Thaddeus of Petrozavodsk

Saint Thaddeus of Petrozavodsk (Thaddeus the Blessed) was a fool for Christ, who died in 1726 and is venerated locally. He was canonized on 26 October 2000 as a locally venerated saint, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II, by Archbishop Manuel of Petrozavodsk and Karelia, in the cathedral of Alexander Nevsky at Petrozavodsk. He is commemorated on 3 September. He is regarded as patron of Petrozavodsk and of all students.

According to his life, he lived in the early eighteenth century and came from the peasants of Olonets (by other information, he came to the Olonets works from the lower Volga). In 1706 he settled on the edge of the settlement of the Olonets Petrovsky works, taking on himself the labour of foolishness for Christ. According to legend, he knew the emperor Peter the Great; at the last meeting he foretold the emperor's approaching death. The story says that his words weighed heavily on Peter's heart, who, disturbed, ordered that Thaddeus be properly looked after. It appears that Peter was sceptical of prophecies, for, offended or embarrassed, perhaps frightened, he ordered that the inconvenient old man be put in prison; the order was carried out on the spot with zeal. This was in 1724, and in the following year the emperor died, of an illness he caught while rescuing soldiers from a stranded boat in the Gulf of Finland. According to the life, Peter remembered Thaddeus' prediction before his death, asked whether he was still alive and, learning that the blessed one was in prison, sent to the Petrovsky works a messenger with the order to release the prisoner and to give him a pension until his death.

In Peter I's opinion, Thaddeus had a good influence on the workers of the factory, uprooting drunkenness among them. Thaddeus also defended the poor from the arbitrariness of officials, looked after poor children (a poem by Fyodor Nikolaevich Glinka speaks of this) and foretold the future development of the settlement. He died in 1726. Most scholars today consider Thaddeus the Blessed a real historical person. His grave was at the west entrance of the Holy Spirit cathedral; in 1878 a stone tomb was made over it; in 1893 a stone chapel over the tomb was completed and consecrated, with an octagonal domed roof with a small cupola and cross; in the middle of the chapel stood the tomb of dark green diabase, and in the east an iconostasis of red marble, with the icons of Christ the Saviour, the Mother of God and the blessed Thaddeus. Today a memorial slab survives. On 13 September 2011 the commission on cultural and historical heritage of Petrozavodsk approved the proposal to set up a sign in memory of Thaddeus the Blessed on a green islet near the Musical Theatre. The church of the settlement of Verkhneolonetsky, Olonets district of Karelia, is consecrated in the name of the blessed Thaddeus of Petrozavodsk.