Vasilko of Rostov

The right-⁠believing Prince Vasilko Konstantinovich of Rostov (1208 or 1209 to 1238) was an appanage prince of Rostov, eldest son of Grand Prince Konstantin Vsevolodovich of Vladimir and grandson of Vsevolod the Big Nest. He died in Mongol captivity, on 4 March 1238, after the defeat of the Russian armies on the river Sit, because he refused to swear allegiance to the khan. The Russian Church honours him as a martyr. His commemoration is on 4 March and on 23 May, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl.

Childhood and reign

Vasilko was born at Rostov on 7 December 1209 (the Serbian source gives 1208). In 1216, after the victory at Lipitsa over his younger brothers and settling at Vladimir, Konstantin left his seven-⁠year-⁠old son at Rostov in the care of Bishop Pachomius, known for his learning. In 1217 Konstantin moved the defeated Yury from Gorodets to Suzdal and made peace with him, so that Konstantin's children could inherit his vast domains (Rostov, Yaroslavl, Uglich, Beloozero, Ustyug) and pass them to their descendants, without claiming the capital, which Konstantin gave at his death (1218) to Yury. According to the Tver Chronicle, part of the Rostov nobility went after Konstantin's death to serve his father-⁠in-⁠law at Kyiv, Mstislav Romanovich, fearing Yury's revenge, and took part in the battle of the Kalka (1223).

In 1220 Yury organized a campaign against the Volga Bulgars, in answer to their plundering of Ustyug in 1217. Vasilko sent regiments that went down the Kama and joined, in Volga Bulgaria, the main forces under Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich. In the following years Vasilko took personal part in the Vladimir campaigns. In winter 1221, with Yury against the Bulgars, peace being made at Gorodets. In 1223, against the Mongols: the army reached Chernigov but, learning of the defeat of the Russians on the Kalka, turned back. In 1224, against the Novgorodians: Torzhok was taken and peace made. In 1226, with Yury and his brother Vsevolod, to help Mikhail Vsevolodovich against Oleg of Kursk, Mikhail becoming prince at Chernigov. In 1228, with the Vladimir voivode Yeremey Glebovich, against the Mordvins, a campaign interrupted by rains. In winter 1229, with Yury, Yaroslav, his brother Vsevolod and Yury of Murom, again against the Mordvins. The campaign was in general successful, but there was a partial defeat of the retainers of Yaroslav and the Konstantinovichi, who had gone far from the main force. In 1231, with Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, against Mikhail of Chernigov, Mikhail giving up his claims to Novgorod, where Yaroslav was finally established. In 1229 there was an incident in which Yaroslav, who was fighting Mikhail for the rule of Novgorod, and the Konstantinovichi suspected Yury (husband of Mikhail's sister) of an alliance with him, but at the assembly of Suzdal that same year all bowed to Yury, having him as father and lord.

Prince Vasilko completed at Rostov the Dormition cathedral, the building of which his father had begun. In 1230 he was present at its consecration and then asked his uncle Yury and Bishop Mitrofan of Vladimir to name as bishop of Rostov Archimandrite Cyril, abbot of the Nativity of the Mother of God monastery. He received consent and the next year sent him to Kyiv to be ordained bishop.

Death and veneration

At the start of 1238, as the Tatars moved toward Vladimir, Prince Vasilko went with Yury Vsevolodovich beyond the Volga. On 4 March, after the battle on the river Sit between the Mongol-⁠Tatars and the Russians, Vasilko, captured, refused to swear to the khan and was killed in the Sherensky forest: "tormenting him long, they gave him to death, they cast him in the Sherensky forest". After a time the body was found, according to tradition, by a woman, who told of her find to the priest's son Adrian, and he hid the body. Then it was taken to Rostov and buried in the cathedral church of the Dormition. Describing the burial, the chronicler says: many of the Orthodox people wept, seeing depart the one who was father and nourisher of orphans, great comfort for the sorrowful and a light-⁠bearing star set for those in darkness. God had opened to him the eyes of the heart for the whole church order, for all the people of the Church, for the poor and the sad, as a beloved father. With his martyr's blood he washed away his sins, together with his brothers.

According to the Nikon Chronicle, Vasilko was much loved by the people of Rostov, especially by his retinue, and was wise and shrewd, "fair of face, bright of eye and fearsome in look, brave beyond measure, but light of heart", and whoever had served him, eaten his bread and drunk from his cup could out of love for him no longer serve another prince. The Russian Church numbered him among the saints as a martyr. The canonization is placed in the second half of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, but its time is not known. The poet Dmitry Kedrin dedicated to him in 1942 the poem "Prince Vasilko of Rostov".

Family

In 1228 he married the Chernigov princess Maria Mikhailovna. The wedding took place at Chernigov, in the church of the Annunciation, on 10 January 1228, and on 12 February he arrived with his wife at Rostov. He had sons Boris and Gleb, who after their father's death divided the principality of Rostov between them: the first took Rostov itself, the second Beloozero. Vasilko's wife, Princess Maria Mikhailovna, founded in memory of her husband, a kilometre from Rostov, the Spassky convent of the Princess "on the Sands", in which she was buried in 1271, and in 1278 also her son Gleb.