A recent article about Olga of Kiev referred to her as “one saint you do not want to mess with.” She was one of the most vicious and vengeful rulers in the history of Kievan Rus’ – the principality that would eventually give birth to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, stretching at its height from the Baltic Sea in the North to the Black Sea in the south. Olga (Helga) and her family were of Viking ancestry. She was born around 879 in Pskov, Russia and was married to Prince Igor I of Kiev.
The relationship between Kievan Rus’ and the neighboring Drevlians was complex. They fought together against the Byzantines. But, during peace time, the Drevlians paid protection money to the Rus’. They stopped doing this in 912, when the previous prince of Kiev died. In 947, Igor journeyed to the Drevlian capital, Iskorosten, to try to restore the tribute. In reaction, the Drevlians brutally murdered him by literally tearing him to pieces. Since their son Svyatoslav was only 3 years old, Olga became regent. When a delegation of Drevlian nobles came to her in an attempt to persuade her to marry their prince Malak, she had them all buried alive. Then she sent word back that she might marry him if the chief officials of the Drevlian court came to accompany her as an honor guard. She had them all burned alive in a bath house. Then she led an army to their capital and killed 5000 more, after which she burned down the city on the rest of them, in an attempt to exterminate everyone else. Otherwise, she was a good ruler.
She governed for 20 years after Igor’s death. In 958 at the age of 75, she journeyed to Constantinople to meet with the Emperor Constantine VII. There she converted to Christianity and was baptized “Helena” in Hagia Sophia Cathedral. While her son never converted to Christianity, HIS son, St. Vladimir the Great, did. Olga died in Kiev on July 11, 969 and was eventually buried in the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin – called the “Tithe Church” because the tithe of the prince’s income went to its maintenance. Built by Vladimir between 689 and 696, it was the first and oldest stone building in Russia. It was an enormous edifice, built in the Byzantine style in the shape of a Greek cross, surrounded by galleries on all sides, with 25 cupolas.
Prince Vladimir, Olga’s grandson, was the great-grandson of Rurik, traditional founder of the Russian state. He was born in 955 and was brought up in the pagan Viking religion. Until his conversion, he indulged in the violence, brutality, and lust, characteristic of the Varangians. He became prince of Novgorod in 970 and fled to Scandinavia in 972 during a revolt led by his brothers. But, by 980, he had returned and was now Grand Prince of Kiev. In return for military aid from the Byzantines, he converted in 989 and married Princess Anna Porphyrogenita, daughter of Emperor Basil II. His commitment to Christianity was wholehearted. He put away his other wives and brought in Greek missionaries to preach and baptize. Unfortunately, most of his people converted only under extreme pressure from him. He and his successors also fostered a close relationship with the Church in the West. After his conversion, he was reluctant to put to death murderers and robbers. And he was very generous. He died July 15, 1015. By then, he had given away all his personal belongings. He too was buried in the “Tithe Church”. Olga and Vladimir have both been canonized by the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. Her feast is July 11: his is July 15.
The great Tithe Church had an unfortunate history. Plundered in 1169 and in 1203, it was battered and burned to the ground by the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan in 1240. All the citizens of Kiev had locked themselves in the church for their protection. When the walls began to be battered in, they tried to dig their way out. But they were all crushed to death when the roof collapsed.
At the initiative of Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitan St. Peter Mogila of Kiev, in the 1630s, a small church was built over the northwest corner of the ruined church. It was it was dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin. At that time, he recovered the relics of Sts. Olga and Vladimir from the ruins. Mogila, a leading theologian and reformer of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, was educated in Paris and had close ties with several universities. He added Latin to his seminarians’ curriculum to enable them to study in the West. On one of his many journeys, in 1646, he brought our relics of the two saints during a visit to Angouleme and gave them to its Bishop, Jacques de Noel du Perron. At that time, the Bishop had just completed the restoration of the cathedral and the construction of its tower, damaged during a century of religious wars. (This is all recorded in Conrad Eubel’s “Hierarchia Cartholica Medii Aevi” vol. 3, p. 192, archived copy of October 4, 2018 on Wayback Machine, vol. 6, p. 209).
