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Saint — Nikon of Radonezh

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St. Nikon of Radonezh
c. 1352 AD, Yuriev-Polsky, Grand Duchy of Moscow — November 17, 1426 AD, Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Grand Duchy of Moscow
Russian abbot; successor of St. Sergius of Radonezh at Holy Trinity Lavra
Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Sergiyev Posad, Russia — the mother-monastery of the Sergian tradition; UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 1993), Russia
Feast
November 17
Canonized
Canonized 1547 by the Council of Moscow under Metropolitan Macarius
Life

Nikon was born around 1352 at Yuriev-Polsky. He entered the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra under the personal spiritual direction of St. Sergius of Radonezh (see his existing entry).

Upon St. Sergius's death on September 25, 1392, Nikon was elected second abbot of the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra — taking up the governance of the mother-monastery of the Sergian tradition.

Nikon's thirty-four-year abbacy (1392–1426) was devoted to the institutional consolidation of the Sergian tradition and the rebuilding of the Lavra after the catastrophic 1408 Tatar sack of the monastery by the Tatar Khan Edigu.

Nikon commissioned the rebuilding of the Trinity Cathedral (1422–1423) — the famous stone cathedral that would house the Trinity Icon of St. Andrei Rublev (see the existing entry for Andrei Rublev). Rublev's famous Trinity Icon was painted around 1425–1427 for the new Trinity Cathedral under Nikon's commission — the Nikon-Rublev collaboration producing the most famous single icon of the Russian Catholic-Orthodox tradition.

Nikon died at the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra on November 17, 1426.

Miracles & Phenomena

  • The Nikon-Rublev commission of the Trinity Icon (c. 1425–1427)

    St. Nikon of Radonezh's commission of St. Andrei Rublev to paint the Trinity Icon for the newly-rebuilt Trinity Cathedral at the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra around 1425–1427 — producing the most famous single icon of the Russian Catholic-Orthodox tradition — establishes the Nikon-Rublev collaboration as the classic example of Russian monastic-artistic patronage. The Trinity Icon (now at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow) is one of the principal monuments of Russian Catholic-Orthodox sacred art.

Relics
  • Body
    Relics of St. Nikon of Radonezh
    Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Sergiyev Posad, Russia — the mother-monastery of the Sergian tradition; UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993

    His relics rest at the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra — beside those of his spiritual master St. Sergius of Radonezh — in continuous Russian Catholic-Orthodox monastic use.

Iconography
  • Nikon commissioning the Trinity Icon

    The late-14th-century Russian abbot in Russian monastic schema-habit at the new Trinity Cathedral of the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra around 1425 commissioning St. Andrei Rublev to paint the Trinity Icon — the iconography of Catholic-Orthodox Russian monastic-artistic patronage tradition.

Patronages
The Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian Catholic-Orthodox traditionCatholic Sergian tradition (immediate successor of St. Sergius of Radonezh)
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