Cyprian of Suzdal

Blessed Cyprian of Suzdal (Cyprian of Uvod) was a fool for Christ and hermit, of the sixteenth century, and died in 1622. He is commemorated on 22 July and on 2 October, as well as in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Ivanovo. The record gives no act of the Church; his veneration was confirmed by the entry of his name in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir (feast established in 1982) and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Ivanovo (established in 2000).

He was of simple birth and a parishioner of the village of Voskresenskoe, in the Ivanovo region. He lived as a hermit on an island in the forest, at the mouth of the rivers Vyazma and Uvod, only seven versts from Voskresenskoe and a verst and a half from the village of Pokrovskoe. After his death a dispute arose between the inhabitants of the villages of Voskresenskoe and Petrovskoe, who each wished to bury the venerated hermit in their own place. The people of Voskresenskoe said that he visited their church more often. According to some traditions, the dispute was resolved when, in undressing Cyprian, a note was found with his wish to be buried in Voskresenskoe. There is also a version according to which his coffin was set on the river Uvod. The grave of Saint Cyprian is known as "the cellar".

On 22 July 1622 the body of Saint Cyprian was buried beside the church at Voskresenskoe. In 1751 a side chapel of the church was added over his grave in honour of the Protection of the Mother of God, at the expense of the princes Golitsyn, owners of the village, who revered him. An inventory of the Voskresenskaya church of 1817 says that under the wooden floor of the Pokrov side chapel is a stone exit, where is buried the body of Cyprian who laboured in those places, and that below it a tomb was made for memorial services in memory of the departed. In the north wall, beside the west corner, was a small window with an iron grille through which Cyprian's grave could be seen. Opposite was a stair by which the faithful could enter the burial vault through a lifting door.

At the beginning of 1937 the clergy asked for permission to move Cyprian's relics from the closed Voskresenskaya church to an open church. On 20 February 1938 the commission for the liquidation of relics of the Ivanovo regional executive committee opened the tomb and took the saint's remains. The icon and the metal monument were handed to the Central Anti-⁠religious Museum, and the relics ended up in the Ivanovo institute of forensic medicine, from where it was planned to send them to Moscow. This was one of the last openings of relics in the Soviet Union. Today the location of the relics of Saint Cyprian is unknown.