Demetrius of Zaozerye

Prince Dmitry Vasilyevich, called the Lesser (Menshoy), was an appanage prince of Zaozerye, who lived between 1380 and 1440, the father of Venerable Joasaph of Kamenny. He is counted among the right-⁠believing princes, was entered in the synaxis of the saints of Vologda by Bishop Innocent (Borisov) of Vologda in 1841 and is commemorated locally, on the day of his namesake, Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica, 26 October. Our sources do not show a canonization by the whole Church.

Zaozerye and the monasteries

The main sources on him are the Typographical Chronicle and that of Ermolin, and the lives of Venerable Dionysius of Glushitsa, Alexander of Kushta and Joasaph of Kamenny. He was the fourth son of the powerful prince of Yaroslavl, Vasily Vasilyevich, of the seventeenth generation from Rurik. After his father's death (between 1380 and 1410), he received Zaozerye, a region beyond the lakes Beloe, Kubenskoe, Vozhe and Lacha, along the river Kubena. The principality of Zaozerye was a world of villages and hamlets and had no dwelling place that could be called a town in the economic and administrative sense of the time. According to the life of Joasaph, the princely court was in the village of Ustye, on the Kubena, at its confluence from the south-⁠east with Lake Kubenskoe, and beside it was a church of Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica, probably built by the prince in honour of his guardian angel. Beside the court lay the village of Chirkova, the parish of this church.

In 1400 Dmitry Vasilyevich gave permission to Venerable Dionysius to found the Glushitsa monastery on Lake Kubenskoe and sent men to help with the building. He, and especially his wife Maria, together with his brother Semyon, prince of Novlena, helped Venerable Alexander between 1418 and 1425 to found the Dormition monastery on the river Kushta, giving what was needed and food. Both monasteries received gifts from the prince: villages, hamlets and lands, as well as books (among them an aprakos Gospel) and icons. Later, when Princess Maria fell gravely ill, she asked Venerable Alexander for prayers for her recovery, but he answered that the illness was mortal and urged her to prepare for death as a Christian.

Wars and death

In the 1400s and 1420s, with other princes of Yaroslavl, he took part, on the side of grand prince Vasily I, in several wars with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and with the princes of Nizhny Novgorod and Suzdal. In 1435 Prince Dmitry, allied with Prince Dmitry Shemyaka, and so also with Vasily II, wished to stop Prince Vasily Kosoy from reaching Novgorod through Zaozerye. But Vasily Kosoy defeated near the village of Ustye the army led by Dmitry's son, Fyodor, who escaped by flight. "Many men of Zaozerye were killed in that battle", notes the chronicler. Then Vasily seized at Volochek Princess Maria, with her daughter and daughters-⁠in-⁠law, and took "all his property". In the winter of 1436 Dmitry Vasilyevich gave his only daughter, Sofia, in marriage to Prince Dmitry Yuryevich Shemyaka.

In the treaty of 13 June 1436 Shemyaka asked Vasily II for help to recover the "dowry" taken from Zaozerye by Vasily Kosoy, assigned by Dmitry Vasilyevich in his will ("spiritual charter"). It appears that the prince of Zaozerye was already dead. According to the Synodikon of the Rostov cathedral of 1642, Dmitry Vasilyevich was killed at Ustyug, perhaps in the spring of 1436, when Vasily Kosoy once again captured Ustyug and killed the supporters of Vasily II. According to late copies of the Life of Joasaph of Kamenny, he was killed at Yaroslavl by the Tatars and buried there.

Family and veneration

Dmitry had the sons Fyodor, appanage prince of Zaozerye, who died childless; Semyon, who by marriage to Maria, daughter of Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Dey, became prince of Kubena and was the founder of the line of the Kubensky princes; and Andrei, who became a monk with the name Joasaph of Kamenny. Because of kinship with the defeated Dmitry Shemyaka, in 1447 Fyodor Dmitrievich lost Zaozerye, which the grand prince Vasily II the Blind divided between the prince of Vereya Mikhail Andreevich and the prince of Mozhaisk Ivan Andreevich, and Semyon Dmitrievich lost Kubena.

Prince Dmitry and Princess Maria were honoured as the parents of Venerable Joasaph of Kamenny, whose life mentions their piety and their influence on the upbringing of their son. His name was entered in the synodikons of several churches and monasteries of Rostov, Yaroslavl and Vologda. His commemoration was kept locally on the day of his name saint, 26 October.