In 1648, Bishop du Perron became abbot of the Benedictine Lyre Abbey in Normandy. He brought the relics with him and died there the following year. The relics remained at Lyre until the French Revolution. On February 13, 1790, the French National Assembly decided to dissolve all religious orders. Francois de Narbonne-Lara was the last Abbot of Lyre and the last Bishop of Evreux, before he was replaced by a constitutional bishop in 1791. Rather than let their monastery be looted, Bertrand Saint-Denis and two other monks had fled Lyre on May 17, 1790, taking with them all shrines and portable valuables they could carry and bringing them to Bishop Narbonne-Lara. This includes the relics of Sts. Olga and Vladimir. The bishop died November 12, 1792. After spending months as prisoners in their own house, the rest of the monks of Lyre were allowed to leave. From September, 1790, the buildings were leased out by the state. The chapel was allowed to fall into parlous condition and partially collapsed in 1797. Everything else was sold off in 1798. By 1804, there was no further trace of the abbey, except part of the abbot’s residence.
Back in 1653, Pope Innocent X had granted the Swiss Guards the right to have it as their own church. Many of their commanders are buried in the crypt of San Pellegrino, and it has been the Swiss church in Rome ever since. In 1977, it became the church of the Pontifical Gendarmerie and the Vatican fire fighters, and the relics of Olga and Vladimir were moved to the crypt near the ancient graves. The relics were recorded as being there in an archive from 2007, which concerns the burials in the crypt of members of the Swiss Von Pfyffer Von Altishofen family. In 2010, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertoni, the Vatican Secretary of State, presented the relics as a gift to one of the benefactors of the Vatican. In 2019, our reliquary was itemized as # B241937 in a private auction in France. In October of 2021, it comes to us through an entrepreneur in Krasnodar, Russia.
Between 2008 and 2016, artist Jean-Michel Othoniel transformed three rooms in the south transept of the Cathedral of Angouleme into a bright, beautiful, rich in stained glass Alladin’s Castle-like showcase, displaying the cathedral’s treasury of more than 200 liturgical objects and reliquaries. It has become internationally famous.
In 1802, the diocese of Evreux expanded considerably and absorbed part of the territory of the abolished diocese of Lisieux and of the archdiocese of Rouen. In the chronicles in the National Library of France, there are several references to the “relics of the Rosses” (i.e. founders of Rus’) present in this area. In 1803, the relics of the “founders of the Ross “Rus country”) were in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Lisieux (Armand, Jean: “Les eveques et les areheveques de France depuis 1682 jusqu’a 1803”) By 1811, the largest relics of Olga and Vladimir were located in a chapel in the apse of the Cathedral of Rouen. Henri-Marie-Gaston de Boinormand de Bonnechose was made bishop of Evreux in 1854 and then archbishop of Rouen in 1858. He was made a cardinal in 1863, and, on September 22, 1864, he was made Cardinal Priest of the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome. At that time, he brought the relics with him from Rouen and placed them in San Clemente, near the bones of St. Clement and St. Ignatius of Antioch.
In 1870, during the shelling of Rome in the Italian Risorgimento, many relics were hidden for their protection. The relics of Olga and Vladimir were moved to the Lateran Palace, after the building was given to Pope Pius IX in 1871. In 1908, they were returned to San Clemente.
In April of 1918, Bishop Henri-Marie Arlet of Angouleme sponsored an exhibition of reliquaries and relics of saints in his cathedral. Since our relics had a place in the history of that diocese, he resealed, re-documented, and placed them in their present display case in 1910 and included them in the 1918 exhibit, after which they were returned to Rome.
They are mentioned in the 1929 census of San Clemente’s accessories. On July 6, 1930, the Lithuanian priest Pranciskus Petras Bucys was consecrated titular bishop of Olympos in San Clemente. He had been superior general of the Marian Fathers, and rector of the University of Lithuania from 1924-25. He had also been an advisory member of the pontifical commission on Russia. Now he was sent to the diocese of Vilnius, tasked with the hopeless and ultimately unsuccessful mission of converting Eastern Orthodox and Russian Old Believers to Eastern Catholicism. He was given the relics to bring with him to help ease the process, but he returned them to the Vatican before 1932. In 1939, he was re-elected superior general of his order and returned to Rome, where he died in 1951. In 1932, Pope Pius XII transferred the relics to the ancient church of San Pellegrino in the Vatican.
