ON ST. JOHN THE GREAT-MARTYR AT BIALOGRAD IN BESSARABIA.
ABOUT THE 13th CENTURY.
A Collection, from Slavo-Russian monuments.
John the Great-Martyr at Bialograd in Bessarabia (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
The outermost part of lower Dacia toward the Euxine Sea, intercepted by the rivers Tyras (commonly called the Dniester) and the Ister or Danube, today is the seat of the Budziak Tartars, tributary to the Turks, Bessarabia; whose chief town, situated at the very mouth of the Tyras, Bialograd, that is White Castle, is called by the Muscovites Belogond, by the Poles Bialogrod, by the Slavs Belgrado, by the Turks Ac-Girmen, Moncastro by the Wallachians, Asprocastron by the Greeks, Michael Antoine Baudrand asserts in his Geography; and teaches that under so many names lies the same notion of White Castle (Albicastrum). This quite famous trading-center, and whence the whole little region itself is often called Bialogrod Tartary, in the year 1484, as Matthias de Miechów testifies in the Polish Chronicles, book 4, chapter 73, "Bayezid the Emperor of the Turks, with the greatest power, in the time of spring having entered Bessarabia, by besieging stormed." occupied by the Turks in the year 1484: When the Tartars occupied the same Province, probably once subject to the Poles or the Moldavians, I should prefer to know; because the Ruthenian Menology and Synaxary, whence we receive the notice of the aforetitled Martyr, I think are more ancient than the aforesaid Turkish invasion.
[2] Those certainly are more ancient than the Tables of figured Ephemerides, which I published before the first Volume of May; 35 years before which time whose age, not then yet observed by me, I detected by this reasoning. At the end of the first month, that is September, there is represented last of all St. Gregory, the Apostle of Greater Armenia and first Patriarch; but above the head, not only is the name written, Α. ΓΡΙΓΟΡΙΗ, as in our copy; but according to the original wooden figures, there ought to be added, ΙΝΔ. ΒΙ, that is, the note of the 12th Indiction: that the tables were first formed by which, although perhaps often renewed, I began wholly to persuade myself, the figured Ephemerides of the Muscovites being made, after at the feet of the same Saint, in the same prototype, I found noted the letters Θ.Μ, which correspond to the Latin number 49: for I could not doubt, but that here was had the year of the then-current century, corresponding to such an Indiction. I sought therefore in the chronotactic table of the Cangian Glossary, made for this, some year 49, concurring with the 12th Indiction, first among the Greeks, whose Era counts eight years fewer than our common one; but I found none: but I found, from the time of converted Muscovy, in our common era, after 1110 and after 1400. Hence confirmed in what I had heard, that the Muscovites, in counting years, proceed in the Latin manner; I did not long hesitate, which of the two years I should choose; since in those Tables I found some probably later than the 12th century; and our Hardouin, having more accurately scrutinized my Tables, writes that it is certainly ascertained by him, from arguments not yet to be published, that they were made in the 15th century. Meanwhile even thus it is consequent that those Tables are 35 years prior to the Turkish irruption into Bessarabia.
[3] they have John; These things being thus set forth, more curiously I compared the figures of our June with the originals; and I found that the Saints John, of whom here, and Martian the Egyptian Martyr on day 6, were clothed not altogether according to the faith of the Muscovite prototype, but instead of a long and longer garment, with which there they are expressed in almost the same scheme as St. Theodore; clothed in a military cloak, which as it ought to be corrected in Martian, so it ought similarly to be corrected also in John. Yet that inference is not firm; since SS. Alexander on day 9, and St. Leontius on day 18 (whom it is certainly established were soldiers) are also expressed in togas in the prototype, rightly corrected by us about these. Yet, since both this and that clothing is of those Saints, whom anciently venerated among the Greeks the same Tables represent; it remains hitherto, that as I said in the Notes to the Ephemerides, the form of the Garment does not present a native, that is Ruthenian, Saint; such as the clothing of SS. Anthony, John, and Eustathius the Martyrs manifestly presents, at Vilnius in Lithuania in the 14th century. But that conjecture about the foreignness of John, probable so far, is rendered very doubtful to me, now that a certain chief celebration of him on this day among the Muscovites is more distinctly known, compared with the ignorance of the same among the Greeks. For not only in the figured Ephemeride of the Muscovites, of which hitherto, is St. John, unknown to these, placed together with St. Justin, most celebrated to the Greeks: but in the Menology of Sparwenfeld it is thus read, after the memory of the twofold St. Justin received from the Greeks. "Likewise of the holy Great-Martyr John the New, who suffered at Bielogorod."
