Alfanov Brothers of Novgorod

The Alfanov Brothers were five brothers of Novgorod, Nikita, Cyril, Nikephoros, Clement and Isaac, who took monastic vows at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth. They are venerated as venerable in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod, on the third Sunday after Pentecost.

They are supposed to have been related to the Dvina boyar Anfal Nikitin. In 1389 they built at Novgorod, on Falcon Hill, a wooden church in honour of Saint Nicholas the Hierarch and founded there the Sokolnitsky monastery. The bodies of the brothers were buried in that monastery. By order of Archbishop Pimen of Novgorod (1552 to 1570) the incorrupt relics of the saints were moved into a shrine. In 1606 the Tale of the Appearance of the Holy Relics of our venerable and God-⁠bearing Fathers Nikita, Cyril, Nikephoros, Clement and Isaac, the Wonderworkers of Novgorod, called Alfanov, brothers by the flesh was written, and they were then canonized. The appearance of the Tale is connected with the miraculous healings worked by the relics of these brothers between 1562 and 1603. In the seventeenth century a church service was composed in honour of the Alfanovs. After the Sokolnitsky monastery burned in 1775, the relics of the holy brothers were moved to the Anthony monastery, where they are in a side chapel of the cathedral, dedicated to Saint John the Theologian.

There are a number of images of the holy brothers on icons. The earliest is the icon from the Sokolnitsky monastery of Novgorod of 1701. Their images are also present in the composition Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod of the eighteenth century, on the icons Wonderworkers of Novgorod of the eighteenth century, the Image of the Wonderworkers of Novgorod of 1728 and others.