The Holy Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky was born on May 13, 1221 in the city of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky. His father, Yaroslav, baptised Theodore, was the youngest son of Vsevolod III the Big Nest. St. Alexander's mother, Theodosia Mstislavna, was the daughter of Mstislav Udaly (Udatny). In 1227, Prince Yaroslav, at the request of the Novgorodians, began to reign in Novgorod the Great. He took his sons, Theodore and Alexander, with him.
The most difficult time in the history of Russia began: Mongol hordes marched from the east, chivalric hordes were advancing from the west. In this terrible hour, God's Providence raised up Saint Prince Alexander, the great warrior–prayer book, ascetic and builder of the Russian land, for the salvation of Russia.
Taking advantage of the invasion of Batu, hordes of crusaders invaded the Fatherland. The Swedes were the first. Many ships approached the Neva River under the command of Jarl Birger. St. Alexander, who was not yet 20 years old at that time, prayed for a long time in the church of St. Sophia. Archbishop Spyridon blessed the holy Prince and his army for battle. After leaving the temple, Alexander strengthened the squad with words filled with faith: "God is not in power, but in truth. Some with weapons, others on horseback, and we will call on the name of the Lord our God!" With a small squad, the prince hurried to the enemies. But there was a wonderful omen: A soldier standing in the naval patrol saw at dawn on July 15 a boat sailing on the sea, and on it the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb in scarlet robes. Alexander, emboldened, courageously led the army against the Swedes with prayer. "And there was a great battle with the Latins, and he killed countless of them, and put a seal on the leader's face with a sharp spear." For this victory on the Neva River, won on July 15, 1240, the people named St. Alexander Nevsky.
The German knights remained a dangerous enemy. In 1241, with a lightning campaign, St. Alexander returned the ancient Russian fortress of Koporye, expelling the knights. In 1242, in winter, he liberated Pskov, and on April 5 gave the Teutonic Order a decisive battle on the ice of Lake Peipsi. The Crusaders were completely defeated. The name of St. Alexander became famous throughout Holy Russia.
The western borders of the Russian land were securely fenced, it was time to secure Russia from the east. In 1242, St. Alexander Nevsky and his father Yaroslav left for the Horde. The Lord crowned the sacred mission of the defenders of the Russian land with success, but it took years of work and sacrifice. Prince Yaroslav gave his life for this. The alliance with the Golden Horde bequeathed by his father – then necessary to prevent a new defeat of Russia – continued to strengthen St. Alexander Nevsky. Promising his support, St. Alexander gave Batu the opportunity to march against Mongolia, to become the main force in the entire Great Steppe. In 1252, many Russian cities rebelled against the Tatar yoke. Russia's very existence was threatened again. St. Alexander had to go to the Horde again to ward off the punitive invasion of the Tatars from the Russian lands. St. Alexander became the sovereign Grand Duke of all Russia. In 1253, he repelled a new raid on Pskov, in 1254 he concluded a treaty on peaceful borders with Norway, in 1256 he went on a campaign to the Finnish land. Into the darkness of paganism, St. Alexander carried the light of evangelical preaching and Orthodox culture. The whole of Pomerania was enlightened and mastered by the Russians.
Batu Khan died in 1256. The Holy Prince went to Sarai for the third time to confirm peaceful relations between Russia and the Horde with the new Khan Berke. In 1261, through the efforts of St. Alexander and Metropolitan Kirill, the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church was established in Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde.
The epoch of the great Christianization of the pagan East has come, and this was the historical vocation of Russia prophetically guessed by St. Alexander Nevsky. In 1262, on his instructions, Tatar tribute collectors and recruiters of Baskaki warriors were killed in many cities. They were waiting for Tatar revenge. But the great defender of the people went back to the Horde and wisely directed events in a completely different direction: referring to the Russian uprising, Khan Berke stopped sending tribute to Mongolia and proclaimed the Golden Horde an independent state, thereby making it a barrier to Russia from the east. Russian Russian multinational state matured and strengthened in this great union of Russian and Tatar lands and peoples, which later included almost the entire legacy of Genghis Khan to the shores of the Pacific Ocean within the boundaries of the Russian Church.
