Anna of Kashin

Life events

1. Born — 1280

   Anna was born c. 1280, daughter of Prince Dmitry Borisovich of Rostov and great-granddaughter of Prince Vasily of Rostov; from her earliest years she was educated in the Christian faith under Ignatius, Bishop of Rostov, who died in 1288.

2. Other — 1294

   On 8 November 1294, Anna married Prince Mikhail of Tver in the Preobrazhensky Cathedral of Tver, after Princess Xenia of Tver dispatched ambassadors to Rostov to negotiate the match; the citizens of Kashin marked the occasion by constructing the Saint Michael Church and the triumphal Mikhaylovsky gates.

3. Other — 1318

   In 1318 Anna bade her husband farewell as he was summoned to the Golden Horde, where he was tortured to death on 22 November 1318; she did not learn of his death until July 1319, then arranged for his remains to be transferred from Moscow to Tver and buried in the Preobrazhensky Cathedral.

4. Tonsured

   After the death of Mikhail, Anna took monastic vows at Sofia's Monastery in Tver, adopting the monastic name Evfrosiniya, fulfilling what the source describes as a long-held desire to work for God in silence.

5. Other — 1339

   In 1339 Anna's son Alexander, Prince of Tver, and her grandson Feodor were killed by the Golden Horde — the last of a series of family losses that also included her husband Mikhail (1318), eldest son Dmitry (1325), and daughter Feodora (died in infancy); only her youngest son Vasily survived her.

6. Tonsured — 1365

   In 1365, at the entreaty of her sole surviving son Vasily, Anna moved to Kashin and received the great schema — the highest degree of Eastern Orthodox monastic profession — at the Uspensky Monastery there, resuming the name Anna.

7. Died — 1368

   Anna died on 2 October 1368 and was buried in the Cathedral Church of the Dormition in Kashin.

8. Other — 1908

   On 7 November 1908, Tsar Nicholas II issued a decree restoring church-wide veneration of Anna of Kashin; on 11 April 1909 the Most Holy Synod designated 12 June as her memorial day, and celebrations attended by Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna were held in Kashin — ending a 231-year decanonization imposed by Patriarch Joachim in 1677.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Anna is the only saint in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church formally decanonized (1677) and then recanonized (1908) — a unique precedent driven by her association with Old Believer veneration after her initial glorification in 1650. (certain)
• Old Believers venerated Anna because icons and reportedly her incorrupt hand displayed the two-fingered Sign of the Cross — the pre-Nikonian form condemned after 1656 — and claimed her hand returned to that position whenever altered; Patriarch Joachim responded by removing her relics from public view. (likely)
• According to tradition, Anna appeared during the 1611 Lithuanian siege of Kashin to Gerasim, sexton of the Dormition Cathedral, praying for the city's deliverance; her relics were subsequently reported to work miracles, reviving a cult dormant for two-and-a-half centuries. (legendary)
• Anna outlived her husband Mikhail (executed by the Horde, 1318), eldest son Dmitry (tortured, 1325), son Alexander and grandson Feodor (killed by the Horde, 1339), and infant daughter Feodora; only son Vasily survived her. (likely)
• Anna was tonsured twice under different monastic names: first as Evfrosiniya at Sofia's Monastery in Tver after Mikhail's death, then in 1365 received the great schema at the Uspensky Monastery in Kashin, returning to the name Anna. (likely)