Repose of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (1925)

Day of presentation of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to St. Tikhon, from year to year in the church calendar is celebrated on April 7. The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is always celebrated on this same day. The future Saint Tikhon was born in 1865; Vasily Bellavin was close to the church from childhood. He received his education at the Pskov Seminary, then at the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg. Already in 1888, Vasily began the path of teaching dogmatics at the seminary of the city of Pskov. Soon, in 1891, Vasily Bellavin took ecclesiastical vows with the name Tikhon, and began to be called in honor of Tikhon of Zadonsk. 1905 brought him the rank of archbishop, and 2 years later he began to head the Yaroslavl See. In 1913 he was transferred to the Lithuanian diocese and was dismissed during the war. Already in 1917 he was elected to the diocesan see of Moscow, then he was elevated to the patriarchal throne, which was restored. In 1918 he was awarded the rank of metropolitan, and was also a voice of the will of the church people. The patriarch described everything that happened in the country in 1918 as “The Wrath of God!” When famine struck Russia in 1922, the Metropolitan called on churches to donate jewelry to the needs of the hungry. After the new authorities issued a corresponding decree on the confiscation of every single church property in favor of the state, the Metropolitan spoke out against such blasphemy, arguing his position by saying that church property cannot be spent on worldly needs. During the civil war, the stratification of church concepts led to the fact that the metropolitan was taken into custody and spent 13 months in prison. As a result of the schism in the church, a crisis arose; the metropolitan advocated that the church is an apolitical segment and should not belong to any government, and should be United and Catholic throughout all of Russia. Patriarch Tikhon in 1924 spoke in his Message about the lawlessness that occurs in the church. On April 5, 1925, Patriarch Tikhon held his last liturgy in his life in the Church of the Great Ascension, and on April 7 he reposed in the Lord. And only in 1989, the late patriarch was canonized by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church.