St. Sergius of Radonezh

The great monastic founder of Russia and, by common consent, the man who held the country together in the century of Mongol overlordship. He went into the forest north of Moscow with his brother, built a wooden church to the Holy Trinity, and a monastery grew around him that he never intended and repeatedly tried to leave. He refused the metropolitan’s throne when it was offered. He blessed Grand Prince Dmitry before Kulikovo in 1380 and sent two monks with him. The spirituality he left is Trinitarian and plain: his disciples founded scores of houses across the north, and St Andrei Rublev painted the Trinity in his memory for the church over his grave. Feast: September 25.