The relationship between Kievan Rus’ and the neighboring Drevlians was complex. They fought together against the Byzantines. But, during peace time, the Drevlians paid protection money to the Rus’. They stopped doing this in 912, when the previous prince of Kiev died. In 947, Igor journeyed to the Drevlian capital, Iskorosten, to try to restore the tribute. In reaction, the Drevlians brutally murdered him by literally tearing him to pieces. Since their son Svyatoslav was only 3 years old, Olga became regent. When a delegation of Drevlian nobles came to her in an attempt to persuade her to marry their prince Malak, she had them all buried alive. Then she sent word back that she might marry him if the chief officials of the Drevlian court came to accompany her as an honor guard. She had them all burned alive in a bath house. Then she led an army to their capital and killed 5000 more, after which she burned down the city on the rest of them, in an attempt to exterminate everyone else. Otherwise, she was a good ruler.
She governed for 20 years after Igor’s death. In 958 at the age of 75, she journeyed to Constantinople to meet with the Emperor Constantine VII. There she converted to Christianity and was baptized “Helena” in Hagia Sophia Cathedral. While her son never converted to Christianity, HIS son, St. Vladimir the Great, did. Olga died in Kiev on July 11, 969 and was eventually buried in the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin – called the “Tithe Church” because the tithe of the prince’s income went to its maintenance. Built by Vladimir between 689 and 696, it was the first and oldest stone building in Russia. It was an enormous edifice, built in the Byzantine style in the shape of a Greek cross, surrounded by galleries on all sides, with 25 cupolas.
Prince Vladimir, Olga’s grandson, was the great-grandson of Rurik, traditional founder of the Russian state. He was born in 955 and was brought up in the pagan Viking religion. Until his conversion, he indulged in the violence, brutality, and lust, characteristic of the Varangians. He became prince of Novgorod in 970 and fled to Scandinavia in 972 during a revolt led by his brothers. But, by 980, he had returned and was now Grand Prince of Kiev. In return for military aid from the Byzantines, he converted in 989 and married Princess Anna Porphyrogenita, daughter of Emperor Basil II. His commitment to Christianity was wholehearted. He put away his other wives and brought in Greek missionaries to preach and baptize. Unfortunately, most of his people converted only under extreme pressure from him. He and his successors also fostered a close relationship with the Church in the West. After his conversion, he was reluctant to put to death murderers and robbers. And he was very generous. He died July 15, 1015. By then, he had given away all his personal belongings. He too was buried in the “Tithe Church”. Olga and Vladimir have both been canonized by the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. Her feast is July 11: his is July 15.
The great Tithe Church had an unfortunate history. Plundered in 1169 and in 1203, it was battered and burned to the ground by the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan in 1240. All the citizens of Kiev had locked themselves in the church for their protection. When the walls began to be battered in, they tried to dig their way out. But they were all crushed to death when the roof collapsed.
At the initiative of Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitan St. Peter Mogila of Kiev, in the 1630s, a small church was built over the northwest corner of the ruined church. It was it was dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin. At that time, he recovered the relics of Sts. Olga and Vladimir from the ruins. Mogila, a leading theologian and reformer of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, was educated in Paris and had close ties with several universities. He added Latin to his seminarians’ curriculum to enable them to study in the West. On one of his many journeys, in 1646, he brought our relics of the two saints during a visit to Angouleme and gave them to its Bishop, Jacques de Noel du Perron. At that time, the Bishop had just completed the restoration of the cathedral and the construction of its tower, damaged during a century of religious wars. (This is all recorded in Conrad Eubel’s “Hierarchia Cartholica Medii Aevi” vol. 3, p. 192, archived copy of October 4, 2018 on Wayback Machine, vol. 6, p. 209).
