Sts. John and Longinus of Yarenga with scenes from their Lives. 1695. The Severodvinsk City Local Lore Museum
In Russia sudden death has long been considered a terrible misfortune, which people feared and tried to avoid. In ancient times you could not protect yourself from lightning or sudden cardiac arrest, but you could avoid riding spirited horses, hunting a bear with a bear spear,1 or, say, sea voyages. Nevertheless, from the earliest times the Pomors,2 strong-willed and passionate people, ventured into the Arctic Ocean’s open waters on their frail wooden longboats with amazing courage. And yes, many died during ice drifting, storms, and sqalls, deceived by the vagaries of the changeable northern climate. And yet, those people believed that nothing ventured, nothing gained, so risky navigation continued.
Of course, any shipwreck doomed unfortunate sailors to an inevitable and speedy death, because you simply cannot hold out in icy-cold waters of the Frozen Sea for any length of time. Frozen corpses were sometimes washed up by waves or tides on deserted shores, and lay there for a long time, becoming easy prey for animals and birds. But among the local populace it was a matter of honor to bury their remains, even no one knew who they were. However, it was almost impossible to dig a grave in the frozen, rocky soil. Therefore, their bodies would be covered with logs and boulders.
Why were the discoveries of bodies not reported to the shipwreck victims’ families so that they could be buried in a common cemetery, behind a common fence? Most likely, the victims had ended up in those parts for trade, construction, or some other purpose, and were not natives of Pomorye at all. In addition, the identification of the remains by their relatives was complicated for natural reasons, when the bones were found years after the unfortunate people’s deaths…
It was from such makeshift burials that the veneration of perhaps the most famous saints of the Russian North arose: of the Righteous John (commemorated July 16) and Longinus (commemorated July 16 and October 29) of Yarenga. If it were not for these names, today hardly anyone would have heard of this small village on the White Sea shore in the Arkhangelsk region, where the inhabitants, as an ancient Russian scribe wrote, “had a custom of making salt, because in Pomorye the soil is rocky and there are no fertile fields.” One day, in 1544, local salt workers Semyon, Ivan, and Kozma, being four miles from their native village at the mouth of the Syarta River, found “a dead man, lying in only an undershirt on the edge of the ice at sea.” The compassionate people buried the stranger there, not far from the mouth, and remembered what had happened only twenty-five years later, when miracles began to occur from the buried man’s remains… Some years later, an unknown man appeared in a vision to Priest Peter from one of the surrounding villages, pointing out the location of his remains and ordering the priest to bury him properly. Fr. Peter fulfilled the order with reverence and became a witness of the first miracle of St. Longinus (as the miracle-worker called himself when he appeared to sick people). Afterwards, the remains of both saints (one after the other) were transferred by Monk Barlaam into St. Nicholas Church in Yarenga.
It is noteworthy that in the mid-sixteenth century, such burial mounds were an ordinary element in the natural landscape and many people did not feel the slightest awe when looking at them. Thus, The Legend of the Miracles of Sts. John and Longinus of Yarenga tells how travelers sat down on these graves in very inappropriate situations; a bleeding woman sat down on one, and a local fisherman perched on another, taking off his trousers before swimming in the river. Obviously, there were so many such burial mounds in the area that for local inhabitants yet another grave of this kind was as ordinary as a forest stump.
Of course, it directly contradicts the point of view of the Soviet researcher Lev Dmitriev (1921–1993), set forth in his book, Hagiographic Tales of the Russian North As Works of Literature. In the spirit of his time (state atheism), Dmitriev believed that the holiness of John and Longinus reflected “a mere attempt by church propaganda to integrate into the system of semi-pagan folk beliefs.” He argued that in the sixteenth century and later the Pomors made a saint out of any drowned person, while the Church usually prevented the development of such cults. Here Dmitriev refers to an episode from the book by Sergei Maximov (1831–1901), A Year in the North, which describes how in the mid-nineteenth century, a district police captain burned down a chapel that local residents had built over the grave of a drowned orphan girl from a neighboring village.
However, the undoing of that spontaneous cult can be explained in another way: After the canonization of Sts. John and Longinus and the growth of their veneration among the locals, their story began to be perceived as a sacred precedent, and particles of their sanctity began to be transferred to other drowned people. And thanks to their deep veneration, people of the North began to treat previously neglected burial mounts as sort of shrines and view these graves as objects of veneration. And the fact that Church and state authorities prevented the creation of popular memorials is absolutely understandable and natural—holiness is not verified by hearsay and spontaneous veneration of a certain place and a legend associated with it (otherwise we would have to recognize all trees with colored rags hung on their branches in so-called “places of power” as sacred). The example of Sts. John and Longinus demonstrates how thoroughly, carefully and according to the letter of the law the process of canonization went in the Russian Orthodox Church: First there were inquiries, then an investigation, witnesses were interviewed—and all this in the spirit of healthy skepticism.
Why was it so strict? Because absolutely nothing was known about the lives of the Righteous John and Longinus. Later, the abbots of the Solovki Monastery alleged that Sts. John and Longinus had been laborers at their monastery, but voices were immediately heard declaring these rumors a lie. Thus, Priest Dionysius Telov from St. Nicholas Church saw in those allegations an attempt to “privatize” the cult of the local wonderworkers of Yarenga, while Yarenga residents regarded these saints as the Heavenly patrons of their village. Their veneration was united into one cult, as if they were spiritual friends or just acquaintances, although no evidence of this has survived. They were united only by their deaths, posthumous miracles, and Yarenga itself. St. John’s remains were found and buried several miles west of the village, and those of St. Longinus—several miles to the east. And when, during the translation of their relics, some suggested separating the saints, leaving St. Longinus’ relics at St. Nicholas Chapel, those present protested loudly; the saints, in general opinion, had become inseparable, and “they should rest side by side.”
