Saints of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Saints Who Weren't Ukrainian, But Should Have Been. . .

There have always been Saints who have been so loved by the Ukrainian Church that devotion to them has become a particular trait of Kyivan Christianity.  This is true of St Barbara, a Patron of Kyiv.  In former times, tourists to Kyiv could always expect to receive a copy of St Barbara’s Akathist as a souvenir. It was because St Barbara was boiled in oil by her father for her Christian faith that Ukrainians have the tradition of boiling pyrohy ("perogies") in oil on her feast day.

Relics of St Barbara were brought to Canada by Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko and now rest in Winnipeg as one of Canada’s greatest Orthodox Shrines. 

St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker is another such Saint, whose many miraculous Icons, including that of St Nicholas the Drenched, attest to the great devotion the Ukrainian people have to him, including the Feast of “Warm Nicholas” or the Transfer of His Relics, on May 9 (22).  The original miraculous Icon of St Nicholas the Drenched, credited with saving a boy from drowning in the River Dnipro, has now been returned to the St Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.   

Another Orthodox miraculous Icon of St Nicholas that is also associated with water is in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral at Tarpon Springs, Florida.  Two other famous miraculous St Nicholas Icons are honoured highly on Mount Athos.  One of them was retrieved from the water and it was found to have a conch-shell stuck to the Head of St Nicholas.  When it was plucked off, blood spurted from the Icon and left its mark on the Icon to this day.

Holy Myrrh continues to flow from the Relics or Bones of St Nicholas in Bari, Italy.  The Myrrh is a water-like substance that constantly comes out of St Nicholas' remains and is distributed to people.  Many miracles are attributed to it and the jars or vials in which the myrrh is contained are also honoured as Relics for having contained the myrrh.  The writer of these lines is in possession of this myrrh and can attest to the great spiritual power of the intercession of St Nicholas through his Relics.  St Andrew, the Founder of the Kyivan Church, is also blessed with this miracle of flowing myrrh from His Relics at Amalfi, Italy, not too far from Bari itself.

St. George was also highly venerated by the Kozak Host. The Feast of St George in May began the agricultural year in Ukraine, and the Feast of the St. George’s Church in Kyiv in November ended it. He is the only Saint with a Universal martyr's cult throughout the world.  His emblem is the Cross of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Red Cross on a white background.  St George is patron of all knights, soldiers and Royalty, as well as of farmers and tillers of the ground.

St Michael the Archangel was greatly honoured as the Patron Saint of Kyivan Rus'-Ukraine and of Kyiv itself.  St Michael was the Patron of the People of God in the Old Testament and he was adopted as the Patron of the newly baptized People of God, the Ukrainians. 

St Volodymyr the Great and his immediate successors would often sew cloth Icons of St Michael into their Royal robes. From this developed the later practice of sewing such Icons on the inside of coats worn by Orthodox Christians out of devotion. 

For about 400 hundred years in Ukraine's history, the Icon of St Michael the Archangel displaced the Trident as Ukraine's Royal and National symbol, although the Trident always figured prominently and continuously in the personal arms of Ukrainian Royalty and Nobility, like the Boyars.

As an aside, the gold Trident of St Volodymyr the Great was actually his Royal Cypher.  For example, the cypher of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of Canada, is "E II R" or "Elizabeth the Second, Regina."  It is therefore a symbolic representation of the name of the Sovereign, a personal Royal Seal. 

The fact that he had a Royal Cypher is one indication among others that Volodymyr the Great considered himself to be a King or, in the Slavic translation, a Tsar (Tsarstvo = Kingdom, Tsar David = King David).  Byzantine history writers continued to call Volodymyr a "Grand Prince" to indicate his alleged subservience to the Byzantine Emperor.  But there is no indication anywhere in early Ukrainian history, however, and especially not with either Askold or Volodymyr, that there was ever any such subservience.  Such subservience existed in the minds of the Byzantine Emperors themselves and their court clerks entrusted with the writing of "official" Byzantine history. 

Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko often illustrates his works with copies of ancient icons, among which are icons of St Volodymyr the Great where the lettering on the icon explicitly refers to him as "Tsar" or "King."  To call St Volodymyr a "Velykyj Kniazh" or Grand Prince is to repeat Byzantine colonial propaganda aimed against the historic sovereignty of the empire of Kyivan Rus' Ukraine which, in land size, was five times that of the Byzantine Empire!

