Mina of Polotsk

Saint Mina of Polotsk was bishop of Polotsk, a monk of the Kiev Caves Lavra, ordained bishop in 1105 and died on 20 June 1116, at Polotsk. He is commemorated on 20 June (3 July by the new calendar) and on the day of the Synaxis of the Saints of Belarus. The sources do not give the date of canonization.

His place of birth and his parents are not known. Before his ordination he was for a long time a monk of the Kiev Caves Monastery. On 13 December 1105 he was ordained bishop of Polotsk. The historian Yu. A. Artamonov points out that this date is not marked by any great feast in the church calendar, and the day was a Wednesday, a fast day; this contradicts the Byzantine and old Russian custom of ordaining bishops on days of great feasts, so it is either an exception or an inaccuracy of the chronicler. According to another version, Saint Mina was the fourth abbot in the synodikon of the Zverinets monastery.

At the monastic tonsure of Saint Euphrosyne of Polotsk he was bishop of Polotsk, but the tonsure at the Polotsk convent (probably on 15 February 1116) was not performed by him. The researcher of Euphrosyne's life, A. Melnikov, explains this by the fact that the bishop of that time, Mina, was living his last days and it was impossible to ask his blessing in so delicate a situation. He is mentioned in the Orthodox service of the Fathers of the Caves and in the Kiev Caves Paterikon. He is known as one of the first Russian holy hierarchs and as a Christian enlightener of Rus. The date of his canonization is not known. In 1984 he was entered in the Synaxis of the Saints of Belarus. By decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church of 2 to 3 February 2016 his name was entered in the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church for veneration throughout the Church. In the settlement of Ivenets the lower church was consecrated in honour of Saint Mina. His troparion, in the fourth tone, calls him a rule of faith and an image of meekness, a teacher of self-⁠restraint, who through humility gained what is high and through poverty what is rich.