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83-610: Opened in 1823 after the monastery's first cemetery, the Lazarevskoe , had become overcrowded, the cemetery was initially called the "New Lazarevsky". It acquired its name after the building of its cemetery church, consecrated to the icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God . It soon superseded the Lazarevskoe Cemetery and became a popular and prestigious burial ground. The first literary figure, Nikolay Karamzin ,

166-433: A prophet , and occasionally being disruptive and challenging to the point of seeming immoral (though always to make a point). Ivanov argued that, unlike in the past, modern yurodivy are generally aware that they look pathetic in others’ eyes. They strive to preempt this contempt through exaggerated self-humiliation, and following such displays they let it be known both that their behaviors were staged and that their purpose

249-636: A contemporary of Pushkin's. Gnedich's funeral on 6 February 1833 was attended by many prominent literary figures, including Pushkin, Ivan Krylov , Pyotr Vyazemsky , Pyotr Pletnyov , Fyodor Tolstoy and Alexey Olenin . With the exception of Pushkin, all would eventually be buried in the Lavra's cemeteries; Krylov, Vyazemsky, Pletnyov and Olenin in the Tikhvin, and Tolstoy in the Lazarevskoe. In 1844 another contemporary poet of Pushkin's, Yevgeny Baratynsky ,

332-513: A fool and leading an ascetic way of life (slept naked on church-porches, prayed throughout the whole night, received food only from poor people). He was abused and beaten, but finally won respect and became venerated after his death. The Russian Orthodox Church numbers 36 yurodivye among its saints , starting from Procopius of Ustyug , and most prominently Basil Fool for Christ , who gives his name to Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow . One of

415-775: A forthcoming captivity in Egypt ( Isaiah 20:2, 3 ); the prophet Ezekiel lay before a stone, which symbolized beleaguered Jerusalem , and though God instructed him to eat bread baked on human waste, ultimately he asked to use cow dung instead ( Ezekiel 4:9–15 ); Hosea married a harlot to symbolize the infidelity of Israel before God ( Hosea 3 ). By the opinion of certain scholars, these prophets were not counted as fools by their contemporaries, as they just carried out separate actions to attract people's attention and to awake their repentance . According to Christian ideas, "foolishness" included consistent rejection of worldly cares and imitating Christ , who endured mockery and humiliation from

498-407: A herd of swine feeding. There, he quickly cut the foot off of one of the swine and carried it back to the brother, leaving the swine to die. This angered the herdsman, who complained to Saint Francis. Saint Francis confronted Brother Juniper, who joyfully exclaimed, "It is true, sweet father, that I did cut off the swine's foot. I will tell thee the reason. I went out of charity to visit the brother who

581-716: A historic cemetery in the centre of Saint Petersburg , and the oldest surviving cemetery in the city. It is part of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra , and is one of four cemeteries in the complex. Since 1932 it has been part of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture  [ ru ] , which refers to it as the Necropolis of the Eighteenth Century ( Russian : Некрополь XVIII века ). It covers 0.7 hectares . The cemetery came into existence with

664-561: A hundred of the original monuments were preserved. Some were transferred to the neighbouring "Necropolis of the XVIII century", the former Lazarevskoe Cemetery, while others, including those of Aleksandr Gradovsky , Anatoly Koni and Viktor Pashutin , were transferred to the other museum necropolis being established in the Volkov Cemetery . Meanwhile, the remains of prominent artists, sculptors, composers and musicians were reburied in

747-528: A lavish funeral on her death in 1803, and for requiem services in the following years. On his own death in 1809 he was interred next to her in the church. Numerous other members of the Sheremetev family were interred in the vaults over the years, as were those of other important Russian noble houses. Between 1835 and 1836 the church was completely rebuilt by architect L. Ya. Tiblen at the commission of Count D. N. Sheremetev. The roof and floors were replaced,

