Dimitry of Rostov

Dimitry of Rostov
Saint Dimitry of Rostov

20th-century icon of St. Dimitry of Rostov
Hierarch
Born December 1651
Makarovo, Kiev region
Died 28 October 1709
Rostov
Honored in Eastern Orthodox Church
Canonized 22 April 1757 by Russian Orthodox Church
Feast 21 September (Uncovering of Relics)
28 October (Repose)
23 May (Synaxis of All Saints of Rostov)[1]
Attributes Vested as a bishop, right hand raised in blessing

Saint Dimitry of Rostov (sometimes Latinized as Demetrius, sometimes referred to simply as Dmitri Rostovsky) was a leading opponent of the Caesaropapist reform of the Russian Orthodox church promoted by Feofan Prokopovich. He is representative of the strong Ukrainian influence upon the Russian Orthodox Church at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. He is separately credited as composer or compiler of the first Russian opera, the lengthy Rostov Mysteries of 1705, though the exact nature of this work, as well as its place in history, is open to debate.[2]

Contents

Life

Born Danylo Savvich Tuptalo (or Tuptalenko, according to some sources) into a Cossack family in 1651. Soon thereafter his family moved to Kiev, and he entered the Kievo-Mohyla Academy at the age of 11. On 9 July 1668 he took his religious vows at St. Cyril's Monastery in Kiev and was given the monastic name of Dimitry (after Saint Demetrius of Thessalonika). After a brief period in Chernigov, Dimitry went to venerate the Byzantine Slavic Christian shrines of Belarus (at the time property of the Byzantine Rite Belorusian and Ukrainian Catholic metropolitans of the Uniate churches), still located in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at that time. In 1678 he returned from Vilno to Baturyn and settled at the court of the hetman Ivan Samoylovych.

During the 1680s, Dimitry lived mostly at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, while his sermons against hard drinking and lax morals made his name known all over Russia. He was appointed hegumen (superior) of several major monasteries of Ukraine, but concentrated his attention upon the ambitious project of integrating all the lives of Russian saints into a single work, which he published as Monthly Readings (Четьи-минеи) or Menologion in 1684-1705. He also found time to study ecclesiastical history of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Statue of St. Dimitry of Rostov in front of the Rostov-on-Don cathedral.

In 1701 Dimitry was appointed Metropolitan of Siberia but, pleading ill health, preferred to stay in Moscow until he was invested with the archbishopric of Rostov. During his life in Russia, Dimitry opposed both the Old Believers' and Peter the Great's ecclesiastical policies, gradually drifting towards the party of Eudoxia Lopukhina and Tsarevich Alexis. He also made invaluable contributions to the Russian education, opening a school and a small theatre in Rostov, where his own plays could be staged.

Work as Composer

Dimitry was also active as a composer, although his musical education is undocumented aside from the standard music curriculum established by Feofan Prokopovich at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. Many of his Penitential Psalms achieved wide circulation, not only in the Ukraine but in the Balkans too, and many have become an integral part of Ukrainian folk-song tradition through the kobzari, itinerant blind singers.

Dimitry is credited as composer or compiler of the first Russian opera, the six-hour-long Rostov Mysteries of 1705. Though this has been staged, notably by Boris Pokrovsky's Moscow Chamber Musical Theatre, in Moscow and at the Brighton Festival (1993), it may best be judged an oratorio on the lives of Russian saints. Its basis is the "Cheti-Minei" (Четьи-Минеи), published in four volumes in 1689, 1690, 1700 and 1705[3] — the same source that inspired Pushkin in 1825 to write Boris Godunov.

Death

Upon Dimitry's death on October 28, 1709 his relics were placed at St. Jacob's Monastery, which his followers would rebuild as Dimitry's shrine. A fortress on the Don River was named after him; today it is known as Rostov-on-the-Don.

References

This article incorporates material from the public domain 1906 Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary.

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Rostov del Don — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Pостов на Дону Rostov del Don Escudo …   Wikipedia Español

  • Rostov-on-Don — Infobox Russian city EnglishName=Rostov on Don RussianName=Ростов на Дону Skyline SkylineLegend LatDeg=47 LatMin=14 LatSec LonDeg=39 LonMin=42 LonSec LocatorMap LocatorMapLegend Flag CityDay=Third Sunday of September FederalSubject=Rostov Oblast… …   Wikipedia

  • Dimitri de Rostov — Dimitri de Rostov, parfois latinisé en Démétrius ou Démètre de Rostov (1651 dans le gouvernement de Kiev † 1709 à Rostov Veliki), higoumène (abbé) en Ukraine puis métropolite de Rostov a été le principal opposant des réformes césaropapistes de… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Dimitri von Rostow — Dimitri Tuptalo (russisch Димитрий Туптало, bürgerlicher Name Даниил Саввич Туптало/ Daniil Sawwitsch Tuptalo; * 11. Dezemberjul./ 21. Dezember 1651greg. in Makarow bei Kiew; † 28. Oktoberjul./… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Millennium of Russia — Coordinates: 58°31′16.05″N 31°16′30.87″E / 58.521125°N 31.2752417°E / 58.521125; 31.2752417 …   Wikipedia

  • List of saints — This article is about Christian saints after 450 AD. For Christian saints before this time, see List of early Christian saints. For a list of venerated persons in Mahayana Buddhism, see List of bodhisattvas. This is an incomplete list of… …   Wikipedia

  • Crosier — For other uses, see Crosier (disambiguation). Western crosier of Archbishop Heinrich of Finstingen, 1260 1286. A crosier (crozier, pastoral staff, paterissa, pósokh) is the stylized staff of office (pastoral staff) carried by high ranking… …   Wikipedia

  • Mikhail Yaroslavich — ( ru. Михаил Ярославич) (1271 ndash; November 22 1318), also known as Michael of Tver, was a Prince of Tver (from 1285) who ruled as Grand Prince of Vladimir from 1304 until 1314 and again from 1315 1318. He is counted among the saints of the… …   Wikipedia

  • National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy — Coordinates: 50°27′52″N 30°31′11″E / 50.464443°N 30.519816°E / 50.464443; 30.519816 …   Wikipedia

  • Mikhail of Tver — redirects here. It can also refer to Mikhail II of Tver and to Mikhail III of Tver. Mikhail Yaroslavich before the Mongol khan, by Vasili Vereshchagin. Mikhail Yaroslavich (Russian: Михаил Ярославич) (1271 – November 22, 1318), also known as… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”