Mikula of Pskov: A Failed Saint? Cult Management in Sixteenth-Century Muscovy
Mikula of Pskov: A Failed Saint? Cult Management in Sixteenth-Century Muscovy

Summary/Abstract: Nikolay – or, in the local dialect, Mikula – of Pskov stands out among holy fools (yurodivyye) venerated in sixteenth-century Muscovy. Unlike Mikhail of Klopsko, Isidor of Rostov, Maksim of Moscow, Prokopiy of Ustyug, Nikolay of Novgorod, Ioann of Ustyug, or Vasiliy of Moscow, Mikula is neither celebrated in a vita (zhitiye), collection of miracles, or liturgical composition (sluzhba), nor can his memory day (den’ pamyati) be found in contemporary liturgical calendars (mesyatseslovy, svyattsy). Nevertheless, historians pointed out that Mikula’s encounter with Ivan IV is well documented in the accounts of foreign oprichniki and travellers, as well as in later chronicles, all agreeing on a basic storyline: early in 1570, as Ivan’s army approached Pskov to punish its inhabitants for reported treason, Mikula, who was locally revered, called out the tsar, frightened him and made him run away, thereby avoiding a massacre. Buried in the Trinity cathedral and mentioned as a patron saint of the city in texts describing the 1581 siege of Pskov by the Polish-Lithuanian king Stephen Báthory, Mikula was not officially recognised as a saint by the Church. This article suggests that his direct opposition to central authority, unusual in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century texts about yurodivyye, and the very popularity of the story about his encounter with Ivan IV prevented him from becoming an official saint in a relatively recently conquered region. That Mikula should have failed to become the object of a thriving regional cult highlights important aspects in the dynamic processes of saint-making and -maintaining in sixteenth-century Muscovy.

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