830-510: A minimalistic lifestyle with very few if any possessions and a strict dedication to prayer and self-renunciation. Some ascetics are known as mendicants and are organised into mendicant orders . The most famous example in the Western church is Francis of Assisi , whose order was known for following the teachings of Christ and walking in his footsteps. Thus, upon joining the order, Franciscans gave away all possessions and focused on preaching in

913-476: A religious purpose—particularly of Christianity. Such individuals have historically been known as both "holy fools" and "blessed fools". The term "fool" connotes what is perceived as feeblemindedness , and " blessed " or "holy" refers to innocence in the eyes of God. The term fools for Christ derives from the writings of Paul the Apostle . Desert Fathers and other saints acted the part of Holy Fools, as have

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996-402: A secular world dominated by vanity and desire. According to Joseph Frank "though the gentlemanly and well-educated prince bears no external resemblance to these eccentric figures, he does possess their traditional gift of spiritual insight, which operates instinctively, below any level of conscious awareness or doctrinal commitment." In Demons , the madwoman Marya Lebyadkina displays many of

1079-505: Is Agustín de Betancourt , originally interred in the Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery with a columnar monument designed by Auguste de Montferrand . Betancourt's remains and monument were transferred to the Lazarevskoe Cemetery in 1979, where the monument has undergone restoration. The remains and funerary monuments of architect Jean-François Thomas de Thomon and mathematician Leonhard Euler had been transferred from

1162-598: Is located close to Alexander Nevsky Square , to the right of the pathway leading from the Gate Church to the River Monastyrka  [ ru ] . This land had previously been occupied with ornamental and vegetable gardens. The first cemetery in the monastery, the Lazarevskoe Cemetery , had been established in 1717, and by the early nineteenth century was becoming overcrowded. In March 1823

1245-536: Is not like them." Part of the Biblical basis for it can be seen in the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:10 , which famously says: And also: In Western Christianity there have been several saints who lived lives that were rather eccentric and seemingly foolish. Among the earliest of them was St. Nicholas of Trani , a young homeless man who died in 1094 AD. He apparently never stopped repeating

1328-462: Is quoted as saying: "We leaders should leave the tradition that we have become crazy for God." In 1979 Unification Church critic Christopher Edwards titled a memoir about his experiences in the six months he spent as a church member: Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life. In 2007, author Frank Schaeffer titled his autobiography Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found

1411-560: Is sick." Brother Juniper likewise explained to the angry herdsman who, seeing the "charity, simplicity, and humility" (Hudleston, 1953) in Brother Juniper's heart, forgave him and delivered the rest of the pig to the brothers. The Holy Fool or yuródivyy (юродивый) is the Russian version of foolishness for Christ, a peculiar form of Eastern Orthodox asceticism . The yurodivy is a Holy Fool, one who acts intentionally foolish in

1494-539: Is too great and too terrible when encountered directly for men of normal sanity to be able to contemplate it comfortably. Only those who cannot care for the consequences run the risk of the direct confrontation of the Holy. There are a number of references to the yurodivy holy fools in 19th century Russian literature. The holy fool Nikolka is a character in Pushkin 's play Boris Godunov and Mussorgsky's opera based on

1577-557: The Beloselsky-Belozersky , Trubetskoy , Volkonsky and Naryshkin ancient noble houses were located here, as were those of some of the prominent merchant dynasties such as the Demidovs and Yakovlevs. Art historian Nikolai Vrangel  [ ru ] wrote "It was as if all those who had once formed a close circle of court society gathered here after death. A whole epoch, a whole world of obsolete ideas, almost all

1660-656: The Gate Church , who had been shot and killed during an early attempt by the Bolsheviks to requisition the monastery on 19 January 1918, was buried under the church's altar. The church was closed in 1931 and between 1935 and 1937 it was converted into a post office , with the destruction of its facades and interiors. With the establishment of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture, the building housed its scientific department, and now houses an exhibition hall as part of

