The Holy Martyr Clement, an apostle from the age of 70, the fourth bishop (pope) of Rome, was born into a very noble family related to the imperial family. Separated from his parents and brothers in infancy, he grew up among strangers. Like all noble Roman youths, Clement received a brilliant education, but secular sciences did not fascinate him. As soon as he reached adulthood, he left Rome. To the Holy Land, to Palestine, where Christ lived and suffered and his apostles preach – that's where young Clement is drawn to.
Arriving in Alexandria, he listens to the sermons of the learned evangelist Barnabas and becomes an ardent follower of the new doctrine. After some time, Clement, in his wanderings, meets the Apostle Peter, receives Holy Baptism from him, and becomes one of his closest disciples (Phil. 4:3). The Gospel sermon helped Clement miraculously find his family, which he considered lost: among the disciples of the first-born apostle are his two twin brothers, a little later he finds his parents. Needless to say, the whole family then converted to Christianity and began to preach the saving doctrine.
Shortly before his martyrdom, the Apostle Peter ordains Clement as bishop. After the death of St. St. Peter, St. Lina and St. Anacleta, from 92 to 101, the Apostle Clement was Bishop of Rome. Clement's virtuous life and saintly feat set a salutary example for proud Roman citizens, many of whom became followers of Christ. The life of the church. It has preserved for us an example of how once on Easter day, after the preaching of the apostle, 424 people were baptized at once, among whom were representatives of all Roman estates – from slaves to members of the imperial family.
Concerned about the success of the Christian hierarch, the pagans reported him to Emperor Trajan, accusing the saint of disrespecting the Roman gods. The enraged emperor orders Clement's expulsion from the capital, sentencing him to exile. Many of the apostle's disciples followed him to the Inkerman quarries, located near Tauric Chersonesos, preferring voluntary exile to separation from their spiritual father.
Inkerman quarries were a traditional place of exile for Christians. The hard life of the ascetics was especially difficult due to the lack of drinking water. At the prayer of St. Clement, the Angel of the Lord, appearing in the form of a Lamb, indicates the location of the spring. This miracle attracted many people to St. Clement. Listening to the zealous preacher, hundreds of pagans turned to Christ. Five hundred or more people were baptized every day. There, in the quarries, the temple in which he preached was cut down. In 101, the Holy Martyr Clement was put to death by order of the emperor.; He was drowned by being thrown into the sea with a load around his neck. Clement became famous for many miracles, a series of which did not stop even after his death. Through the prayers of his faithful disciples, Cornelius and Thebes, and the entire Christian population of Chersonesos, the sea receded, and they found the incorruptible body of their teacher at the bottom of the uncreated "Angelic" church. After that, every year on the day of Clement's martyrdom, the sea receded and for seven days people prayed at the relics of the righteous.
This was the case until the beginning of the 9th century. At this time, the relics became inaccessible, the sea did not retreat. In the early 60s of the 9th century, the relics miraculously appeared on the surface of the sea, preceded by the conciliar prayer of the Chersonese clergy and the learned preachers who came to the city – Constantine the philosopher and his brother Methodius. Konstantin, the philosopher, believed that the cmmh. Clement patronizes his missionary work and the enlightenment of the Slavic peoples. As time has shown, this was indeed the case. When, a few years later, the brothers brought to the papal throne liturgical books translated into Slavic and written in Slavic script, Pope Adrian himself came out to meet them, having learned that they had brought to Rome the relics of their holy compatriot– the Apostle Clement. Largely due to the relics brought, the mission of the Moravian brothers ended successfully: the Slavic books were consecrated by the pope, and for the first time in the holy city, along with Latin, the Slavic prayer was heard at the divine service. It was tantamount to a miracle! At that time, the so-called "trilingual" heresy was widespread in the Western Church, when only three languages were considered liturgical: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Constantine, having come to Rome, took monastic vows, taking the name Cyril, and died soon after. Bearing in mind the merits of the enlightener before the Holy See. Peter, at the insistence of Pope Adrian, is being buried in St. Peter's Church. Clement.
Having been baptized in Chersonesos, Prince Vladimir the Saint transfers part of the relics of the Holy Cross. St. Clement's (head) and the relics of St. He took Thebes, his disciple, with him to Kiev, laying them in the Tithe Church in the chapel in the name of the Holy Church. Clement. Thus, the power of the sschmch. St. Clement's was the first Christian shrine to appear in Russia. This was the reason for his exceptional popularity on Russian soil.
Russian Russian saints began to be canonized, and the situation changed: Russian ascetics and martyrs became the most revered.
After the Klimentovsky Church was closed in 1935, a branch of the Russian State Library was located there, which probably can also be considered not a coincidence. Clement, the patron saint of Slavic literature, preserved church books from monastic and private collections under the arches of his temple. The years of hard times did not cause significant damage to the temple building and the iconostases, preserved by the care of the library staff.