Herman of Kazan
Our Father among the Saints Herman, Archbishop of Kazan
Bishop · d. 1567
Commemorated 23 June — Second translation of relics (1714), 25 September — First translation of relics to Sviyazhsk (1595), 6 November — Repose at Moscow
Herman of Kazan (sixteenth century, died 1567) was a monk of the school of Joseph of Volokolamsk who became the first abbot of the Dormition monastery of Sviyazhsk and, from 1564, the second archbishop of the newly Christian region of Kazan. A learned copyist of books and a builder of churches and monastic libraries, he laboured to enlighten the Muslim and heathen peoples of the middle Volga. Summoned by Ivan the Terrible in 1566 to be metropolitan of Moscow, he dared to rebuke the Tsar's cruelties, was cast into disgrace, and died at Moscow on November 6, 1567. His relics were later enshrined at Sviyazhsk, and his repose is his principal feast.
Origins and the Volokolamsk formation
Herman was born in the town of Staritsa, of the old boyar family of the Polevi, and given in baptism the name Gregory. In his youth he was tonsured at the Joseph-Volokolamsk monastery under the igumen Gurias — the future first archbishop of Kazan (commemorated December 5) — who governed that house from 1542 to 1551. In the monastery Gregory, now the monk Herman, occupied himself with the copying of books and became a close friend of Maximus the Greek (January 21), then held there in confinement. Chosen in 1551 as archimandrite of the Dormition monastery of his native Staritsa, he governed it with pastoral zeal and himself a model of humility, introducing the coenobitic Rule of St Joseph of Volokolamsk; but after two and a half years he laid down the office — leaving its direction to the hieromonk Job, afterwards the first Patriarch of Moscow (commemorated June 19) — and returned to Volokolamsk to live as a simple monk. When the heretic Matthew Bashkin, who denied the Holy Mysteries and the Holy Trinity, was arraigned at the Moscow Council of 1553, Herman and his own father (tonsured at Volokolamsk with the name Philotheus) were summoned to it, and the condemned heretic was committed to Herman's keeping for correction, so widely was his holiness and zeal for the faith known.
Sviyazhsk and the see of Kazan
After the fall of Kazan to Moscow in 1552 an archepiscopal see was established there in 1555, and Gurias, the former igumen of Volokolamsk, was made its first archbishop and charged with founding the Dormition monastery of Sviyazhsk as a base for the mission. By Gurias's decree Herman was appointed the first head of the new house. He raised a stone cathedral with a bell-tower and cells, living himself very frugally in a cramped chamber beneath the tower, and gave particular care to gathering a library, so that Sviyazhsk became a centre of enlightenment for the whole Kazan country. On March 12, 1564, after the repose of Gurias, Herman was consecrated the second archbishop of Kazan; his short tenure was marked by the building of churches and the labour of bringing the peoples of the region to the light of Christ.
Rebuke of the Tsar and death
In 1566 Ivan the Terrible summoned Herman to Moscow and required that he be elected metropolitan of the whole Russian Church. Herman at first refused the burden, but the Tsar would brook no objection and lodged him in the metropolitan's quarters to await his elevation. Seeing the injustices worked by those of the Tsar's inner circle — the men of the oprichnina — Herman, faithful to his pastoral duty, undertook to admonish Ivan. "You are not yet raised to be metropolitan," the Tsar answered through his attendants, "and already you lay constraints upon my freedom." He had Herman driven from the metropolitan's quarters and kept under watch. The archbishop lived some two years in disgrace and died at Moscow on November 6, 1567, and was buried in the church of St Nicholas the Hospitable.
Relics and translations
In 1595, at the petition of the people of Sviyazhsk, the relics of the saint were carried from Moscow to the Dormition monastery of Sviyazhsk, where Hermogenes, then metropolitan of Kazan and later Patriarch of Moscow, venerated them at the grave; a second translation followed in 1714. He is commemorated on those days (September 25 and June 23) as well as on the day of his repose.
Feast and commemoration
November 6 (church date; Old Calendar civil November 19) is the day of his repose and his principal feast; the first translation of his relics is kept on September 25 (Old Calendar civil October 8) and the second on June 23 (Old Calendar civil July 6). His veneration is proper to the Russian Church and to the jurisdictions descended from it, and he is numbered among the Saints of Kazan.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Having zealously taken up the yoke of Christ from thy youth, thou wast glorified by the wakeful labours of fasting and prayer; wherefore, when God called thee to the service of the Church in the newly-enlightened realm of Kazan, thou wast summoned together with the hierarch Gurias, and there wast shown to be the first founder of the monastery thou didst raise in the city of Sviyazhsk and a worthy successor of the first hierarch. Standing in spirit before the throne of the Master, pray, O hierarch Herman, together with the hierarch Gurias, that the Orthodox flock may grow in piety and that the darkness of false belief may be scattered by the light of the faith.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Kontakion — Tone 4
Illumining with the excellences of holiness and righteousness the reason-endowed flock entrusted to thee, and nourishing it in the verdant pastures of the word of Christ, thou didst by the power of thy spirit guide it into the right path of the Lord's commandments; wherefore now also, overshadowed by thy healing wonders, on thy holy memory we cry out to thee: Rejoice, O Herman our father.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Iconography
Herman is depicted as an archbishop in the phelonion and omophorion, or in the monastic mantle and klobuk proper to a hierarch of the Russian tradition, holding the Gospel and blessing; he appears among the assembled Saints of Kazan alongside Gurias and Barsanuphius. No pre-modern icon of him alone that is both securely identified and free of copyright has yet been found for storage, and he is listed among the wanted icons.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Herman of Alaska (†1837), the missionary monk of Spruce Island and first-glorified saint of the Orthodox Church in America, or with Herman of Solovki (†1479): this Herman is the sixteenth-century archbishop of Kazan.
- Manner of death. The received Life relates that Herman died in his Moscow disgrace during the years of the oprichnina terror, some accounts naming the plague then raging in the city. A strong tradition, resting on the state in which his relics were found (the head severed from the body), holds instead that he was put to death on the Tsar's order — a fate like that of Metropolitan Philip of Moscow, who fell in the same years. The Church commemorates him among the hierarchs; the entry records the martyrological tradition without adopting the title of martyr, which the calendars do not give him.