1743-480: The Second World War and the siege of Leningrad , the museum worked to provide protection and shelter for monuments. Only a single gravestone was damaged, that of the actress Varvara Asenkova . The monument, designed by Ivan Sosnytsky  [ ru ] , consisted of a granite canopy over a pedestal with a verse epitaph and bronze bust of the actress by Ivan Vitali and had been transferred along with

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1826-474: The Smolensky , Volkovo , Novodevichy , and Nikolskoe cemeteries . The necropolis was created during an ongoing anti-religious campaign , therefore monuments with religious symbols were often replaced by monuments made by the museum. The cemetery reconstruction project concentrated the representatives of each type of art together, with even monuments that had been in the Tikhvin originally being moved to fit

1909-495: The Soviet period , the cemetery became a place of interest for its elaborate funerary monuments and the graves of historically important figures. In 1932 it was declared the "Necropolis of the eighteenth century" and became part of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture  [ ru ] . Graves deemed less significant were cleared away, while monuments and remains considered more artistically or historically important were moved into

1992-608: The siege of Leningrad , with repair work beginning in 1944. It reopened several years later, and serves as an exhibition hall for funerary monuments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Eighty-two monuments are now located in the Church of St Lazarus, thirty-three of which have been brought from other locations. Many of the early burials were those of the associates of Peter the Great. These included military figures such as Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev and General Adam Veyde , and

2075-510: The yurodivy (or iurodstvo) of Eastern Orthodox asceticism . Fools for Christ often employ shocking and unconventional behavior to challenge accepted norms, deliver prophecies, or to mask their piety. Certain prophets of the Old Testament who exhibited signs of strange behaviour are considered by some scholars to be predecessors of "Fools for Christ". The prophet Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for about three years, predicting

2158-489: The 1937 centenary commemorations of the poet's death. The architectural and planning department of Lensovet , the city administration, was tasked with creating a memorial park project. Plans were drawn up by architects E.N. Sandler and E.K. Reimers, with further input from the city's chief architect L.A. Ilyin . The Funeral Affair Trust was established to run the necropolis museum, including removing abandoned gravestones for sale as building materials. The Funeral Affair Trust

2241-633: The Court Physician Robert Erskine . The cemetery's exclusivity made it a desirable burial site, and many of the leading figures and families of St Petersburg acquired plots. Among them were the academics Mikhail Lomonosov and Stepan Krasheninnikov ; playwrights Denis Fonvizin and Yakov Knyazhnin ; architects Ivan Starov , and Andrey Voronikhin ; statesmen and politicians Alexander Stroganov , Nikolay Mordvinov , Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky and Sergei Witte ; and military officers such as Vasily Chichagov . The family vaults of

2324-824: The Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back . It tells of his upbringing as the son of a well-known evangelical minister and his later conversion to the Greek Orthodox Church . In the same year Stephen Prothero , author and chairman of Boston University 's Department of Religion, wrote in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin : "I am crazy for people who are crazy for God: people nearly as inscrutable to me as divinity, who leave wives and children to become forest-dwelling monks in Thailand , who wander naked across

2407-607: The Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery in 1940 and 1956 respectively. During the Second World War the museum carried out inspections of the city's monuments and carried out some repair and restoration work. Large scale restoration work was carried out after the ending of the Siege of Leningrad , with the museum opening to the public in 1952. The Church of St Lazarus ( Russian : Церковь Праведного Лазаря )

2490-575: The Tikhvin had primarily been the burial ground of statesmen, military leaders, scientists, and composers. There were relatively few graves of writers, who had tended to prefer the Smolensky Cemetery ; or artists, who had traditionally chosen the Nikolskoe or Novodevichy Cemetery . This necessitated the transfer of a large number of burials and monuments, which took place in two main periods, from 1936 to 1941 and from 1948 to 1952. During

2573-493: The actress's remains from the Smolensky Cemetery in 1936. It was destroyed by a direct hit from a bomb in 1943. In 1955 the museum installed a marble replica of the bust made by D.A. Sprishinym. Other monuments were stored in the Lavra's Annunciation Church . Restoration work began immediately after the end of the war, with the necropolis-museum opening in August 1947. The programme of moving and installing monuments resumed after

