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St. Dimitry, whose secular name was Daniel, was the son of the Cossack commander Tuptalo and was born in 1651 in the city of Makarov in the Kiev province. After graduating from the Mogilev Theological Academy, St. Dimitry became a monk in 1668 in the Kievan St. Cyril Monastery, and in 1675 was made a hieromonk. Later he was the abbot and subsequently an archimandrite in various monasteries. In 1701 he was ordained metropolitan of Tobolsk, but remained in Moscow due to illness and a year later took on the vacant cathedra in Rostov.
St. Dimitry worked hard at establishing church piety and in denouncing heretic sects. He spent his life in the spiritual labors of fasting, prayer, and charity, and for twenty years he labored over the composition of his immortal opus – the Menology (i.e. the lives of the saints for each day of the month, to be read in church and at home), which he began to write in 1684 while staying at the Kiev Caves monastery. The holy hierarch peacefully reposed in the Lord on October 28, 1709 and was buried in the Rostov Cathedral. On September 2, 1752, while the church floor over the hierarch’s grave was being repaired, his relics were found incorruptible.
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St. Dimitry of Rostov |