In 1648, Bishop du Perron became abbot of the Benedictine Lyre Abbey in Normandy. He brought the relics with him and died there the following year. The relics remained at Lyre until the French Revolution. On February 13, 1790, the French National Assembly decided to dissolve all religious orders. Francois de Narbonne-Lara was the last Abbot of Lyre and the last Bishop of Evreux, before he was replaced by a constitutional bishop in 1791. Rather than let their monastery be looted, Bertrand Saint-Denis and two other monks had fled Lyre on May 17, 1790, taking with them all shrines and portable valuables they could carry and bringing them to Bishop Narbonne-Lara. This includes the relics of Sts. Olga and Vladimir. The bishop died November 12, 1792. After spending months as prisoners in their own house, the rest of the monks of Lyre were allowed to leave. From September, 1790, the buildings were leased out by the state. The chapel was allowed to fall into parlous condition and partially collapsed in 1797. Everything else was sold off in 1798. By 1804, there was no further trace of the abbey, except part of the abbot’s residence.
Back in 1653, Pope Innocent X had granted the Swiss Guards the right to have it as their own church. Many of their commanders are buried in the crypt of San Pellegrino, and it has been the Swiss church in Rome ever since. In 1977, it became the church of the Pontifical Gendarmerie and the Vatican fire fighters, and the relics of Olga and Vladimir were moved to the crypt near the ancient graves. The relics were recorded as being there in an archive from 2007, which concerns the burials in the crypt of members of the Swiss Von Pfyffer Von Altishofen family. In 2010, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertoni, the Vatican Secretary of State, presented the relics as a gift to one of the benefactors of the Vatican. In 2019, our reliquary was itemized as # B241937 in a private auction in France. In October of 2021, it comes to us through an entrepreneur in Krasnodar, Russia.
Between 2008 and 2016, artist Jean-Michel Othoniel transformed three rooms in the south transept of the Cathedral of Angouleme into a bright, beautiful, rich in stained glass Alladin’s Castle-like showcase, displaying the cathedral’s treasury of more than 200 liturgical objects and reliquaries. It has become internationally famous.
In 1802, the diocese of Evreux expanded considerably and absorbed part of the territory of the abolished diocese of Lisieux and of the archdiocese of Rouen. In the chronicles in the National Library of France, there are several references to the “relics of the Rosses” (i.e. founders of Rus’) present in this area. In 1803, the relics of the “founders of the Ross “Rus country”) were in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Lisieux (Armand, Jean: “Les eveques et les areheveques de France depuis 1682 jusqu’a 1803”) By 1811, the largest relics of Olga and Vladimir were located in a chapel in the apse of the Cathedral of Rouen. Henri-Marie-Gaston de Boinormand de Bonnechose was made bishop of Evreux in 1854 and then archbishop of Rouen in 1858. He was made a cardinal in 1863, and, on September 22, 1864, he was made Cardinal Priest of the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome. At that time, he brought the relics with him from Rouen and placed them in San Clemente, near the bones of St. Clement and St. Ignatius of Antioch.
In 1870, during the shelling of Rome in the Italian Risorgimento, many relics were hidden for their protection. The relics of Olga and Vladimir were moved to the Lateran Palace, after the building was given to Pope Pius IX in 1871. In 1908, they were returned to San Clemente.
In April of 1918, Bishop Henri-Marie Arlet of Angouleme sponsored an exhibition of reliquaries and relics of saints in his cathedral. Since our relics had a place in the history of that diocese, he resealed, re-documented, and placed them in their present display case in 1910 and included them in the 1918 exhibit, after which they were returned to Rome.
They are mentioned in the 1929 census of San Clemente’s accessories. On July 6, 1930, the Lithuanian priest Pranciskus Petras Bucys was consecrated titular bishop of Olympos in San Clemente. He had been superior general of the Marian Fathers, and rector of the University of Lithuania from 1924-25. He had also been an advisory member of the pontifical commission on Russia. Now he was sent to the diocese of Vilnius, tasked with the hopeless and ultimately unsuccessful mission of converting Eastern Orthodox and Russian Old Believers to Eastern Catholicism. He was given the relics to bring with him to help ease the process, but he returned them to the Vatican before 1932. In 1939, he was re-elected superior general of his order and returned to Rome, where he died in 1951. In 1932, Pope Pius XII transferred the relics to the ancient church of San Pellegrino in the Vatican.
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