Macarius I of Kiev

Saint Macarius I, Hieromartyr, was metropolitan of Kiev, Halych and all Rus' from 1494 or 1495 to 1497, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He cared for the Church at the time when the metropolitans no longer lived in Kiev because of the raids of the Crimean Tatars, tried to restore the cathedral of Saint Sophia and was killed by the Tatars on 1 May 1497, in the village of Skrygalov, near Mozyr, while celebrating the Divine Liturgy. His commemoration is on 1 May in the old calendar.

Archimandrite and metropolitan

Metropolitan Simeon made Macarius archimandrite of the Holy Trinity monastery in Vilnius. In preparing the marriage of Grand Duke Alexander Jagiellon to Elena Ivanovna, Tsar Ivan III of Moscow asked that the mystery of the wedding be performed by Macarius, but Alexander opposed it. In 1495, after the death of Metropolitan Jonah Glezna, a council of bishops decided the ordination of Archimandrite Macarius as metropolitan. The council was not content with the election, but, before the blessing and confirmation of the patriarch, decided that, in haste, the bishops of the country should first consecrate him bishop and metropolitan and only then send to the patriarch for blessing. The local chronicle says: "Then the bishops gathered, Vassian of Vladimir, Luke of Polotsk, Vassian of Turov and Jonah of Lutsk, and made Archimandrite Macarius, called Certa, metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus'. And to the patriarch for blessing they sent the elder Dionysius and the deacon-⁠monk Herman." Soon the embassy returned with an answer of approval, but the patriarch's envoy could not refrain from a reproach for breaking the usual order. The reasons for the haste, hidden from us, were explained to him, and he judged them convincing enough to justify the Russian bishops. In 1496 Macarius was blessed by Patriarch Nephon II of Constantinople, who also sent a letter to the grand duke and his wife.

His ministry

He was a wise shepherd. He strove to calm the disputes within the clergy and the faithful, cared for the development of the metropolis, and arranged and adorned with his own money many churches and monasteries. He protected and defended the rights of the Orthodox against the "Latins" and sought to draw Grand Duke Alexander of Lithuania to the side of the Orthodox. He lived at Novogrudok (now Navahrudak, in Belarus), the main residence of the metropolitans of Kiev since the time of Vytautas, because at Kiev there was danger from the ceaseless raids of the Crimean Tatars. Thousands of people had died by the sword or been taken captive, and the Tatars plundered and burned churches. In such conditions the journey to Kiev was very dangerous, but it had to be made.

In 1495 to 1496, just when Macarius was metropolitan, in the ruling circles of the Lithuanian-⁠Ruthenian state there was discussion of Grand Duke Alexander Casimirovich's plan to revive the principality of Kiev and give it to his younger brother Sigismund, a Catholic, with the status of co-⁠regent. The king of Poland, John Albert, was also their brother. So the prospect arose of a federation of Poland, Lithuania and the principality of Kiev. By the old custom of Kiev, the ceremony of enthronement of the prince would have to take place in Saint Sophia, which in the people's mind was not only the main church of the princes and metropolitans but also the symbol of the mighty Rus' of Kiev. The researcher A. Troitska supposes that Metropolitan Macarius, as spiritual leader of the Orthodox, who were the majority in the principality, would have had to meet the new prince Sigismund with the people and, together with the Catholic clergy, perform the rite. In such circumstances the metropolitan had perhaps even to go to Kiev or move for good to the city of his title. Macarius's predecessors had not lived permanently in Kiev for more than a hundred years. Moving the centre of the metropolis from Novogrudok to Kiev would have helped restore faster the influence of the principality of Kiev and would have strengthened the spirit of the Ruthenians in the struggle against the Tatars. Guided by the sense of an archpastor's duty and by love of his homeland, Vladyka Macarius, having gathered some funds for the restoration of the cathedral of Saint Sophia, plundered by the Tatars of Mengli Giray, and of other Kievan shrines, decided to go to Kiev in the spring of 1497.

Martyrdom

The journey to Kiev was in those times dangerous. Between 1491 and 1496 the Crimean Tatars had raided Ukraine every year. In March and April 1497 they attacked Volhynia, Podolia and the Mozyr region, but the princes Michael and Constantine Ostrogski, with their army, freed the prisoners and killed all the attackers. For that reason the road to Kiev, which ran through the Mozyr region, was thought to be clear. At the end of April 1497 Metropolitan Macarius, accompanied by a few clerics and a small guard, set out. Going along the river Pripyat, the saint stopped to rest in the village of Skrygalov (Strigalov), near the fortress town of Mozyr on the river Bchich (now the village of Skrygalov in the Mozyr district, Gomel region of Belarus).

On 1 May 1497, as the metropolitan was celebrating the Divine Liturgy, the Tatars attacked. The Russian source says the service was on the bank of the river Pripyat, the Ukrainian one that it was in the church at Skrygalov. The saint urged those present to save themselves, while he stayed at the altar and accepted a martyr's death. The Tatars cut him with an axe, cut off his foot and head (the Ukrainian source says: the right foot, the left hand and the head). Contemporaries mourned the hierarch's death warmly. His body was brought to Kiev and placed in the cathedral of Saint Sophia. It is told that before the iconostasis in the cathedral, where the saint rested, candles lit themselves several times, and from his tomb (according to Erich Lassota, a "wooden chest") light and fire sometimes came out. The relics, covered with a linen cloth, were in Saint Sophia, among other times in 1594.

Veneration

His canonization was made in the years 1621 to 1622, in the time of Metropolitan Job Boretsky, in the Polish-⁠Lithuanian Commonwealth. His commemoration was first kept on his name day (18 January), but from 1827 the date was moved to the day of his death, 1 May. In 1897, on the bank of the Pripyat, where Macarius was killed, a stele was raised (by another source, a chapel) in memory of the event. At Skrygalov there is a church dedicated to the Holy Hieromartyr Macarius of Kiev, and beside it a chapel in honour of the metropolitan.