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2656-425: The areas formerly occupied by monastic gardens, and in the 1870s it was enclosed with a stone wall. The brothers D. M. and N. M. Polezhaev, wealthy merchants, funded the construction of a cemetery church, laid down on 26 September 1869 and built to the design of architect N. P. Grebyonki. The church was consecrated on 2 February 1873 in the name of the icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God , which from about 1876 became

2739-581: The attributes of the holy fool, as do the characters of Sofya Marmeladova in Crime and Punishment and Lizaveta in The Brothers Karamazov . Another fool-for-Christ is Grisha in Tolstoy's Childhood. Boyhood. Youth . Callis and Dewey described Grisha as follows: Grisha's abnormal social conduct, seizures, and rants were common behaviors amongst holy fools. The esteem expressed by adults

2822-409: The audience believes that the individual is sane, moral, and pious. The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that holy fools voluntarily take up the guise of insanity in order to conceal their perfection from the world, and thus avoid praise. Some characteristics that were commonly seen in holy fools were going around half-naked, being homeless , speaking in riddles , being believed to be clairvoyant and

2905-515: The belly of India in search of self-realization, who speak in tongues and take up serpents in Appalachia because the Bible says they can." One of the more recent works in theology is Fools for Christ by Jaroslav Pelikan . Through six essays dealing with various "fools," Pelikan explores the motif of fool-for-Christ in relationship to the problem of understanding the numinous: The Holy

2988-662: The best-known modern examples in the Russian Church is perhaps St Xenia of Saint Petersburg . "Crazy for God" is an expression sometimes used in the United States and other English speaking countries to convey a similar idea to "Foolishness for Christ." It has been especially connected to the Unification Church of the United States . In The Way of God's Will , a collection of sayings popular among church members, Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon

3071-404: The cemetery from churches and burial grounds that were in the process of being demolished. Today the cemetery operates as a museum, displaying the funerary sculpture of a wide range of important artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Burials began in 1717 when Natalya Alexeyevna , the sister of Peter the Great , was interred in the burial vault of the Church of St Lazarus, from which

3154-487: The cemetery took its name. During the early years of its existence it required the Emperor's permission to allow burials in the cemetery, making it the chosen location for the burial plots of St Petersburg's elite. By the end of the eighteenth century burial was extended to the wealthy merchant class, in exchange for the payment of large sums of money. The wealthy and powerful commissioned tombstones and monuments from

3237-404: The cemetery took its name. The location soon became the burial site for other members of Peter's family and court, and became the most prestigious burial ground in the city, requiring Peter's personal permission to be interred there. The remains of Natalya Alexeyevna and other members of the imperial family were reinterred in the monastery's Annunciation Church soon after their original burial, but

3320-534: The cemetery was earmarked for development into a museum necropolis, envisaged primarily as a landscaped park, with strategically placed memorials to important figures of Russian history. With several notable artists having already been buried in the cemetery, it was decided to designate it as the "Necropolis of the Masters of Art". During the 1930s many important Russian composers, painters, sculptors, writers and poets were exhumed from their original resting places across

3403-473: The cemetery, beginning a long association with the Sheremetev family. Other military compatriots of Peter were also interred here, including Adam Veyde and Avtonom Golovin . By the middle of the eighteenth century the Lazarevskoe Cemetery contained about 5,000 burials. The church was rebuilt and expanded between 1787 and 1789, with the addition of a small sacristy at the northern end, and refectory on

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3486-524: The cemetery. Among them were personal friends of Pushkin, including Konstantin Danzas , Anton Delvig , and Fyodor Matyushkin . Some remains came from cemeteries earmarked for demolition, such as the Mitrofanievskoe  [ ru ] , Farforovskoe  [ ru ] , and Vyborg Roman Catholic Cemetery  [ ru ] ; and others from those that were intended to be kept open, such as

