Vladimir of Vladimir

Holy Right-⁠Believing Prince Vladimir of Vladimir was the son of Grand Prince George (Yuri) Vsevolodovich, and died as a martyr before the Golden Gate of Vladimir on 2 February 1238, at the Tatar invasion.

He was born about 1215 at Vladimir, in the family of Grand Prince George (Yuri) Vsevolodovich. His mother was the holy right-⁠believing martyr Agatha of Vladimir, and his grandfather was Vsevolod III Big Nest. After his father's return to the throne of Vladimir in February 1218, Vladimir took part in great church ceremonies, among them the enthronement of Saint Mitrophan, bishop of Vladimir, in 1227, and the transfer of the relics of the holy martyr Abraham of Bulgaria to the Dormition monastery of Vladimir, in 1230. In 1236 his father married him and his brother Mstislav; his wife was the holy martyr Christina (1219-1238).

In the middle of January 1238, together with the voivode Philip Nyanka, he defended Moscow against the armies of Batu, but was taken prisoner. On 2 February the Tatars brought him to the Golden Gate of Vladimir, sad of face yet unafraid. After the inhabitants refused to surrender the city, he received a martyr's death at their hands, not far from the gate. After the invaders left, the survivors found his body and buried it in the Dormition cathedral beside his brothers Mstislav and Vsevolod, killed in the defense of the city. On the left jamb of the arch of the Golden Gate an inscription was written, probably in memory of the place of his death, "Yurievich", which N. N. Voronin dated to 2 February 1238.

In the second half of the seventeenth century his relics, those of Mstislav and Vsevolod and those of Prince Theodore-⁠Yaroslav lay in the side chapel of the Great Martyr George. At the restoration of the cathedral in 1882 the graves were examined. At the beginning of the twentieth century the shrine with his relics stood in a side altar. His name was entered in the synodikon of the metropolis and was remembered not only at Vladimir but at Moscow; in the synodikon of the Dormition cathedral of the Kremlin, "eternal memory" was ordered to be sung for Prince Vasilko Konstantinovich and Prince Vladimir Yurievich, slain by Batu. A charter of Tsar Ivan the Terrible ordered a yearly memorial service for Grand Prince George and his sons Vladimir, Vsevolod and Mstislav, on 7 February. His canonization was confirmed by the inclusion of his name in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir in 1982. The saint's feast is set for 4 February and for 23 June, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir; the page does not show the style in which the first of the dates is given.