Laurentius of Kaluga

Saint Laurentius of Kaluga was a fool for Christ, venerated locally in the Russian Orthodox Church, who died on 10 August 1515. Our sources present him as a saint with local veneration and do not mention a general canonization. With his help is linked the defence of Kaluga against the attack of the Crimean Tatars in the year 1512. Near the place of his burial the Saint Laurentius monastery was built.

He was probably of the Khitrovo family. For a time he lived at the court of the appanage prince Semyon Ivanovich, but more at half a verst from the town, on the top of a mountain covered with dense forest, in a hut near the church of the Nativity of Christ. He went barefoot summer and winter, in a shirt and a sheepskin coat. On ancient icons Saint Laurentius is depicted with an axe set on a long handle.

The monastery chronicle records that in the year 1512 the Hagarenes attacked the town of Kaluga, and Prince Semyon Ivanovich went out against them with the townspeople. Then the righteous Laurentius, who was in his house, suddenly cried out in a loud voice for a sharp axe to be given him, for the dogs had fallen upon Prince Semyon. The prince was at that time fighting the Hagarenes from a boat on the Oka. As the Hagarenes surrounded him in great numbers, the righteous Laurentius suddenly found himself on the boat, strengthened him, and the whole army, encouraged, overcame the enemies who were advancing on Kaluga.

He died on 10 August 1515. Later his relics were moved to the two-⁠storey cathedral church of the monastery, built at the end of the sixteenth century. On the upper floor were the churches of the Ascension of the Lord, with the side chapel of Saint Nicholas, and on the ground floor that of the Holy Martyr Archdeacon Laurentius and of Saint Laurentius, fool for Christ and wonderworker of Kaluga, where his relics rest at the north side, and above them is a shrine with his icon.

Probably on the site of his ascetic labours Prince Simeon founded the Saint Laurentius monastery of Kaluga. From 20 to 23 August 2015 celebrations were held in Kaluga for the 500th anniversary of the repose of Saint Laurentius the Righteous. On 22 August, after the Divine Liturgy, Metropolitan Clement of Kaluga and Borovsk, Archbishop Maximilian of Pesochensk and Yukhnov and Bishop Nikita of Kozelsk and Lyudinovo, with the clergy of the metropolia, consecrated a monument to the righteous Laurentius. On 23 August 2018 particles of the saint's relics, found in the museum of the Red Army in Moscow, were brought to Kaluga.