Day of Remembrance of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga (24/07)

Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duchess Olga, in her holy baptism Helen, came from the family of Gostomysl, on whose advice the Varangians were called to reign in Novgorod, was born in the Pskov land, in the village of Vybuty, into a pagan family from the dynasty of Izborsk princes.

In 903, she became the wife of Grand Duke Igor of Kyiv. After his murder in 945 by the rebel Drevlyans, the widow, who did not want to get married, assumed the burden of public service under her three-year-old son Svyatoslav. The Grand Duchess went down in history as the great creator of state life and culture of Kievan Rus.

In 954, Princess Olga went to Constantinople for the purpose of religious pilgrimage and diplomatic mission, where she was received with honor by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. She was struck by the greatness of Christian churches and the shrines collected in them.

The sacrament of baptism was performed on her by Patriarch Theophylact of Constantinople, and the emperor himself became the receiver. The name of the Russian princess was named in honor of the Holy Queen Helena, who received the Cross of the Lord. The Patriarch blessed the newly baptized princess with a cross carved from a single piece of the Life-Giving Tree of the Lord with the inscription: «Renew the Russian land with the Holy Cross, and Olga, the blessed princess», accepted him.

Upon returning from Byzantium, Olga zealously brought the Christian gospel to the pagans and began to erect the first Christian churches: in the name of St. Nicholas, above the grave of the first Christian prince of Kiev Askold and Hagia Sophia in Kiev above the grave of Prince Dir, the Church of the Annunciation in Vitebsk, a temple in the name of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity in Pskov, the place for which, according to the chronicler, she was pointed out from above «Ray of the Trisial Deity» — on the banks of the Great River she saw three light rays « coming from the sky.

Saint Princess Olga reposed in 969, bequeathing to openly perform her burial in a Christian manner. Her incorruptible relics rested in the tithe church in Kyiv.

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