3569-478: The church and cemetery complex remained popular sites for the St Petersburg elites, and many noble families established their family plots here. By the early nineteenth century the cemetery was becoming full, and new cemeteries were opened in the monastery complex. The last burials in the Lazarevskoe Cemetery took place in the early twentieth century, and the cemetery was closed to new burials in 1919. During

3652-461: The city, and brought, with or without their monuments, to be reburied in the Tikhvin cemetery. At the same time the monuments of those figures deemed not in keeping with the artistic theme of the cemetery were removed or destroyed. Several more burials of particularly important artists took place during the Soviet period, as the cemetery established a role as a kind of national pantheon . The cemetery

3735-423: The common name of the cemetery. Two icons, one of Saint Dimitry of Rostov , and one of Saint Mary of Egypt , were painted by Pavel Pleshanov for the church. In 1825 the church and cemetery were visited by Emperor Alexander I , prior to his journey to Taganrog . The burial vault of Polezhaev family was in the crypt of the church, and in 1901 the church underwent renovations. In 1918 archpriest Peter Skipetrov of

3818-413: The composer Mikhail Glinka were returned from Berlin and buried in the cemetery, with a grand monument erected two years later to the design of architect I. I. Gornostayev, with sculptures by Nikolay Laveretsky . On 1 February 1881 the author Fyodor Dostoevsky was buried in the cemetery, with a similarly large monument. During the 1880s composers Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin were buried in

3901-827: The court society of Elizabeth, Catherine and Paul were buried in the small space of the Lazarevskoe cemetery". The remains and monuments of Jean-François Thomas de Thomon , mathematician Leonhard Euler and engineer Agustín de Betancourt , all originally interred in the Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery , were transferred to the Lazarevskoe Cemetery in 1940, 1956 and 1979 respectively. Citations References 59°55′23″N 30°23′14″E  /  59.92306°N 30.38722°E  / 59.92306; 30.38722 Holy fool Foolishness for Christ ( Greek : διά Χριστόν σαλότητα ; Church Slavonic : оуродъ, юродъ ) refers to behavior such as giving up all one's worldly possessions upon joining an ascetic order or religious life, or deliberately flouting society's conventions to serve

3984-425: The crowd. The spiritual meaning of "foolishness" from the early ages of Christianity was closely related to that of rejection of common social rules of hypocrisy, brutality and quest for power and gains. By the words of Anthony the Great : "Here comes the time, when people will behave like madmen, and if they see anybody who does not behave like that, they will rebel against him and say: 'You are mad', — because he

4067-490: The early 1920s that the cemetery become a museum displaying the sculpture of funerary monuments, a proposal that the Leningrad city administration, Lensovet agreed to. Work began on studying and recording the details of the memorials, and in 1932 it was declared a museum and part of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture  [ ru ] , but remained generally closed to visitors. The head of its administration from 1932

4150-399: The early Soviet period a number of monuments were stolen or destroyed. The cemetery was officially closed for burials in 1927, though they continued until 1932, and it was decided to turn it into a necropolis museum, displaying historically and artistically significant graves. Alongside this was concept of gathering together the graves of the friends and contemporaries of Alexander Pushkin for

4233-514: The establishment of the city of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century. With the death of Peter's sister, Natalya Alexeyevna , in 1716, Peter instructed that she be buried in the grounds of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery , which was under development at that time. In 1717 Natalya Alexeyevna was interred in the Church of St Lazarus, the first stone building in the monastery complex, and from which

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4316-495: The eyes of men. The term implies behaviour "which is caused neither by mistake nor by feeble-mindedness, but is deliberate, irritating, even provocative." In his book Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond , Ivanov described "holy fool" as a term for a person who "feigns insanity, pretends to be foolish, or who provokes shock or outrage by his deliberate unruliness." He explained that such conduct qualifies as holy foolery only if

