The holy body of the right-believing prince, abandoned in the garden, lay unattended. Then the faithful servant of Kiev Cosmas, having found him, stood and wept bitterly over him. Seeing Anbal going to the palace, Cosmas cried out to him: "Give me a carpet or something to cover the prince." "Leave him," Anbal said angrily, "we threw him to the dogs." "Monster! The good-natured servant exclaimed. "Do you remember in what rags you came to the prince?" Now you are covered in velvet, and the prince, your benefactor, lies naked." Anbal gave a carpet and a coves, Cosmas covered the body of the deceased with it and laid it in the narthex of the church, where it remained for two days and two nights. On the third day, when the revolt was not yet over, the Kosmodemyan abbot Arsenius paid all possible honor to the murdered benefactor-prince. "How long shall we wait for the order of the elders? he said. "It's unseemly for a prince to lie like that. Open the church and let us do what is due. We will put him in some coffin until this malice ceases, and then they will come from Vladimir and take him for burial." The Bogolyubsky kliroshans gathered, lifted the body and carried it into the church and, after a funeral service with Hegumen Arsenius, lowered it into a grave lined with stone. Meanwhile, bad people, coming from the villages, continued to plunder in the city. The mob was also agitated in Vladimir, but the presbyter Nicholas, who had once brought the icon of the Lady from Vyshgorod together with the prince, put on the holy vestments and began to walk around with the miraculous icon, persuading the people to stop the disorders of self-will, which were never pleasing to the Lord; At last the agitation of passions subsided. On the sixth day, when the excitement subsided, the people of Vladimir sent for the body of the prince to Bogolyubovo. Seeing the prince's banner, which was carried in front of the coffin, the people wept, remembering that there were many good deeds behind the murdered prince. Solemnly, with funeral hymns and weeping, the clergy and people wept and buried the venerable body of the prince in the golden-domed Dormition Cathedral, which he himself had created.

And the chronicler concludes the touching legend with these words of the Psalms: "This prince Andrew during his lifetime did not give his body rest, below his eyes slumbering, until he found a true home, a refuge for all Christians and the Queen of Heavenly Hosts, who leads to salvation in many different ways. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, says the Apostle, and the east is assigned to the red sun, and noon, and sunset; so He did not bring His saint, Prince Andrew, to Himself in the usual way, even though He could have saved his soul in any other way, but having washed away his sins with the blood of martyrdom, together with the passion-bearers Roman and David, who were of the same blood and of one accord with him, He led him into heavenly bliss."

Orthodox Russia honors the memory of St. Andrew Bogolyubsky with gratitude. The holy prince was one of the brightest faces of Russian history, and it was not in vain that his contemporaries compared him with the meek David and the wise Solomon. His activity, by the ineffable Providence of God, was the basis for the formation of North-Eastern Russia. Andrei Bogolyubsky, becoming the first Great Russian prince, laid the foundation for his activities and showed an example to his descendants; the latter, under favorable circumstances, had to accomplish what was planned by their progenitor. His descendants revered him, and the Church numbered him among her heavenly intercessors, together with other sacred knights of his native Vladimir.

But only later, already in the days of Peter I, in 1702, when the relics of the knight of Nevsky (Comm. 23 November/6 December) were transferred to the new capital of Russia, the incorrupt relics of Prince Andrew and his young son Prince Gleb were found for common consolation in the cathedral church of the Dormition. The honorable relics of St. Blgv. Prince Andrei were placed in the side-chapel in honor of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos (in 1768 it was renamed in honor of his name). From that time on, the memory of the right-believing princes, who blessed the ancient city of Vladimir with their protection, began to be honored even more.

The transfer of the metropolitan cathedra from Kiev to Vladimir by Metropolitan Maxim in 1299, and then by Metropolitan Peter in 1325 to Moscow, was a visible sign of the unceasing care and protection of the Most Holy Theotokos over the Russian land. In 1326, the Assumption Cathedral was built in Moscow, under John Kalita, and Moscow began to rise. Soon it became the center of North-Eastern Russia, which was founded by St. Andrei Bogolyubsky.

Andrei Rublev, Venerable

Sources reporting about St. Andrew Rublev are very few. This is the Life of the Monk Nikon, a short and lengthy redaction; "A Message to the Shameful" by St. Joseph of Volotsk; "The Legend of the Holy Iconographers" of the late XVI — early XVII centuries; chronicle mentions; a record of the grave of St. Andrew at the beginning of the XIX century; mentions in the calendars.

Information about St. Andrew in the listed sources is mainly brief insertions of a general nature or individual mentions. There is no independent life of the saint, although the recognition of his holiness from these sources seems quite obvious.

An important addition to the few pieces of information about St. Andrew are his works – icons and paintings. According to the well-known decree of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Orthodox Church venerates the image "along with the cross and the Gospel." Therefore, the creation of an icon is a feat of piety, presupposing grace-filled help from above. The feat of piety can grow into holiness. Hence the special order in the Orthodox hierarchy of holiness – the order of holy iconographers, headed by the holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke, who, according to tradition, painted the image of the Mother of God. In the Russian Church, St. Alypius of the Caves and St. Dionysius Glushitsky are canonized as holy iconographers. The greatest Russian iconographer was St. Andrei Rublev.

His main works are: the iconostasis and paintings of the Annunciation Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin (1405); murals and iconostasis of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir (1408); the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir for the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir; paintings and iconostasis of the Assumption Cathedral in Zvenigorod (late XIV — early XV centuries); The Deesis tier from the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery (early XV century); murals and iconostasis of the Trinity Cathedral in the Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius (20s of the XV century); the icon of the Holy Trinity from the same cathedral; murals of the Spassky Cathedral of the Spaso-Andronikov Monastery in Moscow (early 20s of the XV century). Most of them were made in collaboration with other masters, but all these works, created in the spirit of Christian fraternal unity and asceticism, bear an undoubted stamp of holiness, which we associate primarily with St. Andrew, according to what we know about him and his companions.

His most famous work is the icon of the Holy Trinity, created by himself, according to the unanimous recognition of experts. There is no doubt that St. Andrew created many more holy icons and paintings than are listed above, but no evidence of his other works has been preserved.

Historical information about the Monk Andrei Rublev is extremely scarce. Nothing is known about its origin. Some light on this question can be shed by the fact that he had a nickname (Rublev), which he retained in monasticism. Apparently, Rublev is a family nickname, that is, a surname. It has an ending characteristic of Russian surnames. In the 14th-15th centuries, that is, in the era of St. Andrew, as well as much later, surnames were borne only by representatives of the upper strata of society, which makes us assume its origin from educated circles.

In addition, sources note his extraordinary wisdom, as evidenced by his work.

The year of birth of the Monk Andrew is unknown. It is assumed that he was born around 1360. This year is a conventional date officially accepted in modern historical science. If we consider that he was still a relatively young man when his name was first mentioned in the chronicles, this date can be pushed back to the 70-80s of the fourteenth century; In the chronicle record, he is mentioned in the last (third) place, and, therefore, was the youngest of the masters. Education began in childhood and professionalism was achieved early. The exceptionally high quality of the works of the Monk Andrew and the deep penetration into the spiritual meaning of the image, which is especially characteristic of him, makes us raise the question of where the Monk Andrew could have studied the art of painting.