Patricius of Vladimir

Holy Hieromartyr Patricius was a priest and sacristan (keeper of the keys) of the metropolitan Dormition cathedral in Vladimir and died on 3 July 1410 (according to other sources, in 1411). He is honoured by the Russian Church among the holy hieromartyrs. He is commemorated on 23 June (6 July by the new calendar), in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir, and on 3 July (16 July), the day of his martyric death.

The exact date of his birth and his place in Greece are not known. Patricius was Greek by birth. The chronicles call him "a distinguished man of many virtues", and his Life "an enlightened man full of the fear of God". He came to Russia in the retinue of Metropolitan Photius, who made him sacristan of the Dormition cathedral at Vladimir.

On 3 July 1410 (according to other sources, in 1411) the city of Vladimir was attacked unexpectedly. Prince Daniil Borisovich of Nizhny Novgorod, deprived of his domain by Grand Prince Vasily I, took revenge by secretly calling the Tatar prince Talych and sending him, with his boyar Semyon Karamyshev, toward Vladimir. The band drew near the city at noon, when the inhabitants were asleep, and took it.

Learning of the attack, Patricius shut himself in the Dormition cathedral "with other people". He gathered the church vessels, the precious furnishings, the wonderful omophorion given, according to tradition, by the Mother of God to Metropolitan Maximus, and other treasures, lifted them into the upper chambers of the cathedral, removed the ladders, locked the cathedral and prayed before the icon of the Mother of God. Returning from a fruitless pursuit of Metropolitan Photius, who had hidden on the river Klyazma, the Tatars broke down the doors of the church and plundered everything that Patricius had not managed to hide. They tortured the priest, demanding that he give up the hidden treasures and the people. They set him on a red-⁠hot pan, drove spikes under his nails, flayed his skin, pierced his feet, passed a rope through them and dragged him through the city, tied to a horse's tail. Patricius received a martyr's death without revealing where the treasures were.

According to tradition, Patricius's body was taken to the church of the Transfiguration in the settlement of Suten on Lake Sviatoe (on the border of the present Vladimir and Ryazan regions), probably by order of Metropolitan Photius or through the care of Pachomius. In the ancient Russian calendars he is counted a "holy martyr" and placed among the saints of the city of Vladimir. Glorification for the whole Church, within the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir, took place in 1982, on the initiative of Archbishop Serapion (Fadeev) of Vladimir and Suzdal and with the blessing of Patriarch Pimen of Moscow. The treasures hidden by Patricius, according to tradition, have not been found to this day. His torment is depicted in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Andrei Rublev (1966), where his role, under the name of the monk Patrikey, was played by Yuri Nikulin.