George of Murom

Holy Martyr George of Murom was Prince George Yaroslavich, who ruled at Murom after the death of his elder brother, Basil, in the winter of 1345-1346. At that time, it seems because of the devastation of the city and its environs by the Mongol-⁠Tatars in 1281, 1288 and 1293, Murom lay desolate, and the prince's residence was outside it. In 1330 Prince Yaroslav, George's father, owed to Metropolitan Theognostus fifteen grivnas of church dues.

In 1351 George Yaroslavich set his court in Murom, and after the prince's example his boyars, nobles, merchants and common people began to settle in the town. In the time of the revival of Murom the churches were restored, which the prince and the townspeople renewed and adorned with icons and books.

George's rule at Murom was short. In the summer of 1355 his nephew, Prince Fyodor Glebovich, appeared as a claimant to the throne of Murom and besieged the city. George fled. Fyodor became prince in Murom and won to his side most of the boyars. Some of the boyars went with the prince to the Horde, evidently to obtain the yarlyk for the principality of Murom. But George also had supporters in the town. A week after Fyodor's departure, George returned to Murom and, gathering the remaining people of Murom, went after his nephew to the Horde. There a great trial took place, as a result of which Fyodor received the yarlyk for the principality of Murom, and George was handed over to him. The latter, as the chroniclers note, died of exhaustion, apparently a violent death, in the same year. The later chronicler of Vladimir says directly that Fyodor killed George. Since the report of the death of the prince of Murom stands in the chronicles before that of the death, on 21 November 1355, of the prince of Nizhny Novgorod and Suzdal, Constantine Vasilievich, it may be concluded that George died before that date. His name was entered in the synodika of the men's monastery of the Transfiguration in Murom and of the cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Zaraysk.

The stories of the revival of Murom and of George's tragic end entered most texts of the chronicles of the so-⁠called Laurentian-⁠Trinity group and, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, were several times included, more or less abridged, in general Russian chronicle collections. In the forties of the sixteenth century Ermolai Erasmus used them in composing the Tale of Bishop Basil of Ryazan, according to which George Yaroslavich was the initiator of the installation of the holy hierarch. The establishment of the veneration of George Yaroslavich at Murom dates from a time not earlier than the seventeenth century, after the local canonization of Saint Basil (1609). Evidence of veneration is found in monuments of iconography. The saint is commemorated on 6 July, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir.