Sergius of Kapina

Venerable Sergius of Kapina, also called Sergius of Kapinovo, is a Bulgarian saint venerated in local tradition and in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. No written life of him survives; what we know comes from the living memory of the people and the Church.

According to tradition, he is counted among the founders of the monastery of Saint Nicholas at Kapinovo, near Veliko Tarnovo, and of cave monasticism in the Elena region, which perhaps came in the 11th-12th centuries from the rock churches along the Rusenski Lom valley. Metropolitan Stephen of Tarnovo said in 1973 that the monastery had given the Church two saints: Venerable Sergius and Saint Sophronius of Vratsa. Patriarch Maxim recalled in 1972 the tradition of him as a shining ascetic.

The accounts say he was buried in the monastery, and that his wonderworking relics were later moved to the churchyard of the village of Kapinovo and buried there out of fear of brigands. A Turk who mocked the relics went mad and was healed beside the shrine. The saint's grave has not been found. He is commemorated on 30 January according to the old Bulgarian menologia (old style), and he appears in the calendar of Slaveykov of 1876. He should not be confused with the abbot Sergius of Plakovo.