Isaiah of Rostov

Saint Isaiah of Rostov, hierarch (died 15 May 1090), was a monk of the Kyiv Caves Monastery, abbot of the monastery of Saint Demetrius and then second bishop of Rostov and Suzdal, a missionary of the region. He is commemorated on 15 May. Local veneration as a wonderworker was ordered in 1474 by Archbishop Vassian (Rylo) of Rostov.

Life

He was born in the Kyiv land and was tonsured at the Caves Monastery in the time of Abbot Saint Theodosius. From 1062, at the request of Prince Izyaslav, he was abbot of the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius in Kyiv. About 1077 he was chosen bishop of Rostov, after Bishop Leontius, the consecration being performed by Metropolitan John. Christianity was not yet well established in the region, so he worked for the conversion of pagans, destroyed idolatry and built Christian churches on the sites of pagan shrines, continuing the missionary work of his predecessor. He took part in the consecration of the church of Saint Michael in the Vydubychi monastery (1088) and of the church of the Mother of God in the Caves Monastery (1089).

The sources in fact say no more: the first historical testimony about him is the Life of Saint Theodosius, and the Primary Chronicle mentions him twice, in 1088 and 1089. His Life, written later, turned a simple mention of his presence at Kyiv in 1089 into a tale of a wonderful instant flight from Rostov to Kyiv and back. The year and circumstances of his death are not known. The Russian and Ukrainian sources give 15 May 1090 as the day of his death. The see of Rostov remained vacant for more than a century after his death.

Relics and veneration

He was buried in the Dormition cathedral at Rostov, and the coffin was at first left uncared for. His relics and those of Saint Leontius were found in 1164 (or 1162), at the building of a new cathedral in place of the burned one, and veneration by the people began. They were re-⁠interred in 1474 in the new cathedral. Local commemoration was ordained in 1474 by Archbishop Vassian. His Life exists in two redactions; the shorter was thought by nineteenth-⁠century historians to be the work of Rostov chroniclers of the thirteenth century, but scholars today consider it composed around 1474, the year of canonization; the second, longer, contains long quotations from chronicles and Scripture and adds nothing to the biography. He is counted in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Caves, of Kyiv, of Rostov and Yaroslavl, and of Kyiv-⁠Mikhailovsky.