The shrine that united erastranslated

On October 8, the Russian Orthodox Church remembers the day of the transfer of the venerable relics of St. Herman, Archbishop of Kazan, from Moscow to Sviyazhsk.

The veneration of holy relics is an ancient custom of the Church. A person is not only a soul, but also a body. The Lord took on flesh at the Incarnation, thereby freeing the matter of the human body from suspicions of deterioration and impurity. Orthodoxy teaches that we, like Jesus Christ, will be resurrected in our transformed bodies. St. Ephraim the Syrian explains the reverent veneration of the remains of the holy martyrs by believers: “The dead act like the living, heal the sick, cast out demons and by the power of Christ remove all indecent power, for in the holy remains there is always the grace of the Holy Spirit, performing all miracles in them.”

Saint Herman is close to the Simbirsk land, since he served in the Kazan diocese, which until 1832 included our region.

Saint Herman (Grigory Fedorovich Sadyrev-Polev) was born around 1505 in Tver district in the city of Staritsa. The Polev family descended from the boyar Alexander Borisovich Pol, a descendant of the Smolensk princes. From his youth, Gregory fell in love with piety, prayer and church reading. At the age of 25 he became a monk...