[4] but with the title of Great-Martyr, Saints and holy women, Great-Martyrs, that is Great Martyrs, I find called by the Muscovites among the men indeed on 15 September Nicetas, on the 20th Eustace, on 20 October Artemius, on the 26th Demetrius; on 25 November Clement the Pope, on 8 and 17 February, both Theodore the Duke and the Tyro; on 23 March, George; but among the Virgins, Marina, Euphemia, Catherine, Barbara, Anastasia: and the Younger. all of whom to call by that magnificent title the Ruthenians learned from the Greeks. But these, since they call no John thus; nay have none of so great note, that in respect of him this one of whom we treat should be called New or Younger; first indeed I judge that he is so called in respect of St. John the Baptist; just as in respect of St. Stephen the Proto-Martyr, the Younger is called he who under the iconoclasts suffered at Constantinople; Mary the Niece of Abraham the Penitent, in respect of the Egyptian one; Bacchus who suffered in the 10th century in Palestine under the Saracens, in respect of him who with Sergius was crowned under Maximian. I think then, that John was, not only by Martyrdom and cult, but also by birth, He seems to have been of Bialograd, or at least by sojourn, of Bialograd; since all Bessarabia still, and whatever of regions within the Borysthenes and the Danube adjoins the Euxine Sea, was contained under the name and rule of the Russians, already Christians: but that in the 12th or 13th century it happened, that the Lithuanians still gentiles, or even the Crimean Tartars (for both were almost continual enemies of the Russians from that time), an incursion being made occupied Bialograd; and to pertain to the 12th century. and there finding John tortured him to death, much before that region, taken from the Russians, fell into the possession of the Tartars. For the title of Great-Martyr could not have been acquired by him except over a longer time, through many miracles, and the celebrated veneration of his body.
[5] The Pieczary convent near Kiev, Let it be permitted moreover, on the occasion of this Great-Martyr John, to weave in here some things from the French account of Guillaume le Vasseur, Lord of Beauplan, in volume 2 of the Blaeu Atlas, book 5, rendered into Latin. There is described the village of Pieczary, situated half a mile below Kiev, with a cloister in which the Archimandrite of all Russia has his ordinary, but the Metropolitan his honorary seat. "There," he says, "beneath the mountain near the cloister are to be found very many caverns, full of corpses, buried more than a thousand and five hundred years, yet not dissolved": then he adds these things: "It is said generally that these caverns were made by the early Christians, withdrawing themselves from gentile violence, and about to serve the true God in quiet (nor will this seem unlike the truth to one considering that the Roman Empire, extended to the Borysthenes, even thither felt the ferocity of the persecutors against the Christians), and inhabited by hermits; with the incorrupt body of some St. John, just as on a similar occasion the deserts of Egypt and the furthest Thebaid were inhabited by them. There," says the Author, "is to be seen the body of some holy John whole, visible to the loins, for the lower part is buried in the earth so that it cannot be seen. The Monks of this place related, that the said St. John, foreseeing the time of his death, dug with his own hands a pit, fit for burying his little body; not indeed lengthwise in the customary manner, but toward the deep; and when he had said the last farewell to the Brothers standing by, let himself down into it: but by God's will it was brought about, that not the whole body, although the pit was deep enough, was immersed in the earth; but that at least half should stand out, as for a prerogative of sanctity. perhaps to be venerated on 9 November." Of his age and life, it would be worthwhile to be taught more certain things; and whether perhaps he is that one, whose memory Georgius David, on 9 November, found in the Synaxary of that nation, in these words: "and of our Venerable Father John Kolovus."