Kuzma Minin (right) with prince Dmitry Pozharsky at a XIX century painting

Kuzma (Kozma) Minin (Russian: Кузьма (Козьма) Минин; full name Kuzma Minich Zakhariev-Sukhoruky, Russian: Кузьма Минич Захарьев Сухорукий;; ? – 1616) was a Russian merchant from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, who, together with Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, became a national hero for his role in defending the country against the Polish invasion in the early-17th century.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

A native of Balakhna, Minin was a prosperous butcher (meat trader) in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. When the popular patriotic movement^[6] to organize volunteer corps in his home city was formed, the merchants chose Minin, a trusted and respected member of the guild, to oversee the handling of the public funds donated by them to raise and equip the Second Volunteer Army (Второе народное ополчение).^[7]

The army led by prince Dmitry Pozharsky was credited with clearing the Moscow Kremlin of Polish-Lithuanian forces on November 1, 1612. Minin distinguished himself as a skilled commander and was made a nobleman and member of the Boyar Duma under the newly elected Tsar Michael Romanov. He died in 1616 and was interred in the Archangel Cathedral of Nizhny Novgorod. A central square of that city is named after him and Prince Pozharsky.

Family[link]

Minin had a single son, Nefed. After Minin's death his property rights passed to his widow, Tatyana Semyonovna, and his son. A royal decree was issued on July 5, 1616, confirming the family's possession of an estate in the Nizhny Novgorod district consisting of the town of Bogorodskoye with its associated villages. Additionally, Nefed Minin owned property in the Kremlin of Nizhny Novgorod, although after the completion of his service, he lived mostly in Moscow where he worked as a government clerk. In 1625 he attended the departure of the Persian ambassador and in 1626 he is recorded as standing by the sovereign's lantern at two royal weddings. No mention is made of him in official records after 1628. Nefed died in 1632 and the lands granted to his father reverted to the crown before being passed to Prince Jacob Kudenekovich Cherkassky.

Tatyana Minin continued to live in Nizhny Novgorod. It appears that at an advanced age she took monastic vows and entered a convent - most likely the Resurrection Convent, located inside the city's Kremlin.

Historical Analysis[link]

Minin is generally well regarded by later historians such as Zabelin and Pogodin, having gained respect for his heroic actions. Other historians, like Kostomarov, considered him an ill-tempered, stubborn and unscrupulous man.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin

References[link]

Minin's appeal to the people of Nizhny Novgorod. Painting by Mikhail Peskov, 1861

Inline

General

• "The ancient heroes of the Russian people's militia" in "Kommersant-Den'gi", available online (Russian)
• Kuzma Minin in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (Russian)
• Minin, Kuzma in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Russian)

Chrysorrhoas redirects here. For the river, see Barada.

Saint John of Damascus
Saint John Damascene (arabic icon)
Doctor of the Church
Born	c. 645 or 676 AD Damascus
Died	December 4, 749(749-12-04) Mar Saba, Jerusalem
Honored in	Eastern Orthodox Church Roman Catholic Church Eastern Catholic Churches Lutheran Church Anglican Communion
Canonized	Pre-Congregation
Feast	December 4 March 27 (General Roman Calendar 1890-1969)

Saint John of Damascus (Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός Iōannēs ho Damaskēnos; Latin: Iohannes Damascenus; also known as John Damascene, Χρυσορρόας/Chrysorrhoas, "streaming with gold"—i.e., "the golden speaker") (c. 645 or 676 – 4 December 749; Arabic: يوحنا الدمشقي Yuḥannā Al Demashqi) was a Syrian monk and priest. Born and raised in Damascus, he died at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem.^[1]

A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, he is said by some sources to have served as a Chief Administrator to the Muslim caliph of Damascus before his ordination.^[2][3] He wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still used liturgically in Eastern Christian practice throughout the world. He is considered "the last of the Fathers" of the Eastern Orthodox church and is best known for his strong defense of icons.^[4] The Catholic Church regards him as a Doctor of the Church, often referred to as the Doctor of the Assumption due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary.^[5]

Biography[link]

John of Damascus.

The most common source of information for the life of John of Damascus is a work attributed to one John of Jerusalem, identified therein as the Patriarch of Jerusalem.^[6] This is an excerpted translation into Greek of an earlier Arabic text. The Arabic original contains a prologue not found in most other translations, and was written by an Arab monk, Michael. Michael explained that he decided to write his biography in 1084 because none was available in his day. However, the main Arabic text seems to have been written by an earlier author sometime between the early 9th and late 10th centuries CE.^[6] Written from a hagiographical point of view and prone to exaggeration and some legendary details, it is not the best historical source for his life, but is widely reproduced and considered to contain elements of some value.^[7] The hagiographic novel Barlaam and Josaphat, traditionally attributed to John, is in fact a work of the 10th century.^[8]

Family background[link]

John was born into a prominent family known as Mansour (Arabic: المنصور‎ al-Mansǔr, "the victorious one") in Damascus in the 7th century AD.^[9][10] His full name was Yuhanna (or Yanah) ibn Mansur ibn Sarjun (Arabic: منصور بن سرجون‎), named for his grandfather Mansur, who had been responsible for the taxes of the region under the Emperor Heraclius.^[9][11] The lack of documentation attesting to his specific tribal lineage has led a number of scholars to assign him either to the Taghlib or the Kalb, two prominent Christian Arab tribes in the Syrian desert.^[12] Others suggest that he may have been of Syrian non-Arab origin.^[12][13][14] Whatever the case, John of Damascus had two names: John, his Christian name, and his Arabic name, given as Qurein or Yana or Iyanis.^[11]