4399-743: The following year. A 3 July 1935 resolution from the Presidium of Lensovet set out the vision for the future of the necropolis museums. the Tikhvin cemetery and the Literary Walk [in the Volkovo Cemetery ] ... after the reconstruction will be turned into necropolis parks of a remarkable and revolutionary culture, with the appearance of parks. Freed from ordinary graves, they will not be of a graveyard nature at all, but will actually represent extensive, architecturally decorated green spaces, sometimes decorated with certain monuments standing on

4482-460: The foundations redone and the walls rebuilt to an increased height. By the completion of the work in May 1836 the church had been fundamentally redesigned, only retaining the floorplan of the original. Further repair works in 1845 and 1867 altered the iconostasis and renewed the paintings. Burials continued to take place in the church vaults, with the last being Ekaterina Vasilyevna Dashkova, the widow of

4565-511: The graves above these wonderful people. The short timeframe allowed for completion of the work led to the hasty and unsystematic demolition of a number of monuments, with the bulk of the work only being completed by August 1937, with remedial work continuing for many years afterwards. The reconstruction radically altered the nature and appearance of the Tikhvin cemetery. With the intention being to create an "artists' necropolis", graves of those from other sections of society were removed. Fewer than

4648-414: The intersection of avenues. The decoration of the park-necropolis was to be enhanced by the construction of one large and four small fountains, and the installation of granite benches. The Tikhvin Church was slated for demolition to improve the access direct from Alexander Nevsky Square. The organisers were faced with the problem that despite designating the cemetery to be the artists' necropolis, historically

4731-453: The monastery authorities proposed the creation of a new burial ground opposite the St. Petersburg Theological Consistory. The new cemetery, initially called the "New Lazarevsky" ( Russian : Ново-Лазаревским ), was established in the eastern part of the plot of land, between the pathway to the monastery, and the consistory building, enclosed with a wooden fence. Over time it expanded to the west, into

4814-507: The most prominent Russian sculptors. The cemetery includes funerary monuments by Ivan Martos , Mikhail Kozlovsky , Vasily Demut-Malinovsky , Andrey Voronikhin , Fedot Shubin , Fyodor Tolstoy and other masters. By the nineteenth century the cemetery was becoming overcrowded, and the first of the new cemeteries in the Lavra, the Tikhvin Cemetery , was opened in 1823. Burials in the Lazarevskoe Cemetery became less frequent in

4897-569: The museum. The rate of burials in the Old and New Lazarevskoe cemeteries was about equal during the early years of the latter's existence, though by the 1830s the New Lazarevskoe Cemetery became more popular. Burials initially took place in the eastern part of the cemetery, and in 1825 the holy fool monk Patermufy was buried there. In 1826 the writer Nikolay Karamzin was buried in the cemetery, followed in 1833 by Nikolay Gnedich ,

4980-549: The national pantheon in Paris." The Lazarevskoe and Tikhvin Cemeteries, as well as the Volkovo Cemetery , were designated as the sites for development. Those memorials thought to have low historical or artistic interest were cleared away, while those considered to have higher historical or artistic interest were brought from other cemeteries across the city, quite often without the remains that they commemorated. One such example

5063-465: The new organisational scheme. Composers and musicians were reburied mainly on the "Composer's path", near the northern boundary of the cemetery. Painters and sculptors were placed in the western part, while those who in their lifetimes had been associated with Pushkin were placed close to the eastern section, near the cemetery entrance. Some of the older monuments from the removed graves were retained to serve as decorative ornaments, such as columns placed at

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5146-436: The nineteenth century, and in the twentieth century occurred in only exceptional cases. One of the last people to be interred was Count Sergei Witte in 1915, and in 1919 the cemetery was closed to new burials. During the Soviet period the cemetery was closed and placed under state protection, administered by the society "Old Petersburg" ( Russian : «Старый Петербург» ). The People's Commissariat for Education proposed in