Remarkably, in their vision of Sts. John and Longinus’ way of life even elders of the Solovki Monastery did not go beyond the idea of their labor at their monastery as laymen, and it seems that they never referred to them as monks tonsured at the Holy Transfiguration Monastery of Solovki. According to their contemporaries and subsequent generations of the faithful, Sts. John and Longinus were laymen, were not ordained, and nevertheless attained sainthood.
The canonization of the righteous is always associated with some distrust on the part of representatives of the Church hierarchy. In this case, there are no disciples and successors of the ascetic in question, who could describe and testify to his virtuous life, as is usually the case after the death of a monastic saint, when his devoted disciples compose his hagiography, materials for which they begin to collect in his lifetime. And it is hard for monks among the Church hierarchy to assume that holiness can be attained on a path other than monastic; almost ninety percent of the names in the Orthodox Church calendar belong to monastic saints!
The Miracle of Yakov Nosyrev. A margin scene of the icon, “Blessed John and Longinus of Yarenga, with Scenes from Their Lives” But the Lord ordains otherwise. He does not reveal to us how or by what means the Pomor seafarers (and were they seafarers?), of whom nothing is known except their names, became saints—but they did. So, after their deaths, they began to perform numerous miracles, healing sick people. The abundance of grace in their souls was lavished upon the surrounding sufferers, and their posthumous prayers many times healed unfortunate people from pain. As a rule, help came to those who had suffered for a long time and despaired of the very possibility of recovery. Thus, “a woman, Aquilina by name”, suffered for a year and a half from “paralysis of her limbs” until she received healing at Righteous John’s shrine. Yakov Sokolyakov “was bedridden for many years”, but he was healed once he touched St. Longinus’ tomb. A woman named Maria suffered from violent insanity for three years, so that her family had to tie her up and keep her under lock and key at home. But one day the Righteous John and Longinus mysteriously appeared inside Maria’s house and restored her sanity; later the grateful woman visited the Chapel of Sts. Longinus and John and was delighted to recognize the faces of her healers on one of the ancient icons.
The clergy of St. Nicholas Church, in the enclosure of which Righteous John and Longinus were buried, recorded such stories in abundance. They were recorded strictly, and before adding a particular piece of evidence, eyewitnesses were interviewed captiously and details were collected. From year to year and from century to century, the Lord glorified His saints. The list of healed people was not limited to Yarenga residents—inhabitants of remote villages and towns of the region flocked to the porch of St. Nicholas Church. Their names became known outside the Russian North as well.
How and why did these obscure seafarers attain sainthood? This question will certainly arise among their venerators over and again. But the path of holiness is open to every person, regardless of his rank, social status and circumstances of his life. You can always pray, repent and praise God everywhere—whether on the water, at sea, in difficult navigation or at a salt-works. And if your work is sanctified by prayer, it becomes salvific. True, the Lord did not pass on to other generations the details of the earthly biographies of His saints, but He gave them the opportunity to tell further generations much more than their birth places, their parents’ names and the external circumstances of their earthly journeys: God’s mercy works miracles through the prayers of the righteous, and grace does not hesitate to bring believers deliverance from pain and suffering. It is especially striking that Sts. Longinus and John did not wait for prayers of the afflicted for help. They were the first to appear to the unfortunate in visions and announce imminent healing to them.
However, did Righteous John and Longinus heal all the sick in their region? Certainly not. People in Yarenga, Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory continued to suffer from all the diseases, examples of which we can easily see around us now and the names of which we can probably see in medical records. That’s not the point at all… And here’s the point…
The Repose of the Righteous John of Yarenga. A margin scene of the icon, “Blessed John and Longinus of Yarenga, with Scenes from Their Lives” On the third day after the solemn translation of the relics of Sts. John and Longinus to the Church of Sts. Zosima and Savvati, Abbot Bartholomew and other elders set off “in a small vessel” from Yarenga back to the Solovki Monastery. The voyage, which at first promised to be smooth, suddenly turned into a nightmare—at the moment when it was no longer possible to turn back and dock at the Yarenga harbor, “a violent wind suddenly blew from the shore and we languished in great need day and night.” The longboat was losing control, taking on the icy-cold water of the White Sea, with the heavy steel of the sky merging with the sea foam. The monks were mentally preparing for death. However, a day later, the helmsman with difficulty managed to moor the ship to the bay of Zayachy Island.3
When the monks reached solid ground, they looked back in horror, recalling their experiences. Meanwhile, it was growing dark, so the monks pitched a tent for the night. Then suddenly, as an eyewitness wrote, “For a long time in the tent I could smell the same fragrance as the saints’ relics had given off in Yarenga.” Wishing to make sure that his senses were not deceiving him, the monk shared it with Abbot Bartholomew. And the latter confirmed that there really was a fragrance. And he added: “My child, we enjoyed such an ineffable fragrance there, and even here it is not leaving us.”
Receiving Divine grace is not a magical shield against hardship, and the most mysterious revelations will not protect us from severe trials, just as they did not prevent the monks of the Solovki Monastery from going through the terrible northern tempest. But even in these adversities or illnesses, God’s help will never forsake us and will give us the strength to overcome them steadfastly, courageously, and with faith.
