Kosma of Yakhroma

Saint Kosma of Yakhroma (died officially on 18 February 1492) was an abbot of the Russian Church and the founder of the Dormition monastery, called Kosma's, on the river Yakhroma, in the Vladimir region. He is regarded as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church; the sources do not give the date of his canonization. The year of his death and even the era of his life are disputed. He is commemorated on 18 February and, on the day of the icon of the Mother of God found by him, on 14 (27) October; our calendar also has 23 June.

Beginnings

His name in the world is not known, nor the exact date and place of birth. It is known that he was born in a family of boyars living within the bounds of the present Vladimir region, between the towns of Vladimir and Yuryev. As a youth he entered the service of a prominent boyar family, where they took pains to give him a good education for those times.

According to tradition, the boyar whom Kosma served fell gravely ill. In search of a doctor he traveled from one town to another. At a night halt on the river Yakhroma, the future saint found on a tree an icon of the Mother of God. The icon thus revealed was able to heal the ailing boyar. Soon after, Kosma went to Kiev and received monastic tonsure at the Caves Lavra.

The monastery

Years later, Kosma resolved to commemorate for ever the events tied to the appearance of the icon. Forty versts from Vladimir he built, in 1482 or 1483, a stone church in honor of the Dormition, which served as the beginning of the foundation of the Dormition monastery. Kosma was elected its abbot.

The dispute over the date of death

According to the official version, Kosma died in deep old age, on 18 February 1492, and was buried in the monastery he founded. Scholars still dispute the chronology of his life, whose data are very contradictory. The official year of death is 1492, but in all the first sources that mention Kosma's name, including the Life, this date is not stated. According to other data he died between 1464 and 1473, or around 1430. One historian supposed that the real date of death was the 1420s or the middle of the fifteenth century.

The written Life and veneration

The Life of Saint Kosma was written in the first half of the sixteenth century by Gregory, a monk of the Savior-⁠Euthymius monastery at Suzdal. Several copies of this monument are known: those of the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy and the ones called Pogodin, Uvarov and Volyn, all of the seventeenth century and several decades removed from the writing of the original text. The relics of the saint were laid beneath the floor in the Dormition church of the monastery he founded. There are written testimonies of two healings from the relics; according to one, a man suffering from clouding of the mind was healed of his illness after five days spent at the saint's tomb. The Church commemorates him also on the day of celebration of the icon found by the saint.

The Yakhroma icon of the Mother of God

Only a supposed copy of the icon revealed to Kosma has survived to our day, showing the Mother of God in one of the basic types of Russian iconography, Tenderness. The Christ Child is on the right, sitting on the arm of the Mother of God and pressing against her cheek; with one hand he touches her chin. The Child's little feet are crossed, and the sole of one is turned toward the viewer.