5229-583: The northern part of the grounds, with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky following in 1893. Eventually all the members of the group of composers termed " The Five ", or the "Mighty Handful"; Mussorgsky, Borodin, as well as Mily Balakirev , César Cui and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , were buried in the cemetery. By the beginning of the 20th century the Tikhvin cemetery contained 1,325 monuments of various designs and sizes, including monumental crosses on pedestals, sarcophagi and steles . There were several family plots with chapels and large crypts of granite and marble. During

5312-561: The phrase ' Kyrie Eleison ' and behaved foolishly. Similarly Blessed Peter of Foligno lived in voluntary poverty and was deemed crazy. Other notable lay men who led saintly albeit eccentric lifestyles were Blessed Peter of Trevi , Teobaldo Roggeri , Benedict Joseph Labre , St. Salaun of Brittany Ludovico Morbioli and Casimiro Barello among others. The key characteristics of foolishness for Christ in Western Christianity are sleeping rough (outdoors) and homelessness,

5395-399: The play. In Pushkin's narrative poem The Bronze Horseman , the character of Evgenii is based in the tradition of the holy fools in his confrontation with the animated statue of Peter the Great . The yurodivy appears several times in the novels of Dostoevsky . The Idiot explores the ramifications of placing a holy fool (the compassionate and insightful epileptic Prince Myshkin ) in

5478-645: The streets to the common man. Servant of God, Brother Juniper , an early follower of the Franciscan order, was known for taking the doctrine of the Franciscans to the extreme. Whenever anyone asked for any of his possessions, he freely gave them away, including his clothes. He once even cut off the bells from his altar-cloth and gave them to a poor woman. His fellow Franciscans had to watch him closely, and strictly forbade him from giving away his clothes. While such behaviors were embarrassing to his brothers, he

5561-548: The term was not popularized until the coming of Symeon of Emesa , who is considered to be a patron saint of holy fools. In Greek, the term for Holy Fool is salos . The practice was recognised in the hagiography of fifth-century Byzantium, and it was extensively adopted in Muscovite Russia , probably in the 14th century. The madness of the Holy Fool was ambiguous, and could be real or simulated. He (or she)

5644-474: The time of the transfer of the relics of St Lazarus. On 23 December 1718 court physician Robert Erskine was interred in the crypt, and on 26 April Peter's infant son, Tsarevich Peter Petrovich , was buried there. In 1723, the remains of Peter the Great's relatives were transferred to stone tombs in the Annunciation Church. In 1719 Peter's close associate Count Boris Sheremetev was buried in

5727-475: The walls and ceiling were painted over. Most of the icons were removed, though many of the historical monuments were retained. With the demolition of the Lavra's Dukhovskaya Church in 1937, a number of monuments were transferred to the museum, and over the next few years the remains of several famous historical figures were transferred and interred in the Church of St Lazarus, including; Prince Ioane of Georgia , Viktor Kochubey and Ekaterina Ilyinichna Kutuzova,

5810-441: The war and continued until the mid-1950s. There were also several burials of prominent Soviet citizens, as the cemetery gained the status of an urban pantheon . Those buried here included the scientist Sergey Lebedev in 1934, artist Mikhail Avilov in 1954, and actor Nikolay Cherkasov in 1966. In 1972 the remains of the composer Alexander Glazunov were transferred from Paris. In 1968 Fyodor Dostoevsky 's wife Anna Dostoevskaya

5893-423: The western end. Most of the funding was provided by Ivan Yelagin , a prominent figure of Catherine the Great 's reign, with further funding of 1,600 rubles from Count Nikolai Sheremetev to include the grave of Borish Sheremetev and to bring the church to its present dimensions. Sheremetev, who had scandalised society by marrying Praskovia Zhemchugova , an actress and opera singer of serf origins, arranged for

5976-704: The wife of Mikhail Kutuzov . Other monuments were brought from the Feodorovskaya Lavra Church , the Smolensky Armenian Church and the Catholic Church in Tsarskoye Selo . The remains of Count Ivan Laval  [ ru ] , the father-in-law of Decembrist Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy were reburied in the church, but his monument was never installed. The church was damaged several times during

