in the North Russian Lives of the Monasteries’ Founders:
The Lives of Cyril Belozersky and Alexander Svirsky
The story about the vision of Cyril Belozersky is the first description of the Virgin’s appearance, indicating the place of the monastery’s foundation, in Russian hagiography. The text of this story is read in the North Russian Lives of the monasteries’ founders: Therapont
Belozersky’s, Alexander Svirsky’s, Ephraim of Perekom’s, Cyril Novoezersky’s, Philip of
Irap’s. From our point of view, there is a process of mastering by hagiographers the episode
of the vision from the Life of Cyril Belozersky as a literary device for constructing the situation of the ascetic’s religious retreat in the listed monuments. In them the story of the vision is
introduced by the authors in the narrative when the title character for some reason cannot
make religious retreat, and this vision helps him to achieve what he wants. There is a similar
plot schemes in these Lives, but the borrowed episode is used differently by their authors.
They use it in accordance with the characteristics of the ascetic’s holiness. From this point of
view, we have already examined the using of the plot fragment from the Life of Cyril
Belozersky in the Life of Therapont Belozersky. The author of Therapont’s Life introduces
Cyril and almost literally replicates description of the saint’s religious retreat from his Life
without making Therapont the visionary. The story about the vision of Cyril Belozersky in the
Life of Alexander Svirsky is used otherwise. In this article the analysis episodes of Cyril and
Alexander’s religious retreat reveals the role of a similar story in the concept of two different
Lives. In the Cyril’s biography, the observed vision marks the stage of the ascetic’s transition
to the foundation of the monastery. This is the main achievement of Cyril. In the Life of Alexander, a similar story marks only one stage of the ascetic’s spiritual path. Alexander, like
Cyril, became the founder of the monastery. But above all, he is known as the visionary of the
Holy Trinity. This vision is the most significant in the concept of his Life. The most important
stories of the visions in the Cyril and Alexander’s Lives had influenced the iconography of
the saints becoming the basis for popular iconographic versions of compositions “The Apparition of the Virgin to Cyril Belozersky” and “The Apparition of the Holy Trinity to Alexander
Svirsky”.
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in the North Russian Lives of the Monasteries’ Founders:
The Lives of Cyril Belozersky and Alexander Svirsky // Сюжетология и сюжетография. 2020. № 1. Pp. 5–22. DOI: 10.25205/2410-7883-2020-1-5-22.