Getting back to he Trident, it was originally the symbol of the pagan god Poseidon, was used according to many forms by peoples who lived near water, including the Byzantines from whom Volodymyr adapted his Trident.  Even the flag of the Province of Newfoundland includes a Trident on its side to indicate the people's historic relationship to the ocean.

St Volodymyr made his Trident appear as two Cyrillic "B's" for "Volodymyr Velykij" or Volodymyr the Great, which are facing each other.  The middle bar is topped with a Cross Pattee, which was later adopted as the Kozak Cross, to indicate Volodymyr's Christian Faith as Ukraine's Enlightener and Baptizer.

The Trident of St Volodymyr with the Cross became Ukraine's national symbol until the beginning of the twentieth century when the Cross was removed.  It has yet to be replaced by the current Ukrainian government.  Without the Cross, the Trident is not that of St Volodymyr, nor is it the Trident of Ukrainian history.

Finally, a note on the blue and yellow colours associated with Ukrainian Christian heraldry and the contemporary national flag.  Blue and yellow have always been colours the Ukrainians have been fond of.  For example, Ukrainian scholars have shown that the pejorative word used by Russians to describe Ukrainians, "Khakhol," is actually a Mongolian word.  In the Mongolian language, "Khakh" means "blue," while "oulo" means "yellow."  The Mongols therefore nicknamed Ukrainians, with whom they came into contact in the thirteenth century, as the "blue-yellow people."

Blue and yellow were actually Royal, not popular, colours.  Blue represented Royal lineage ("blue-blood") and also represented the blue colour which, in the Hebrew Scriptures, was used by the Children of Israel to demonstrate outwardly their loyalty to God as His People.  Yellow, in actual fact gold signified the gold crown of Kings and also signified Divinity and Eternal Life.  And so the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine represents not a "wheatfield against the blue sky," but the colours of St Volodymyr the Great and his successors as Christian Sovereigns of Kyivan Rus'-Ukraine.

St. Savvaty and St. Zosima of the Solovetsky Islands became the Patron Saints, together with St. John the Baptist, of beekeepers in Ukraine and Russia.  On the Feast of St Alexius the Man of God (March 30^th), Ukrainian beekeepers would begin their chores by hanging small icons of Savvaty and Zosima in little shrines placed among their beehives, an event celebrated in one of the poems of the Ukrainian poet, Ivan Franko. 

Beekeeping was and is so popular a form of agriculture that the Slavonic liturgical "Book of Needs" or "Trebnik" which contains blessings for many items has no less than four liturgical blessings of:  New bees (called the "voiceless ones"), new bee-hives and beekeepers, beekeeping implements and new honey and beeswax to be used in the making of Church candles. 

These blessings were added to the Greek Trebnik by the early Metropolitans of Kyiv as a way to inculcurate Christianity into the life of the newly baptised Ukrainian people.  Honey itself was always considered a symbol of Divine Grace and this is why the Church service books often call Saints, like Basil the Great or John Chrysostom, "Divine Bees" who produced the honey of excellent theology. Honey was often given as a popular gift on St Nicholas' Day to children, not only because it was sweet, but also as a symbol of the Divine Bee, St Nicholas Himself. 

An old Ukrainian tradition of the Kozak times dictated that the same Ukrainian word used to denote the death of human beings (it being different from that used to denote the death of animals), be used also to denote the death of honeybees (a person and a bee "umirayiut," while animals "zdikhayiut").  All this shows the tremendously close relationship between Ukrainians and Nature.  Perhaps this traditional and historic relationship will help the people overcome their current environmental problems in Eastern Europe.

The Prophet Elias or Elijah is immensely popular in Ukraine.  The first ever Christian Church there was dedicated to him.  Like other Saints, he took over from the pagan cult of Perun, the god of Thunder, like the Norse god Thor.  After all, Elijah ascended bodily into Heaven on a chariot, so the connection with rain and lightning was made.  Blessed candles from the Feast of the Meeting of our Lord were always kept by Icon Corners in Ukrainian homes and whenever lightning storms occurred, these candles were lit and St Elijah was invoked for protection. 

Beautiful and popular traditions in honour of other saints, like St Peter, St John the Baptist ("Ivan Kupalo"), St Catherine and many others punctuate the Ukrainian religious and cultural calendar year.