The old bell tower was located, as it is supposed, to the north-west of the western side of the Spassky Cathedral. Archaeological research is needed to clarify its location.

In the miniatures of manuscripts of the XVI century, St. Andrew is depicted with a halo (Osterman Chronicler; The Life of St. Sergius, the end of the XVI century, from the Great Collection of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra).

The cited sources certify that in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries no one doubted the holiness of Andrei Rublev, as well as the high righteousness of Daniel.

According to tradition, in the Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius, the memory of St. Andrew was celebrated on July 4, the day of commemoration of St. Andrew of Crete.

The 18th-19th centuries were a time of oblivion of many Orthodox traditions and, in particular, canonical iconography, so this period was not favorable for venerating the memory of holy iconographers. The fame of St. Andrew began to return only from the beginning of the XX century, when interest in the traditions of Orthodox icon painting was awakened. Over the course of this century, it has increased enormously. By the manifest Providence of God, it was in the 20th century that the "Holy Trinity" of St. Andrew, as well as his other works, acquired the significance of witnessing the truth of Orthodoxy in the face of the whole world.

The Monk Andrew was canonized on the basis of the holiness of his life, on the basis of his feat of iconography, in which he, like the Evangelist, bore witness and continues to proclaim to people the true truth about God, glorified in the Trinity, and also on the basis of the testimony of the Monk Joseph of Volotsk.

July 5

Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh, Venerable Wonderworker – glorification

Wondrous is God in His saints! Glorifying His chosen ones, He also arranges our salvation through them.

In difficult times for the Church, when God's special help was needed to strengthen the Orthodox faith in the hearts of people, or when human impiety threatened to suppress piety and faith, in such difficult times God deliberately sent His special chosen ones, who, being filled with the grace of God, with their wondrous life, with their humility, attracted the hearts of people to themselves and became teachers and guides in the spiritual life for all.

One of these great chosen ones of God was St. Sergius, who was given by God to the Russian land precisely at such a difficult time, when the Tatars filled almost all its borders, when the internecine strife of the princes reached bloody battles, when these strife, lawlessness, Tatar violence and the coarseness of the morals of that time threatened the Russian people with complete destruction. For more than a hundred and fifty years, long-suffering Russia languished under the heavy yoke of the Tatars. And finally, the Lord God saw the supplication of Orthodox Russia – the hour of liberation was approaching, in which Sergius appeared as a true sorrower of his native land.

But in order to throw off the barbarian yoke and bring the foreigners into the fold of the Christian Church, it was necessary to raise and strengthen the moral forces that had been humiliated by centuries of enslavement and despondency. It was to this moral education of the people that St. Sergius devoted his life. The most powerful means accessible and understandable to that age was a living example, the visual implementation of a moral rule. He began with himself, and by a long solitude, full of labors and hardships in the midst of a dense forest, he prepared to be the leader of the other desert dwellers. The biographer, who himself lived in the brotherhood raised by Sergius, describes with vivid features how it was brought up, with what gradualness and love for man, with what patience and knowledge of the human soul.

In this narration one can see a practical school of good manners, in which, in addition to religious and monastic education, the main worldly sciences were the ability to devote oneself to the common cause, the habit of intense work, and the habit of strict order in studies, thoughts, and feelings. The teacher worked patiently daily on each individual brother, on the individual characteristics of each brother, adapting them to the goals of the entire brotherhood. Observation and love for people gave the ability to quietly and meekly tune the human soul and extract from it, as from a good instrument, its best feelings.

In this way a friendly brotherhood was brought up, which, according to contemporary testimonies, made a deep edifying impression on the laity. The world came to the monastery, looked with an inquisitive eye at the order of life and what he saw, the life and atmosphere of the desert brotherhood taught him the simplest rules, by which human Christian community life is strong. In the monastery everything was poor and scanty, or, as one peasant who came to the monastery of St. Sergius to see the glorified majestic abbot expressed it in disappointment, "everything is bad, everything is poor, everything is orphaned." It happened that all the brethren sat almost without a piece of bread for whole days. But everyone was friendly with each other and friendly to the newcomers, there were traces of order and reflection in everything, everyone did his job, everyone worked with prayer, and everyone prayed after work. A hidden fire was felt in everyone, which without sparks and flashes was revealed by the life-giving warmth that enveloped everyone who entered into this atmosphere of work, thought and prayer. The world saw all this and left encouraged and refreshed. For fifty years the Monk Sergius did his quiet work in the Radonezh hermitage; For half a century, people who came to him, along with the water from his spring, drew consolation and encouragement from his wilderness, and, returning to their circle, shared it drop by drop with others. And these drops of moral influence, like leaven that causes life-giving ferment, sinking into the masses, imperceptibly changed the direction of minds, rebuilt the entire moral structure of the soul of the Russian man of the fourteenth century.