Saints Bartholomew and Raphaila of Chyhyryn
This article is dedicated to the lives of two saints bound together by a common destiny, history, and the small town of Chyhyryn in the Cherkasy region.
On February 20, the feast of the translation of the relics of Blessed Bartholomew of Chyhyryn is celebrated. I would like to dedicate this material to recounting the fate of two saints united by destiny and history: Blessed Bartholomew of Chyhyryn (1870–1931) and the Holy Martyr Abbess Raphaila of Chyhyryn (1877–1926).
Blessed Bartholomew of Chyhyryn
Blessed Bartholomew was a fool-for-Christ, known to all of Chyhyryn (a small town not far from Cherkasy). One cannot take upon oneself the feat of foolishness by personal will alone. It requires a certain divine calling, God’s blessing.
It is not correct, as some hagiographies say, that holy fools merely pretended to be insane. Holy fools were not actors playing a role. Nor were they mad. God gave them the grace to live without relying on their own mind. Ordinary people live guided by reason, which directs their every decision. But the fool-for-Christ is led by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25) dwelling in the heart. Thus, their behavior, on the one hand, demonstrates indifference to conventions imposed by human civilization – from values to manners, clothing, and so on. On the other hand, guided by spiritual intuition, they reveal to us a world hidden from ordinary eyes.
Until the age of seventeen, Bartholomew grew up as a normal boy. One Easter, while playing with other children, he tore the sole of his boot. Saddened, he hurried home to repair it before returning to the games. Upset by the accident, he struck the torn sole with his hand – and suddenly, lightning flashed in the house, fire and smoke appeared, and a mighty clap of thunder was heard. His parents, standing nearby, witnessed the whole event.
At that very moment, something was revealed to Bartholomew. He never told anyone exactly what it was. One might say he experienced a new birth.
From then on, he voluntarily renounced home, wore only ragged clothing, walked barefoot and bareheaded in heat and frost alike. He behaved strangely, burdening himself with sacks filled with stones, wrapping himself with rags and junk. He spoke little, often incoherently, sometimes not at all; yet at times his words were clear and calm. He was often seen sitting on the ground, muttering to himself.
The townsfolk naturally thought him insane. He himself avoided being treated as normal. Children mocked him and threw stones, dogs barked and chased him, but Bartholomew seemed glad of it.
But with time, the monks of the Holy Trinity Monastery, who gave shelter to the wanderer, and later the townspeople, began to see he was no madman at all. They witnessed prophetic gifts and foresight in him. Ordinary people coming to the monastery sensed he was a blessed man. Increasingly they came to him for advice and prayers.
Bartholomew’s responses to people varied and were often unexpected. He fled fame, yet his words to those who asked were like the very voice of God, as though he knew God’s will for each soul. The abbess of the monastery also noticed this, began to take him on journeys, and kept him nearby when receiving prominent guests. Many of his prophecies and accounts of miraculous help in prayer have been preserved.
When the Bolsheviks seized power, the monastery was closed. Blessed Bartholomew wandered from village to village, living as before in prayer and ascetic struggle. The authorities persecuted him, arrested him, and shortly before his repose sent him to a psychiatric hospital, from which he returned beaten and weakened. Arrests and tortures followed, hastening his earthly end.
Foreseeing his death, he warned that great famine and war were coming.On October 17, 1931, the Lord meekly received his long-suffering soul.
Holy Martyr Raphaila of Chyhyryn
In August 1926, Bartholomew anxiously knocked on a small house on Dvorianska Street in Chyhyryn, where a group of nuns from the closed Holy Trinity Monastery were sheltering under Abbess Raphaila (Teradska).
Her soul, from childhood, longed for solitude and prayer. Born in 1877 to a devout family, she sought her parents’ blessing as a teenager to enter monastic life, joining Holy Trinity Monastery as a novice. She grew in the convent like a flower in a paradise garden, caring for real flowers which she loved dearly. She became abbess during the hardest times for the monastery.
When she looked out the window that day, she heard the troubled cry of Bartholomew: “Mother Raphaila, flee! In half an hour – death!”
The abbess firmly replied: “God’s will be done. I will not abandon my sisters.”
Soon, a group of anti-religious activists from the local “Bezbozhnik” (“Godless”) organization burst in, led by its chairman. Six drunken men seized the abbess, dragged her outside, tied her to a tree, piled hay around her and set it alight, demanding she remove her cross and surrender the church vessels she had hidden.
The nuns, falling to their knees, prayed before the icon of the Mother of God “The Burning Bush.” Suddenly thunder roared, lightning flashed, and a downpour began, extinguishing the flames.
Enraged, the men bound the abbess, threw her on a cart, and took her to an abandoned slaughterhouse. There, at 49 years old, she suffered a savage martyrdom. They abused her, beat her with rifle butts, tore out her hair, broke her ribs and legs, knocked out her teeth, tore out her lower jaw. They broke her arm, stabbed her with bayonets, and buried her alive.
A novice secretly witnessed the horror. After the torturers left, she uncovered the abbess’s broken body. Mother Raphaila was still barely breathing, and she reposed in her arms. The nuns buried her at the city’s Kazan cemetery.
Veneration of the Saints
Blessed Bartholomew was buried in the village where he had spent his last years. In 2012, his relics were discovered and translated to the restored Holy Trinity Monastery of Chyhyryn. Miracles began immediately: healings of shingles, severe headaches, even deliverance from certain death in a car accident. Witnesses described seeing Bartholomew appear in vision, just as he looked in the only surviving photograph.
At the grave of Martyr Raphaila, too, people began to receive grace-filled help. She mysteriously drew the sick and suffering not only from Cherkasy region but from distant places. The reliquary with her relics exuded fragrance, especially in August, the month of her passion. She even appeared visibly to some, in the form of a nun who offered counsel before suddenly disappearing. Many testimonies of her miraculous aid have been collected at the monastery.
Her icon was also written in a wondrous way. Since no portrait of her survived, the nun-artist Alipiya (Danylova) painted her image without knowing her features, yet felt her hand and thought guided by an unseen force.
Thus, Blessed Bartholomew and the Holy Martyr Raphaila were reunited – their relics resting together in the Holy Trinity Monastery of Chyhyryn, while their souls pray for us at the throne of the Life-Giving Trinity.
Pray to God for us, O holy Bartholomew and Raphaila of Chyhyryn, that through your holy prayers we too may be saved.
