Saint Notburga

 

 

   Saint Notburga (c. 1265 – September 16, 1313), also known as Notburga of Rattenberg or  Notburga of Eben, was an Austrian saint from modern Tyrol. She is the patron saint of servants and peasants.
   Notburga was a cook in the household of Count Henry of Rattenberg, and used to give food to the poor. But Ottilia, her mistress, ordered her to feed any leftover food to the pigs. To continue her mission, Notburga began to save some of her own food, especially on Fridays, and brought it to the poor.
   According to her legend, one day her master met her and commanded her to show him what she was carrying. She obeyed but instead of the food he saw only shavings, and instead of wine, vinegar.   As a result of Notburga's actions, Ottilia dismissed her, but soon fell dangerously ill. Notburga remained to nurse her and prepared her for death.
   Next, Notburga worked for a peasant, on the condition that she be permitted to go to church evenings before Sundays and festivals. One evening her master urged her to continue working in the field. Throwing her sickle into the air she supposedly said: "Let my sickle be judge between me and you," and the sickle remained suspended in the air.
In the meantime, Count Henry had suffered difficulties, which he ascribed to his dismissal of Notburga, so he rehired her. Shortly before her death she is said to have told her master to place her corpse on a wagon drawn by two oxen and to bury her wherever the oxen stood still. The oxen drew the wagon to the chapel of St. Rupert near Eben, where she was buried.

Ioann (John) of Novgorod

   The son of a priest, Ilya was himself priest of the Church of St. Blaise south of the Novgorod Kremlin. The church was rebuilt in 1407, destroyed during the Second World War, and has been rebuilt again; it still stands today. It is believed that Ilya was his first monastic name, thus his baptismal name is not known.

  

   Ilya was appointed bishop of Novgorod by Metropolitan Ioann of Kiev in 1165. He was the first to hold the title of archbishop in Novgorod after the office was elevated to the archiepiscopal dignity a few months later. Nifont (1130–1156) held the title as a personal honor.

   Ioann carried out a number of construction projects in Novgorod along with his brother, Gavril (also known as Grigorii), who succeeded him as archbishop (1186–1193).

   He died on September 7, 1186 and is buried in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in the west gallery next to the Predtechenskaia Porch. He was originally buried below the floor in the Martirievskii Porch (where his brother is still buried), but his relics were later moved. His relics were desecrated during the Soviet anti-religious campaigns on April 3, 1919. They are now in a new sarcophagus with a new sarcophagial effigy (from the 1990s) covering it.

   Ioann appears in a number of medieval tales (some of them set centuries after his death) as the quintessential archbishop of Novgorod. (He is almost always referred to as Ioann in them). The most famous tale depicts him conquering a devil and forcing it to transform itself into a horse and fly him to Jerusalem and back in a single night. In Jerusalem, he took the measurements of the Holy Sepulchre. This tale was developed to explain how a chapel matching the exact measurements of the Holy Sepulchre was established in the Cathedral.