A study of the personal file of Blessed Afanasy from a mental hospital took place in Oreltranslated

Metropolitan Tikhon of Oryol and Bolkhov spoke about the previously unknown circumstances of the discovery of the relics of Blessed Athanasius of Oryol (Saiko). During preparations for his glorification, a church commission discovered the personal file of the ascetic, who was forcibly confined to a psychiatric hospital. As Oryol News reports, the surviving medical records made it possible to restore additional details of his life and became one of the grounds for canonization as a confessor.

Read: Pensions in Russia will rise sharply: who will receive an increase

Of particular importance to the researchers were the conclusions of the doctors who observed Afanasy during his stay in the medical institution. Unlike church certificates, these documents contained professional assessments of medical workers. “For us, these testimonies of people who did not belong to the church circle and assessed it from their professional point of view were especially important,” the Metropolitan explained.

Separately, Tikhon focused on the excavations carried out on August 3, 2026 at the Baptist cemetery of Orel. The work began early in the morning, and at the burial site, experts discovered a large stone that could affect…