Sergius: Name Day and Patron Saint

Bartholomew was born in 1314 to the pious boyars Cyril and Maria of Rostov, who later settled in Radonezh. Sent to school at seven, he could not learn to read and prayed day and night for understanding. One day, looking for lost horses, he met a holy elder under an oak who prayed over him and gave him a piece of prosphora. From that day the boy read with ease. After his parents died he went into the forest with his brother Stephen and built a small church dedicated to the Holy Trinity. There, as the monk Sergius, he founded the monastery that became the Holy Trinity-St Sergius Lavra. Humble, laboring with his own hands, and visited by the Mother of God, he became the spiritual father of Russian monasticism. He reconciled princes and sent St Dmitry Donskoy to Kulikovo with his prayers. He reposed in 1392, and his incorrupt relics still rest at the Lavra.

What the faithful pray for

• success in studies and exams
• understanding and diligence in learning
• children who struggle to learn to read
• learning foreign languages
• humility and spiritual growth
• a monastic vocation
• victory and protection for soldiers (Russian usage)
• peace and reconciliation

Protection

• students in their studies
• the Russian land
• monks and monasteries
• from pride

Miracles

• As a boy, Bartholomew could not learn to read until a mysterious elder met him in a field, prayed, and gave him a piece of prosphora; from then on he understood books with ease. (source)
• He was granted visions of the Most Holy Theotokos, and before the Battle of Kulikovo (1380) he sent St Dmitry Donskoy out with his prayers. (source)
• His relics were found incorrupt on 5/18 July 1422 and rest in the Trinity Cathedral of the Lavra, a place of pilgrimage for the whole Orthodox world. (source)

Read the life of St Sergius of Radonezh