Vasily Kalika

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Alleged depiction of Vasily Kalika in the bottom right, Novgorod service menaion

Vasily Kalika (

canonized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church
.

Background

His baptismal name was originally Grigory and he had been a priest of the

Church Slavonic: Калѣка), a word meaning "lame" or "cripple". Thus, he is sometimes referred to as "Vasily the Lame" in some hagiographic literature,[4]
although the vast majority of scholars consider his surname to be Kalika; if he was lame, there is no other indication of it in the sources.

Archiepiscopate

Vasily at the Vasilyevsky Gates, c. 1336

Vasily was elected by the

Metropolitan Feognost, who lived in Volhynia for several years.[6] According to a Greek-language register, Vasily was then canonically-elected from among three candidates by a council of bishops there in Volynia.[7]

Very soon after his consecration, Vasily built a stone wall along the northeast side of the

Cathedral of Holy Wisdom redoing the roof and setting up an iron fence around the cathedral, as well as commissioning a number of icons inside the cathedral and hanging the Vasilyevsky Gates in the cathedral in 1335.[8]

Vasily showed himself over the years to be both an astute political player and a fearless and tireless religious leader. In 1339, he sent his nephew as party to a Novgorodian embassy to sign a peace with Sweden, in which he sought to protect the Orthodox Karelians from being killed if they crossed over to Novgorod.[9] In 1342, when Ontsifor Lukinich caused a riot in the city, Vasily and his vicar, Boris, brought peace between the warring parties. In 1348, when King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden demanded that the Novgorodians debate his theologians over the true faith, Vasily, in consultation with the posadnik, told Magnus to send his theologians to Constantinople, since that is where the Russians had acquired their understanding of Christianity.

That being said, several modern scholars have accused Vasily of not having done enough to fight the Strigolniki heresy that spread through Novgorod and Pskov in the fourteenth and into the fifteenth century.[10] His letter to Bishop Feodor of Tver' has been interpreted as dualist (that is, similar to the Strigolniki) in nature.[11] However, the building projects that he undertook and his vigorous political activity, fully utilizing the church's wealth and property as it were, would have violated the beliefs against clerical or ecclesiastical ownership of land that the Strigolniki held.

In 1352, he was sent by the Novgorodian government to rebuild the fortress of

feast day is July 3 [O.S. July 16].[14]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-520-34759-5
    .
  2. ^ Michael C. Paul, "Episcopal Election in Novgorod Russia 1156-1478", Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 72, No. 2(June, 2003), 265.
  3. ^ The letter is available online at http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=4972. See also, Michael C. Paul, "Secular Power and the Archbishops of Novgorod Before the Muscovite Conquest" Kritika: Explorations in Russia and Eurasian History 8, No. 2 (Spring 2007), 251.
  4. ^ See for example, the list of Novgorodian saints online at http://www.orthodox.cn/divenbog/FEB/10-FEB.DOC
  5. ^ Paul, "Episcopal Election in Novgorod Russia", 265.
  6. ^ Paul, "Episcopal Election in Novgorod Russia", 268, 269-270.
  7. ^ Paul, "Episcopal Election in Novgorod Russia", 270.
  8. ^ Makarii (Veretennikov, Petr Ivanovich; Archimandrite), “Vasil’evskie Vrata.” In Makarievskaia Chteniia. Russkaia Kul’tura XVI veka – epoka Mitropolita Makariia. Materialy X Rossiiskoi nauchnoi konferentsii posviashchenoi Pamiati Sviatitelia Makariia. Vypusk 10. (Mozhaisk: Terra, 2003): 111-119.
  9. ^ Paul, "Secular Power", 253.
  10. ^ A. S. Khoroshev, Tserkov v sotsialno-politicheskoi sisteme novgoroskoi feodal'noi respubliki (Moscow: Moscow State University, 1987), 67-8; N. A. (Nataliia Aleksandrovna)Kazakova, and Ia. S. (Iakov Solomonovich) Lur’e, Antifeodal'nye ereticheskie dvizheniia na Rusi XIV-nachala XVI veka (Moscow: AN SSSR, 1955), 33-38; B. A. Rybakov, Strigolniki, 3.
  11. ^ Kazakova and Lur'e, Antifeodal'nye ereticheskie dvizheniia, 37.
  12. ^ Paul, "Secular Power", 237, 249.
  13. ^ A. V. Mikhailov, "Poslednii put' Vasiliia Kaliki", Novgorod i Novgorodskaia Zemlia 11 (1997)
  14. ^ For more on Vasilii, see Michael C. Paul, "Archbishop Vasilii Kalika of Novgorod, the Fortress at Orekhov, and the Defense of Orthodoxy," in Alan V. Murray, ed. The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier (Farnham UK: Ashgate, 2009) 253-71.
Preceded by
Moses
Archbishop of Novgorod

1330–1352 		Succeeded by
Moses (second term)
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