This diplomatic trip of St. Alexander Nevsky to Sarai was the fourth and last. On the way back, before reaching Vladimir, in Gorodets, in the Bogoroditsa-Feodorovsky Gorodetsky monastery, the ascetic prince surrendered his spirit to the Lord on November 14, 1263, completing a difficult life path by accepting the holy monastic schema with the name Alexy. His holy body was carried to Vladimir, the journey lasted nine days, and the body remained incorruptible. On November 23, at his burial in the cathedral church of the Theotokos-Rozhdestvensky Monastery in Vladimir (now there is a monument to the holy Prince; another monument was erected in the city of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky) it was revealed by God "a wonderful miracle and worthy of memory": the saint himself stretched out his hand for a permissive prayer. The veneration of the blessed prince began immediately after his burial. Grand Duke John Ioannovich (1326-1359) in his spiritual will, written in 1356, left his son Dimitri (1350-1389), the future winner of the Battle of Kulikovo, the "icon of St. Alexander".
The incorruptible relics of the blessed prince were revealed, according to a vision [117 years after the death of St. Alexander Nevsky on Saturday, September 8, 1380, on the very night when Dimitri Donskoy and his army were encamped on Kulikovo Field in front of a determined sich with the Mamaev horde — the sexton of the Vladimir Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary had a vision. The candles lit up by themselves, two elders, coming out of the altar, approached the coffin of St. Alexander and said: "Oh, Lord Alexander, rise up and hasten to the aid of your great-grandson, Grand Duke Dimitri, who overcomes the land from foreigners." Alexander rose from the grave and became invisible].
After the Battle of Kulikovo, in 1381, the first discovery and examination of the relics of the holy prince took place. "After a 117-year stay in the land," the holy relics were found incorruptible. Metropolitan Cyprian of Moscow (Tsamblak) ordered to call Alexander Nevsky "blessed". A monastic church celebration was held for the saint, the canon and the first icons were painted.
In 1491, during the Vladimir fire, the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin burned down, but the relics of St. Alexander, already locally glorified at that time and transferred from the tomb to an open shrine, where many miracles were performed, remained intact and even the veil that was inside the shrine remained intact.
The Church-wide glorification of St. Alexander Nevsky took place under Metropolitan Macarius at the Moscow Cathedral in 1547.
The prayers of the holy prince, famous for the defense of the Fatherland, were resorted to by Russian commanders in all subsequent times. August 30, 1721 Peter I, after a long and grueling war with the Swedes, concluded the Peace of Nishtad. It was decided to consecrate this day by transferring the relics of the blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky from Vladimir to the new northern capital, St. Petersburg, located on the banks of the Neva River. Taken from Vladimir on August 11, 1723, the holy relics were brought to Shlisselburg on September 20 of the same year and remained there until 1724, when they were installed in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra on August 30. By decree of September 2, 1724, a feast was established for August 30 (in 1727, the feast was canceled due not to its ecclesiastical nature, but due to the struggle of factions at the royal court. In 1730, the festival was restored again). On July 15, 1922, the holy relics of St. Alexander Nevsky was removed from the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and returned to the cathedral only on June 3, 1989. On September 8, 2023, the outer silver sarcophagus and the inner wooden ark of the precious shrine, which contained the relics of St. Alexander from 1790 to 1922, were returned to the monastery by the Hermitage and placed in the upper temple of the Annunciation Lavra Church, dedicated to St. Prince Alexander Nevsky.
Archimandrite Gabriel Buzhinsky (later Bishop of Ryazan, + April 27, 1731) composed a special service to commemorate the peace of Nishtada, combining it with the service to St. Alexander Nevsky.
The name of the defender of Russia's borders and the patron saint of warriors is known far beyond the borders of our Homeland. Evidence of this is the numerous temples dedicated to St. Alexander Nevsky. The most famous of them are the Patriarchal Cathedral in Sofia, the Cathedral in Tallinn, the temple in Tbilisi. These temples are a pledge of friendship between the liberator Russian people and fraternal peoples.