6059-495: The writer and statesman of the Arzamas Society Dmitry Dashkov , in 1890. The church was closed with the rest of the cemetery in 1923, and for a time served as a warehouse for storing monuments and gravestones brought from other cemeteries that were being demolished. With the establishment of the necropolis museum in 1932, the church interior was heavily remodelled. The iconostasis was dismantled and

6142-423: Was also common. In his autobiography, Tolstoy expressed such esteem in reaction to overhearing Grisha praying: A further example is Kasyan in the ninth sketch from Turgenev's Sketches from a Hunter's Album . The protagonist's coachman describes him as "one of those holy men," who lives by himself in the forest, strictly differentiates between eating bread which he calls "God's gift to man" and "tame creatures" on

6225-472: Was also recognized as a pure example of the Franciscan order and thus esteemed. "The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi", which documents the oral traditions of the Franciscans, told several stories of "Brother Juniper". The most famous of these is the story of how Brother Juniper, when he heard a sick brother request a pig's foot as a meal, took a kitchen knife and ran into the forest, where he saw

6308-413: Was authorised to acquire and transfer important graves and monuments from other cemeteries and churches across the city. Meanwhile, those existing graves in the cemetery that were not considered particularly artistic or historic were to be demolished to create space for those brought from other locations. A list of graves in the cemetery was compiled and work began in 1935, planned for completion on 15 August

6391-631: Was believed to have been divinely inspired, and was therefore able to say truths which others could not, normally in the form of indirect allusions or parables . He had a particular status in regard to the Tsars , as a figure not subject to earthly control or judgement. The first reported fool-for-Christ in Russia was St. Procopius (Prokopiy), who came from the lands of the Holy Roman Empire to Novgorod , then moved to Ustyug , pretending to be

6474-567: Was built in 1717, and is located along the banks of the Monastyrka River  [ ru ] . Peter the Great's sister, Natalya Alexeyevna , had died in 1716, but Peter delayed her burial until his return from a journey abroad. The stone octahedral church, the first stone building of the Monastery, was built behind the Lavra's Annunciation Church , and was probably consecrated on 17 October 1717, shortly after Peter's return, and at

6557-412: Was buried in the cemetery in 1826, followed in 1833 by Nikolay Gnedich , an associate of Alexander Pushkin 's. Several other friends of Pushkin were later buried in the cemetery. Particularly significant interments were those of Mikhail Glinka in 1857, Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1881, Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin in the 1880s, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1893. During the Soviet period

6640-400: Was buried in the cemetery. The cemetery became a popular and prestigious burial ground for those of many areas of society. The wealthy merchant A.I. Kosikovsky was buried under a monumental sarcophagus on a high pedestal surmounted by a canopy on eight fluted columns. Opposite it stood a similarly grand monument to the statesman Pavel Demidov , which has since been lost. In 1857 the remains of

6723-400: Was reburied next to her husband, while theatre director Georgy Tovstonogov was interred in the cemetery in 1989. So far Tovstonogov's has been the last burial to take place in the cemetery. 59°55′22″N 30°23′10″E  /  59.92278°N 30.38611°E  / 59.92278; 30.38611 Lazarevskoe Cemetery Lazarevskoe Cemetery ( Russian : Лазаревское кладбище ) is

6806-510: Was the historian N. V. Uspensky. A group of Soviet writers visited the cemetery in 1934, and with the support of Maxim Gorky , declared it of great cultural and historical significance. From 1935 Lensovet proposed that the Museum of Urban Sculpture collect the most significant pieces of memorial sculpture into the cemetery. During the 1930s the Soviet authorities "sought to establish a formal pantheon of dead Russian cultural heroes modelled after

6889-401: Was to disguise their superiority over their audience. Fools for Christ are often given the title of Blessed ( блаженный ), which does not necessarily mean that the individual is less than a saint, but rather points to the blessings from God that they are believed to have acquired. The Eastern Orthodox Church records Isidora Barankis of Egypt (d. 369) among the first Holy Fools. However,

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