Procopius of Vyatka

Saint Procopius of Vyatka was a righteous man and fool for Christ, born in 1578 near Khlynov (today Kirov) into a peasant family. He died in 1627. The Russian Church venerates him for his gift of foresight and commemorates him on 21 December (3 January by the new calendar).

In the world he was called Procopius Maximovich Plushkov and was born in the village of Koryakinskaya, near Khlynov, to Maxim and Irina Plushkov. In 1590, while he was in the field, he was struck by lightning and lost his mind: he tore his clothes, trampled them and went about naked. His parents took him to the Dormition monastery of Saint Tryphon in Khlynov, where Venerable Tryphon and the brethren healed him.

From 1595 to 1598 he lived in Slobodskoy and helped Father Hilarion at the church of Saint Catherine. In 1598, in his twentieth year, he went to Khlynov and began his foolishness for Christ. He foretold the recovery or death of the sick, warned without words of fires and of tax increases decreed by the authorities in Moscow. Because of this gift people began to venerate him as a saint. He also foresaw the hour of his own death.

The sources do not say the same of his end. The Russian one only mentions that he foretold his death, while the Serbian synaxarion says that he was slain by relatives in 1627. He was buried at the Dormition monastery, north of the cathedral. The faithful hold his relics to be wonderworking, and they are kept in the monastery of Saint Tryphon in Kirov.