Cyprian of Suzdal
Blessed Cyprian of Suzdal and the Uvod, Fool-for-Christ and Wonderworker
Fool for Christ · Wonderworker · d. 22 July 1622
Commemorated 22 July — Repose at Voskresenskoye on the Uvod
Blessed Cyprian was a fool-for-Christ of the Suzdal country who pursued his struggle in solitude on an island at the confluence of the rivers Klyazma and Uvod, near the village of Voskresenskoye by Kovrov in the Vladimir land, and who reposed on 22 July 1622. He was buried at the Church of the Resurrection there, and the veneration that grew about his grave was formal enough that in 1751 a side-chapel of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God was built over it. He is remembered as a wonderworker, and is numbered among the Saints of Vladimir.
The island on the Uvod
Almost nothing of his origins is transmitted — which is usual for the fools-for-Christ, whose manner of life was designed to leave no record. He is placed as a parishioner of the Church of the Resurrection in the village of Voskresenskoye, in the district of Kovrov in what is now the Vladimir region, and his ascetic labour is located on an island in the water-meadows where the Uvod falls into the Klyazma — from which he bears the second epithet Uvotsky, "of the Uvod." It was a flooded, marshy, mosquito-ridden place, and the choice of it is the whole point: the fool for Christ seeks a manner of life that will be mistaken for madness, and a man living alone on a river island in the Russian north-east would have been so mistaken by everyone.
Foolishness for Christ
The Russian yurodstvo which Cyprian professed is a deliberate and dangerous ascesis: the voluntary surrender of reputation, the assumption of apparent insanity, the refusal of comfort, shelter and often of clothing, undertaken so that the world's judgment may be forestalled and the praise of men made impossible. Its great exemplars in Russia are Basil the Blessed of Moscow, Michael of Klopsk, and Procopius of Ustyug, and it flourished particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — Cyprian's own period.
Of his particular deeds no connected account survives. What the tradition preserves is the place, the date of his repose, and the memory that he was a wonderworker (chudotvorets) — that is, that healings were sought and reported at his grave.
Repose and veneration
He reposed on 22 July 1622 and was buried beside the Church of the Resurrection at Voskresenskoye. The veneration was continuous: in 1751 admirers of the blessed ascetic built over his tomb a chapel dedicated to the Protecting Veil (Pokrov) of the Mother of God, which is a substantial act of local canonisation in the Russian manner, and the point from which his cultus can be documented.
The Russian iconographic manuals (podlinniki) preserve a description of how he is to be written, which is often the only "portrait" a local saint of this kind leaves: dark of countenance, with the hair curling from the ears, a beard forked like that of John the Theologian, clothed in green, barefoot, and with his hands raised in prayer.
Feast and commemoration
July 22 (church date; New Calendar civil July 22, Old Calendar civil August 4). The commemoration is Russian and local: it belongs to the Vladimir and Suzdal country and is not kept in the Greek or Antiochian books. It falls on the great day of Mary Magdalene, and Cyprian is accordingly sung, where he is sung at all, by the common of a fool-for-Christ at the parish that keeps his relics.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a fool-for-Christ)
Having chosen for Christ's sake to be counted a fool upon the earth, thou didst despise the vanity of the world, and taking up the folly of the Cross thou didst put on the wisdom that is from above; wherefore, O blessed Cyprian, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Iconography
The Russian iconographic manuals prescribe his image with unusual precision: he is written dark of face, the hair curling back from the ears, the beard forked after the manner of John the Theologian, in a green garment, barefoot, and with both hands raised in prayer. The bare feet and the scant single garment are the marks of the fool-for-Christ throughout Russian iconography; the raised hands set him in the orant posture, and the green is unusual enough to serve as his identifier where the inscription is lost. He is also written among the assembled figures in icons of the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir. No pre-1900 image of him alone has been located for this collection.
Disputed questions
- His epithet. He is styled both "of Suzdal" and "of the Uvod." The first refers to the ecclesiastical region (the diocese of Suzdal, later Vladimir) rather than to residence in the city of Suzdal; the second to the river beside which he actually lived. Both are used in the Russian books.
- His feast. July 22 is the day of his repose and the date under which he appears in calendars of the saints of the Russian Church. He is also commemorated within the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir, kept in Russian usage in early July; the two are distinct observances and should not be collapsed.
- Not to be confused with the several other Cyprians — Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia (†1406); the hieromartyr Cyprian of Carthage; Cyprian and Justina of Antioch; Cyprian the Righteous of Antioch; or Cyprian the New of Koutloumousiou. The Suzdal Cyprian is a seventeenth-century layman and fool-for-Christ.