On the feast of the second finding and transfer of the relics of St. Savva of Storozhevsky, Zvenigorod (1998), on August 23, 2025, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia visited the Savva-Storozhevsky Stavropol Monastery. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the revival of monastic life in this monastery.
Upon arrival at the monastery, His Holiness venerated the venerable relics of St. Sava Storozhevsky, which rest in the ancient Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the holiday, the relics were placed in a new silver shrine, an exact replica of the shrine in which the relics rested before the revolution. On the new shrine there is an inscription: "This silver shrine to the Holy Monk, the Great Wonderworker Savva of Zvenigorod, in the image of the ancient shrine of this Venerable father, created by the command of the Sovereign Tsar and Great Prince Theodore Alekseevich, was built with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, under the care of the vicars of this monastery, Bishop Paul and Archimandrite Stephen, and there is a personal contribution of the slave St. John Sergeyevich of Kharkov in his silver workshops with elaborate decorations, made in the summer of 2025 A.D."
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill led the Divine Liturgy service on a throne set up under the shadow of the monastery square.
At the end of the Liturgy, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill glorified St. Sava Storozhevsky at the icon of the saint.
The Primate of the Russian Church addressed the faithful with a Primatial address in which he said: "The bones of the righteous will prosper (see Isaiah 66:14; Ser. 46:14, 49:12), as the word of God teaches us. And it really is. In general, human bones and decayed bodies are often rejected by humans. Some are even afraid to touch them, because diseases could be transmitted through the remains. Others have a fear of burial, especially before the remains dug out of the grave. And, it would seem, how can a person worship the remains of the deceased? But the entire experience of the Orthodox Church, starting from the time of the martyrs, the entire history of the special veneration of martyrs, confessors, and later holy venerable and God-bearing fathers is connected, among other things, with the glorification of their remains.
Now the remains of the saints rest in beautiful reliquaries, often made of precious metals, which expresses our reverence for these remains and our love for the saints. And every time we touch these crayfish, we pray that the saint of God will help us, and what is amazing is that we have been praying not for a year, not for two, not for ten, not for a hundred— but for thousands of years! And the question arises for non-believers: how can you explain this, what tradition, what memory? Yes, the memory of outstanding historical figures — emperors, tsars, presidents, and supreme commanders-in-chief - is preserved. There were so many outstanding people whose names are inscribed in history, but no one would think of kissing their coffins, their remains!
And we honor the remains of the glorified saints, because we know that they are with God and out of their love, including for us, especially in the places where they served, worked, prayed, and offered prayers for us to the throne of God. The prayer of the righteous, the saints of God, is directly related to each of us; and when we ask the saint for something, we believe that he will ask the Lord Himself for us before the throne of God, and our feeble prayers, enriched many times by the prayer of the holy saint to whom we turn, incline the Lord's mercy to us and Our Savior.
Maybe someone from among the non-believers, the non-church people, will say, "How is that? What kind of strangeness is this?" But there is nothing strange here — this is a manifestation of God's miracle. When they pray, they expect that this prayer will be answered. Otherwise, no one would ever pray to anyone. A person is generally lazy for many things. And no one would have stood for hours and prayed, and even fasted, in order to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ, if we had not received an answer in response to all this. The saints are praying for us, and we feel it, we know it. Similarly, many students, doubting the possibility of passing an exam or writing an essay, come to church, pray, and even insufficiently zealous students are sometimes helped by the holy saint through their prayers.
All this is nothing more than our living connection with God's saints. And holidays like today's give us the opportunity and spiritual strength to pray fervently to the saint of God, whose name is glorified, and to ask him that he would not leave us sinners in the presence of the King of Heaven, our Lord and Savior.
God grant that this holy place never gets overgrown, and that no trails get overgrown here. So that the glory of God revealed in these wonderful temples, especially in the local shrines, accompanied by the prayer of thousands and thousands of believers, may be reflected in our lives through the help that the Lord gives to everyone who turns to His holy name with faith and hope."
As a gift to the monastery, His Holiness gave the ancient image of Equal—to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius, and to each inhabitant of the monastery, his book "Life by Faith."
All participants of the service were presented with icons of St. Sava Storozhevsky with the Patriarchal blessing.