You exchanged the splendour of earthly rule for the humble path of a monk, and, after a life ended in pain, now rejoice in Heaven, earnestly praying for those who honour you, Igor, praise of those who endure.
(Kontakion, Tone 6)
18 June — Translation of the relics of the Right-Believing Great Prince Igor of Chernigov and Kiev (1150).
The holy passion-bearers are few and remarkable. Among them are the Righteous Princes Boris and Gleb; Grand Prince Igor, who later became the monk Ignatius; and Blessed Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver. Also included are Prince Michael of Chernigov, remembered alongside his loyal companion Theodore; Grand Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky; and Tsarevich Dmitry of Uglich. The royal family — Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexis — are honoured as Passion-Bearers as well, along with the women Elisabeth and Barbara. That is likely the full list. Passion-bearers are rare, not only in the Russian Church but throughout Christian history. Their lives, as the historian G. P. Fedotov wrote, were “a national Russian act of faith, the true spiritual awakening of the newly baptised Russian people.”
In Russian liturgy and hagiography, the title “Passion-Bearer” first came to describe those Russian saints who, following Christ's example and yielding to God's will, bore suffering or death at the hands of their fellow believers turned political foes with humility and patience. They laid down rank and life for the sake of an eternal calling, each yielding a striking Christian harvest that shaped our history. No cut strikes deeper than one dealt by a kinsman, and no act of grace stands taller than forgiving this wound and praying for the striker’s soul. For this, those saints who reached such heights are so dear to us, and their prayers resound so strongly in our lives.
Lineage of Prince Igor the Passion-Bearer
Igor Olgovich (in baptism, George), the Holy and Right-Believing Great Prince of Chernigov and Kiev, Passion-Bearer, was born around 1080. He inherited the lands of Chernigov from his father, Oleg Svyatoslavich. According to early iconographic tradition, Prince Igor was of average height, lean, with a swarthy face, long hair, and a short, narrow beard. The chronicles call him a brave warrior, a keen hunter of birds and wild beasts, an avid reader and deep student of Church writings.
He lived in the turbulent 12th century, a time when the descendants of Yaroslav the Wise — the Olgovichi and the Mstislavichi — vied relentlessly for the Kievan throne. The Olgovich line takes its name from Oleg Svyatoslavich (d. 1115), the son of Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev, who in 1072 oversaw the transfer of the relics of the holy Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb.
Igor’s elder brother, Vsevolod Olegovich — great-grandfather of Saint Mikhail of Chernigov — felt his end drawing near and chose Igor as his heir to Kiev. However, the people of Kiev objected, declaring bluntly: “We do not wish to inherit.”
Igor Olgovich of Chernigov — baptised George, Gabriel as a monk, and Ignatius in the schema (d. 1147) — Grand Prince of Kiev, Passion-Bearer
In Rus’, the chief way to seal any pact was ‘kissing the cross’. By pressing one’s lips to the holy cross, each side swore, “As I am true to the Orthodox faith and to our Lord Jesus Christ, so I shall keep my given word.” Prince Vsevolod died on 1 August 1146. The people of Kiev kissed the cross for Igor as their new Prince, and Igor, in turn, took the oath for Kiev — pledging to rule justly and defend them. Yet the marks of those kisses were still fresh when Kievan nobles summoned the Mstislavichi with an army. Prince Igor soon faced battle against Iziaslav Mstislavich. Under Kiev’s very walls, the Kievan troops broke their oath yet again when they switched sides in the midst of the fight and joined Iziaslav. Grand Prince Igor Olgovich hid for four days in the swamps, but he was captured in the end. He was brought to Kiev on 13 August and locked in a porub — a freezing, windowless, and doorless log cell, from which a captive had to be literally "chopped out".
Igor’s rule lasted less than two weeks. While in the porub, the long-suffering Prince became very ill. The people of Kiev, thinking him at death's door, allowed him to be freed and clothed in the schema at the Theodore Monastery in Kiev. Yet, after taking holy orders, he regained his health by God’s grace and devoted himself to monastic discipline, spending his days in tears and prayer.
Radziwill Chronicle, 15th-century copy – a prisoner is “broken out” of the cell
Yet the struggle for Kiev raged on. Pride drove both sides, hatred clouded judgement, and neither camp would yield. The Princes of Chernigov, cousins to Igor, devised a plot to lure Prince Iziaslav Mstislavich of Kiev into a joint campaign, planning to seize or even kill him. The plan surfaced while Iziaslav was already on the road to Chernigov. Shocked by Chernigov’s treachery, the people of Kiev lashed out in fury against the innocent prince-monk. Eager to avenge the Olgovich line, the Kiev assembly in 1147 voted to put Igor to death, despite his renunciation of all claims to royal power.
The Metropolitan and Prince Iziaslav himself strove to halt the bloodshed and spare the sufferer, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. A furious crowd stormed into the monastery, falling upon the monk as he prayed during the liturgy before an icon of the Mother of God. At the gate, Prince Vladimir held back the townspeople. He wrested the schema-monk from those dragging him away and hid him in his mother’s house. However, the angry mob forced their way into the courtyard and killed the prince-monk in the hallway of the manor. Rage burned so fiercely that they dragged his body through the streets of Kiev, flinging it naked and bloody in the Podol. So, on 19 September 1147, Holy Prince Igor, now schema-monk Ignatius, surrendered his spirit to the Lord, “stripping off the robe of mortal flesh and clothing himself in the imperishable and many-suffering robe of Christ”.
