President of Russia, Lyudmila Putina, came to venerate the holy relics three years ago. Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Lyubov Sliska has also been here.

Hand

“This is myrrh,” says the monk standing at the tomb. - Heavenly smell...

The relics of Alexander Svirsky are incorruptible and bring healing.

St. Petersburg. Scientists who examined the body concluded that it had never been embalmed. They could not explain the reasons for such amazing preservation - the fabrics did not shrink, but retained their color and volume! It was on the day of research that the relics were myrrhized, and a special act was drawn up on this occasion. Since then, the flow of myrrh has not stopped, and on the eve of church holidays it intensifies.

Now the myrrh is stronger,” says monk Ignatius. - The myrrh on the feet of St. Alexander of Svirsky looks like tiny diamonds

Miracles

Believers are convinced that miracles with the body of St. Alexander of Svirsky occur because the Holy Trinity appeared to him during his lifetime.

Now there is a chapel in that place, it is fenced and strewn with sand, which pilgrims take with them in handfuls, like a shrine.

On my birthday, I had a mini-stroke,” said Olga Lodkina from St. Petersburg. “I didn’t call an ambulance, but simply put a bag of sand from that holy place on my head. The pain went away and the condition improved.

Miracles happen constantly in the Holy Trinity Monastery. In some incredible way, the frescoes on the walls of the temple are being renewed.

On the facade, the image of the Holy Trinity shines more clearly than others.

Many people think that we restored the frescoes, but they themselves were updated and became more contrasting,” says the head of icon painting oh workshop Arkady Kholopov.

One of the most amazing wonderful stories recorded here is about a cancer patient from Rostov-on-Don. His wife and sister flew to St. Petersburg by plane; they were in a hurry, afraid of losing a loved one. Alexander Petrov was in critical condition after his third operation for pancreatic cancer. Doctors discharged him to die at home. But the relatives did not want to put up with this. On Sunday morning, the women fell in front of the shrine with holy relics. And the Saint helped!

By the way, a very interesting icon of St. Alexander of Svirsky and the Holy Trinity is located in the parish of the Church of the Icon of the Smolensk Mother of God in the city of Kamyzyak, Astrakhan region.

PRAYER PREP. ALEXANDER SVIRSKY

O sacred head, earthly angel and heavenly man, reverend and God-bearing Father Alexandra, great servant of the Most Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, show many mercies to those living in your holy monastery and to all who flow to you with faith and love!

Ask us everything that is useful for this temporary life, and even more necessary for our eternal salvation.

Help with your intercession, servant of God, the ruler of our country, Russia. And may the holy Orthodox Church of Christ abide deeply in the world.

Be to all of us, miracle-working saint, a quick helper in all sorrows and circumstances. Most of all, at the hour of our death, a merciful intercessor appeared to us, so that we may not be betrayed in the ordeals of the air to the power of the evil world ruler, but may we be honored with a stumbling-free ascension into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Hey, Father, our dear prayer book! Do not disgrace our hope, do not despise our humble prayers, but always intercede for us before the Throne of the Life-Giving Trinity, so that we may be worthy, together with you and with all the saints, even if we are unworthy, in the villages of paradise to glorify the greatness, grace and mercy of the One God in the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

TROPARION, TONE 4

From your youth, O God-Wise One, having moved into the desert with spiritual desire, you desired to follow the sole steps of Christ diligently. In the same way, repair the angels, seeing you, marveling at how you struggled with the invisible machinations of the flesh, you wisely conquered the armies of passions with abstinence and you appeared equal to the angels on earth, Reverend Alexander, pray to Christ God to save our souls.

KONDAC, VOICE 8

Like a multi-bright star, today you have shone in the Russian countries, Father, having settled in the desert, you have zealously desired to follow Christ’s footsteps, and the Holy Cross has put the holy yoke on your side - the Honest Cross, and put to death your labors, the feat of your bodily leaps. In the same way, we cry to you: save your flock, you gathered the hedgehog, wise, so we call to you: Rejoice, Reverend Alexandra, our father.