Agrippina of Rzhev

Saint Agrippina of Rzhev, the Blessed Princess, was the wife of the holy blessed prince Vladimir of Rzhev. She is commemorated on 18 July, together with her husband, in the synaxis of the saints of Tver. The two have been venerated in the city of Rzhev from ancient times and were buried in the city cathedral; above their graves, which lie side by side, a tomb was kept until 1745. Rzhev was anciently called Rzheva of Vladimir, after its first prince, Saint Vladimir. According to tradition, the well near the cathedral was dug by the blessed prince.

Vladimir was the son of Mstislav the Brave and the brother of Mstislav Mstislavich the Bold, or, by other sources, a son of Vsevolod Big Nest. Agrippina was his wife. No details of her are kept; Vladimir's life is better known from the chronicles.

When Mstislav the Brave died, in 1180, he entrusted his young son to his commander Boris Zakharich. In 1208 Vladimir ruled at Pskov, led the men of Pskov and Novgorod in battles against the Lithuanians and, at his brother's command, defended Velikie Luki. In 1213 he was driven from Pskov and governed a small territory in Latvia, where the town of Valmiera was named in his honour; under his influence peace was made between the bishop of Livonia and the prince of Polotsk. From 1214 he ruled again at Pskov. In 1216 he fought on his brother's side, among others in the battle of Lipitsa, and in 1217, after Mstislav Mstislavich left Novgorod for the south, to Galich, the Toropets patrimony of the Mstislavichi was apparently divided, and Vladimir received its eastern part, with Rzhev. In 1226 he defended once more the Toropets and Smolensk lands, and so Rzhev too, against the Lithuanians, in the battle of Usvyat. This is his last mention in the chronicles. The Mstislavich brothers showed, besides military skill and courage, mercy toward the defeated.

In the sixteenth century Rzhev began to be called Rzheva Volodimerova, to distinguish it from Rzheva Pustaya to the north-⁠west. It may be that the local veneration of the holy prince Vladimir and Princess Agrippina of Rzhev began by then. The antiquity of the veneration is shown also by the city's name after the prince and by the old tradition that even after his repose Prince Vladimir appeared on a white horse and went on defending the city from foreign armies. According to tradition, on icons the saints are shown together, standing in prayer to the Saviour in the cloud. Vladimir is bareheaded, with curly hair falling on his shoulders, a short beard, an underrobe and a red fur-⁠lined feryaz; Agrippina wears a cloak also red, her head covered with a white kerchief wrapped around her neck; their underclothes are green, adorned with gold, and flowers and trees are shown below.