Andrey of Suzdal

The right-⁠believing prince Andrey Konstantinovich (about 1320-1365) was Grand Prince of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod from 1355 to 1365, the eldest son of Konstantin Vasilievich. The chronicles describe him as gentle, quiet and humble, and at the end of his life he received monastic vows and the schema. He is venerated in the Russian Church as a right-⁠believing saint. The sources available to us, however, show neither a date or act of his canonization nor a day of commemoration.

His reign

He was born between 1320 and 1323, the eldest of the four sons of Konstantin, the first grand prince of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod. The chronicles mention him first in 1355, the year his father died. Then he went to the Horde, to Khan Janibek, and received what his father held: Suzdal, Nizhny Novgorod and Gorodets. After taking the throne of Suzdal he gave appanages to his younger brothers, to Dmitry Suzdal and to Boris Gorodets with the Volga and the banks of the Sura. The youngest, Dmitry Nogot, lived at Suzdal without an appanage.

A year later he went to Pereslavl-⁠Zalessky for a conference with Grand Prince Ivan II of Moscow, and did not contest Moscow's claim to the grand principality of Vladimir. In his time the great unrest began at the Horde, but he did not make use of it. When in 1360 Khizr became khan, he offered him, because of the youth of the grand prince of Moscow, Dmitry Ivanovich, the grand principality of Vladimir, but Andrey declined. Then the khan gave the patent to his brother Dmitry. In 1363 he gave actual governance of the Nizhny Novgorod land to his younger brother Boris.

Monastic vows

In 1364 a great famine and a terrible drought struck the Nizhny Novgorod land, and amid these calamities Andrey was tonsured a monk, and soon, gravely ill and sensing death near, he received the great schema. He fell asleep on 2 June 1365. The chronicles say that the gentle, quiet, humble Grand Prince Andrey Konstantinovich, rich in virtues, passed away as a monk in the schema. The chronicles say that he, like his wife, was very spiritual and full of virtue.

His wife, Anastasia (Vasilisa), of Tver, married at twelve around 1343, is venerated as the right-⁠believing princess Theodora of Nizhny Novgorod. Between 1355 and 1365 she founded the Conception Convent at the foot of the Nizhny Novgorod kremlin, perhaps from a vow for children, whom they did not have. Later she was tonsured a nun with the name Theodora by Archimandrite Dionysius of the Caves and died in the convent she had founded. After Andrey's death the throne passed to Boris, then to Dmitry. He was buried in the Transfiguration Cathedral of Nizhny Novgorod, beside his father. The cathedral was rebuilt in 1829-1834, the tombs of the princes came to lie in a crypt, in the south side chapel, and in 1929 the cathedral was destroyed.