The suffering of Prince Igor, Radziwill Chronicle
That same evening, when the blessed Igor’s remains were carried into the Church of St Michael, “God showed a mighty sign above him: all the candles in that church lit up of their own accord.” By the blessing of Metropolitan Clement of Smolensk, Abbot Ananias of the Theodore Monastery led the funeral service the next morning, and the Passion-Bearer was buried in the church of the Simonov Monastery on the outskirts of Kiev. A terrible storm, and other signs which followed during the burial, struck fear into the people’s hearts and brought them to think again about their murdered Prince. Even then, people began to honour Igor as a saint.
Three years later, on 18 June 1150, Prince Svyatoslav Olgovich of Novgorod-Seversky brought the relics of his brother, the Passion-Bearer, to Chernigov and laid them in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration, where many miracles happened. “And from that time,” the chronicler notes, “people began to honour the memory of the righteous Prince Igor.” The Passion-Bearer’s commemoration also takes place on 2 October, the date of his repose, and he is remembered among the Synaxes of the Saints of Bryansk, Kiev, Tula and Chernigov.
During the Mongol invasion of Rus’ in the thirteenth century, the people of Chernigov hid Prince Igor’s relics, together with their shrine, beneath the cathedral’s floor to protect them from being defiled. There, they remain to this day, as every effort to raise the shrine risks bringing down the very walls of the cathedral. So the reliquary is still buried, most likely near the northern wall of the cathedral.
Cathedral of the Transfiguration, Chernigov, 11th century
The holy image before which the Passion-Bearer prayed in the final minutes before his martyrdom came to be called the “Igor Icon”, Igor’s personal prayer icon after he took monastic vows.
It is a shoulder-length copy of the icon of Eleusa (“Tenderness”), which later became known as the Vladimir Icon when Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky brought it from Kiev to Vladimir.
The Igor Icon remained in the Dormition Cathedral of the Kiev Caves Lavra for eight centuries. In the sixteenth century, Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow ordered several copies to be made, and these have survived to our day and are now displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The original was lost during the Second World War, when the Nazis occupied Kiev, blew up the Kiev Caves Lavra, and stole all the ancient icons.
The Igor Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God
The spirit of the passion-bearers — those who embraced unwilling death rather than spill the blood of kin — stood firm against the royal conflicts so widespread in newly baptised Rus’. Little by little, this poison lost its grip. As their innocent blood fell upon Russian soil, these sufferers called out to God for their power-blinded brothers, and their prayers reached His throne. Princes and commoners alike slowly learned that they were brothers, meant to live in peace, not in hatred, and to guard the land from enemies, not spill the blood of fellow Christians in civil strife. Murderers were condemned for generations, and the disgrace of family feuds sometimes, though not always, held the Princes back. Finally, in the fourteenth century, the Russian Gediminids, Mstislavichs and Rurikids, and Princes of Moscow, Yaroslavl, Rostov, Perm, Turov, Smolensk, Uglich, Volyn, Polotsk, Bryansk and others, united in the battle of Kulikovo, fighting side by side as one people — and the Lord granted them victory over foreign foes.
Yet sometimes, memory fades and we forget that nothing destroys our homeland as surely as internal conflict and civil unrest. When Christians rise against other Christians and do them harm, they become a mockery to the devil and his idol-worshipping servants. In such difficult times, God again raises up Passion-Bearers, and by their prayers, those who have wandered may come to their senses.
Cathedral of St Igor, Righteous Prince of Chernigov, beside the patriarchal residence in Peredelkino
Chosen Passion-Bearer of Christ, Righteous Prince Igor, you shone on your people like the brightest star: you cast aside the fame of earthly rule, longing rather to serve the Lord in monastic life. You ended your earthly life in suffering, and now, rejoicing, you stand before the throne of the Holy Trinity. Protect us by your prayers from all harm and woes, so that with grateful and gentle hearts we may call out to you: Rejoice, holy and righteous Prince Igor, swift helper to those who suffer for the truth in humility.
(Ikos 1 of the Akathist to Holy Righteous Prince Igor of Chernigov and Kiev)
Prepared by the team of obitel-minsk.ru
Photographs from the Internet
Sources:
1. Saint Blessed Prince Igor of Chernigov / Patriarchia.ru
2. Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk. Spiritual Treasure Gathered from the World
3. Hosanna — Service Books. 5 (18) June. The Service to the Holy Passion-Bearer, Blessed Grand Prince Igor of Chernigov and Kiev, in Baptism George, as a Monk Gabriel (Chernigov, 2002)
4. Akathist to Holy Righteous Prince Igor of Chernigov and Kiev — Akafistnik.ru
5. Transfiguration Cathedral of Chernigov (pravlife.org)
6. Igor of Chernigov – Drevo (drevo-info.ru)
