Jacob of Meniuga

Holy Righteous Jacob of Meniuga, a child of Novgorod, is commemorated with his brother John as the children of Meniuga. They were sons of devout parents, Isidore and Barbara, who tilled the land in a village of the Medvedsky churchyard of the Novgorod district, in the reign of the tsar and grand prince Ivan Vasilievich IV, in the time of Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow, and of Archbishop Pimen of Novgorod, in the second half of the sixteenth century (about the year 1570). They are called children because they were overtaken by a sudden and unusual death in childhood, when the elder was five and the younger three.

One autumn Isidore, preparing with his wife to go to their usual work, slaughtered a ram and, having prepared it as food, went with his wife to the field, not far from home, leaving the children alone, unattended. They, having seen what their father did with the ram and taking it for play or amusement, thought to amuse themselves in the same way. The elder brother said to the younger: Brother, let us do as our father did, and in his ignorance, not foreseeing the bad consequences, took a stick and struck his younger brother on the head, who fell to the ground at once and died. Seeing his brother dead, John was very frightened and, not knowing what to do, hid like a child in the oven, behind logs placed there to dry, because of the rainy autumn. Returning in the evening from work and finding their younger son dead, the parents wept and lamented bitterly. When they could find the elder nowhere, they increased their lamentation, which brought relatives and neighbours to their house, who, convinced of the truth of the sad event, marvelled and grieved with the parents, so that at last they quieted a little. After this the mother, as usual, lit the logs in the oven, not knowing or thinking that her son was hidden behind them. When the logs had burned down and Barbara looked into the oven, she saw her son there, already dead, but wholly intact and unharmed by the fire.

The good Lord, who looks down from on high with His all-⁠seeing eye on all that lives on earth, knowing the guilelessness and innocence of these children, willed to glorify His name in them, honouring their undefiled bodies with incorruption and numbering them among His saints, one as innocently slain, the other as having received for his brother's killing a martyr's end by fire. Hearing the cry and weeping of his wife Barbara, Isidore ran to her at once and, seeing his son lying dead in the oven, but whole and unharmed by the fire, was filled with fear and horror. So to his wife's weeping and crying he added his own great lamentation. At this lament relatives and neighbours gathered again, who, seeing so glorious a miracle, marvelled greatly and glorified God who had wrought it. And since the news of the miracle spread quickly and far, the name of God began to be glorified in other places too. At last, having mourned their children, Isidore and Barbara dressed them in burial garments, laid them in coffins and buried them according to the Christian rite at their parish church dedicated to the hierarch and wonderworker Nicholas, in the Medvedsky churchyard.

A few days after the burial of the children John and Jacob, their coffins appeared floating on a small lake two versts from the Meniuga monastery. This is how the miracle became known. The neighbouring villagers, who were used to hunting birds and beasts in the forests, once went hunting in the morning, intending to return home in the evening. But, wandering in the forest and unable to find the way, they did not come home that evening or the next day, remaining in the forest. Seeking the way on the third day, the hunters came at last to the lake mentioned and saw two coffins floating on it. Convinced, after careful examination, that they were the very coffins in which John and Jacob had been so recently buried, the hunters began to beseech the holy children to show them the way, and suddenly a small path appeared to them, along which they reached their homes. Arriving home, the hunters at once told their neighbours all that had happened to them. The priests of the neighbouring churchyards gathered with their clergy and, accompanied by a multitude of people, went to the lake indicated by the hunters. The coffins they knew were indeed seen floating, and it was decided to take them and carry them again to the church of the hierarch and wonderworker Nicholas at which they had been buried. But since the hunters declared that the holy children, appearing to them in a dream, wished to be buried not at the churchyard of that church but in a desert place at Meniuga, where there had formerly been a monastery, the coffins with the relics were carried to that place, where they were laid with due honour near a small brook flowing there, and over them a chapel was soon built.

The good Lord granted the holy children the gift of working miracles, and many who came to their tombs began to receive healings of various illnesses and infirmities. One such case, which happened some years later, served especially to the glorification of the holy children and to the building of a church at the place of their burial. A monk named Macarius, passing from Pskov to Novgorod by the place where the relics of the holy children John and Jacob rested, was suddenly seized by a cruel illness, with no hope of recovery. Reaching the holy relics as he could, he prayed before them with all diligence and faith, and was healed at once. Filled with deepest gratitude to the holy children for the mercy received, the monk resolved to remain by their relics, with the intention of devoting all his effort to finding means to restore the former Meniuga monastery. Announcing to all pilgrims the healing he had received, he begged them to give toward the building of a church, which, by God's mercy and the prayers of His saints, he succeeded in raising over the relics of the children John and Jacob, from the freewill offerings of pilgrims and worshippers. This monk later restored the Holy Trinity men's monastery of Meniuga (see the notes on Macarius of Meniuga).

In the reign of the most pious tsars John and Peter Alexeevich, in the time of Metropolitan Cornelius of Novgorod, the relics of the holy children John and Jacob of Meniuga were examined and found whole and unharmed, and so they rest to this day, giving healings to all who come to them with faith, to the glory of Christ God, to whom is due honour and worship for ever and ever. According to tradition, the children departed to the Lord on 24 June, on which day their commemoration is also kept. The calendar we rely on has them on 11 July, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod (new style, a movable day), and on 7 July.