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† Memory of St. Eupraxia, Princess of Pskov Blessed Eupraxia, in the world Euphrosyne, was the daughter of the Polotsk prince Rogvold Borisovich 230 and the wife of Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich. Yaroslav's father, Prince Vladimir Mstislavich, who reigned in Pskov, despite the fact that he was married to the daughter of the Riga bishop, suffered a lot of insults and troubles from the Germans and was forced, together with the Pskovites, to fight more than once against the insidious order 231. - Yaroslav, not taught by his father’s experience, thought to live happily among the Germans: an unkind husband abandoned his good wife, left Pskov to join the knights and there married a German woman; having taken possession of the town of Odempe (Bear's Head), together with the Germans he more than once attacked Russian settlements; in 1231 he captured Izborsk, but the Pskovites captured him here and imprisoned him in Northern Pereyaslavl 232. - His pious wife, abandoned by her frivolous husband, turned to deeds of piety. She founded the convent of St. in Pskov. John the Baptist. The stone temple of the Forerunner, built by her, is still intact and speaks of itself both about its antiquity and about the piety of the builder. It is made of a strong, hewn slab, interspersed with quadrangular bricks of such clay, firing and color, which are not seen in Pskov; the bricks are very similar to Dutch and English ones. So the righteous woman did not spare expenses for the house of God and ordered bricks from foreign places at high prices. Not finding consolation in the world, she sought them in the Lord; Having accepted monasticism, she was the abbess of the convent she founded. Her abbot’s black staff still stands at her tomb. The righteous woman suffered martyrdom at the hands of her stepson in the city of Odenpe. The chronicles do not explain why the stepson did this to his kind mother. But taking into account that the stepson was the son of a German woman, Pope Gregory tried to persuade Yaroslav to accept papism, about which he wrote a letter to him, and, according to the instructions of the disinterested Germans, Yaroslav refused to the Dorpat Church “half of his legal inheritance,” which he did not have 233 - adding to this the fact that the death of the righteous woman followed the next year after the famous victory of Nevsky over the Germans 234, We believe and it is quite probable that the martyrdom of Eupraxia was the work of German papism, greedy for self-interest, pouring out revenge on her for the failures of Yaroslav and for its own disgrace. The relics of the righteous woman were brought to Pskov and, buried here, were soon marked by a miracle; she was killed on May 8, and on May 18 a sign was revealed. A contemporary writes: “on the 18th day of May 1243, in the Pskov monastery of St. A sign appeared to the Forerunner from the icon of the Savior standing over the tomb of the princess, the wife of Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich, who was killed by her stepson in the Bear's Head; For 12 days the myrrh flowed from the icon and filled 4 wax bottles like flasks. Two waxworts were brought to Novgorod for blessing, and two were left in Pskov. Glory to You, Lord, who has given us sinners and unworthy servants such a blessing! We trust in You, Almighty! You, the philanthropist, look upon us poor people with great mercy." 235 - Relics of St. princess-nuns rest in secret in the Church of the Baptist; Her cell attendant, nun Sandulia, is buried at her feet. The face of the righteous princess is depicted in ancient writing on two icons: on one she prays before John the Baptist and the Apostle. Andrey; another icon is next to the miraculous icon of the Savior. The memory of the righteous woman is locally honored on October 16, 236. St. Martyr Longinus the Centurion Longinus, a pagan from Cappadocia, was assigned, by order of Pilate, as a centurion, with the soldiers subordinate to him, to perform service during the suffering of Jesus Christ, and was so amazed by the extraordinary event that took place before his eyes that, until that time, having no understanding of either the Holy Scriptures or the prophecies about Christ, he understood the truth, believed in the Divinity of the Savior, and included in his soul such faith, for which the elders and scribes of the Jews, who studied the law and the prophets, were incapable... “The centurion and those who were with him guarding Jesus (during His suffering), seeing the earthquake and everything that happened, were greatly afraid and said: “Truly this was the Son of God” ... “The centurion who stood opposite Him (Jesus), seeing that He, having thus cried out, gave up the ghost, said: “Truly this man was the Son of God" ... “The centurion, seeing what was happening, glorified God and said: Truly this man was a righteous man.” Thus, three Evangelists testify about the centurion Longinus, who believed in Christ (Matthew 27:54; Mark 15:39, and Luke 23:47). - Church tradition adds to what is attested in the Gospel that Longinus was also among the guards assigned to the tomb of the Savior, and, having witnessed the miraculous resurrection of Christ, finally, together with two other soldiers, believed in Christ, came to Pilate and the bishops and told them about everything. When they offered him gold so that he would hide about the resurrection of Christ, which he and the soldiers had seen, and so that he would tell everyone that Christ’s disciples stole His body while those guarding Him fell asleep, Longinus rejected their offer and, on the contrary, as a self-witness, testified to the people about the resurrection of Christ and called Him the true God. For this he was subjected to hatred and persecution from the enemies of Christ, who began to look for a reason to destroy him, but, not finding any guilt behind him, did not dare, because Longinus was the oldest of the warriors, an honest man and known to Caesar himself. Then Longinus, evading the malice of his pursuers, left his military rank and, having received baptism from the holy Apostles, retired to his fatherland - Cappadocia, where everywhere he openly testified to the truth of the resurrection of Christ. The rumor about this reached the Jewish leaders, and the bishops and elders begged Pilate to slander Longinus before the Emperor Tiberius in the indignation of the people and achieved that the death sentence was signed for the preacher of Christ. The soldiers sent to Cappadocia beheaded Longinus and two soldiers, his friends, and his head, as proof of his death, was brought to Jerusalem, where Pilate and the Jews ordered it to be thrown outside the city, to a place where all kinds of sewage were dumped. – After some time, it was recovered in a miraculous way: a Christian widow, who had lost her sight due to illness, came to Jerusalem from Cappadocia to venerate the shrine; With her was her only son, who suddenly fell ill in Jerusalem and died. In the deepest grief of the unfortunate woman, God consoled her with a vision: the martyr Longinus appeared to her in a dream, who promised to show her the blissful state of her son and restore her sight. He announced himself to her and showed her the place where she should find his head. The woman went with her companions to the indicated place and, having found the head of the saint, as soon as she touched it, she received healing and joyfully brought the sacred remains into the house. The very next night I saw St. again in a dream. Longinus, who lovingly hugged her son and told her: “don’t cry, be comforted, you see how joyful he is.” And the miraculously healed woman calmed down and saw her son in a blissful state, and returned to Cappadocia, bringing there the found head of the saint, and gave it up for burial along with the remains of her son. The Holy Martyr Longinus, who, according to legend, was himself healed of an eye disease at the Cross of the Savior by a drop of blood that fell into his eyes when one of the soldiers “pierced the ribs” of the Crucified One with a spear, is prayed for healing from eye diseases. In the Acts of St. it is proved that the writer of the life of the holy martyr Longinus is St. Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem († 434), who found the acts of the martyr in the library of St. Resurrection and based on them he compiled his own description, from which it is clear that the martyr was beheaded on October 16, 237. - The honest hand of St. Longinus of the Centurion is in Rome in the Vatican Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle 238. Words from Pogodin's chronicles, research. VI, 323–325. Collection years. III, 48. 49. IV, 177. 178. Karamz. 3, 158. 159. Collection years. III, 54. V, 182. Step. book 1, 353. “Wax bowls” - waxed bowls over painted wooden candles, where candles were placed. Samples of them in ancient times. state Russian 1, 159. Gr. Tolstoy's shrines and antiquities of Pskov, pp. 70. 71. Compiled. about the monastery 453. In the life of the centurion Longinus, the writer writes: “I, Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, did a lot of careful research and, not without great difficulty, could find something about St. Longinus the centurion, who said at the Cross of Christ: Truly this is the Son of God; I found a description of his martyrdom in the library of the Holy Resurrection” (“Teaching on the Father’s Church” Phil., Archbishop of Chernigov, § 203). “Full. months East." arch. Serg. vol. II, part 2, p. 331.