Eutychius, a 10th century Melkite patriarch mentions a certain Arab governor of the city who surrendered the city to the Muslims, probably John's grandfather Mansur Bin Sargun.^[15] When the region came under Arab Muslim rule in the late 7th century AD, the court at Damascus retained its large complement of Christian civil servants, John's grandfather among them.^[9][15] John's father, Sarjun (Sergius) or Ibn Mansur, went on to serve the Umayyad caliphs.^[9] According to John of Jerusalem and some later versions of his life, after his father's death John also served as an official to the caliphal court before leaving to become a monk. This claim, that John actually served in a Muslim court, has been questioned since he is never mentioned in Muslim sources, which however do refer to his father Sarjun (Serigius) as a secretary in the caliphal administration.^[16] In addition, John's own writings never refer to any experience in a Muslim court. It is believed that John became a monk at Mar Saba, and that he was ordained as a priest in 735.^[9][10]

Education[link]

One of the vitae describes his father's desire for him to, "learn not only the books of the Muslims, but those of the Greeks as well." From this it has been suggested that John may have grown up bilingual.^[17] John does indeed show some knowledge of the Quran, which he criticizes harshly.^[18] However, he may have used a translation.

Other sources describes his education in Damascus as having been conducted in accordance with the principles of Hellenic education, termed "secular" by one source and "Classical Christian" by another.^[19][20] One account identifies his tutor as a monk by the name of Cosmas, who had been kidnapped by Arabs from his home in Sicily, and for whom John's father paid a great price. Under the instruction of Cosmas, who also taught John's orphan friend (the future St. Cosmas of Maiuma), John is said to have made great advances in music, astronomy and theology, soon rivalling Pythagoras in arithmetic and Euclid in geometry.^[20] As a refugee from Italy, Cosmas brought with him the scholarly traditions of Western Christianity.

Defense of holy images[link]

In the early 8th century AD, iconoclasm, a movement seeking to prohibit the veneration of the icons, gained some acceptance in the Byzantine court. In 726, despite the protests of St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, Emperor Leo III issued his first edict against the veneration of images and their exhibition in public places.^[21] A talented writer in the secure surroundings of the caliph's court, John of Damascus undertook a spirited defence of holy images in three separate publications. The earliest of these works, his "Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images", secured his reputation. He not only attacked the emperor, but adopted a simplified style that allowed the controversy to be followed by the common people, stirring rebellion among those of Christian faith. Later, his writings would play an important role during the Second Council of Nicaea, which convened to settle the icon dispute.

The biography of John of Damascus recounts at least one episode deemed to be improbable or legendary.^[22][23] It reports that Leo III sent forged documents to the caliph which implicated John in a plot to attack Damascus. The caliph then ordered John's right hand be cut off and hung up to the public view. Some days afterwards, John asked for the restitution of his hand, and prayed fervently to the Theotokos before her icon: thereupon, his hand is said to have been miraculously restored.^[22] In gratitude for this miraculous healing, he attached a silver hand to the icon, which thereafter became known as the "Three-handed", or Tricheirousa.^[24] The biography adds that after this event John requested permission to leave his post and retired to the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. An editor of his works, Father Lequien, demonstrated however that John of Damascus was already a monk at Mar Saba before the dispute over iconoclasm broke out, a fact which renders the story all the more improbable.^[22] It has been argued that John left Damascus to become a monk around 706, when al-Walid I increased the islamicisation of the Caliphat's administration.^[25] Muslim sources only mention that his father Sarjun (Sergius) left the administration around this time, and fail to name John at all.^[26]

Last days[link]

John died in 749 as a revered Father of the Church, and is recognized as a saint. He is sometimes called the last of the Church Fathers by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1883 he was declared a Doctor of the Church by the Holy See.

Veneration[link]

When the name of Saint John of Damascus was inserted in the General Roman Calendar in 1890, it was assigned to 27 March. This date always falls within Lent, a period during which there are no obligatory Memorials. The feast day was therefore moved in 1969 to the day of the saint's death, 4 December, the day on which his feast day is celebrated also in the Byzantine Rite calendar.^[27]

List of works[link]

John of Damascus Greek icon.

Besides his purely textual works, many of which are listed below, John of Damascus also composed hymns, perfecting the canon, a structured hymn form used in Eastern Orthodox church services.^[28]

Early works[link]

• Three Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images – These treatises were among his earliest expositions in response to the edict by the Byzantine Emperor Leo III, banning the veneration or exhibition of holy images.^[29]

Teachings and dogmatic works[link]

• Fountain of Knowledge or The Fountain of Wisdom, is divided into three parts:
  1. Philosophical Chapters (Kephálaia philosophiká) – Commonly called 'Dialectic', it deals mostly with logic, its primary purpose being to prepare the reader for a better understanding of the rest of the book.
  2. Concerning Heresy (Perì hairéseōn) – The last chapter of this part (Chapter 101) deals with the Heresy of the Ishmaelites.^[30] Unlike earlier sections devoted to other heresies, which are disposed of succinctly in just a few lines, this chapter runs into several pages. It constitutes one of the first examples of Christian polemical writings against Islam, and the first written by a member of Byzantine Orthodoxy.
  3. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Ékdosis akribès tēs Orthodóxou Písteōs) – a summary of the dogmatic writings of the Early Church Fathers. This writing was the first work of Scholasticism in Eastern Christianity and an important influence on later Scholastic works.^[31]
• Against the Jacobites
• Against the Nestorians
• Dialogue against the Manichees
• Elementary Introduction into Dogmas
• Letter on the Thrice-Holy Hymn
• On Right Thinking
• On the Faith, Against the Nestorians
• On the Two Wills in Christ (Against the Monothelites)
• Sacred Parallels (dubious)
• Octoechos (the Church's service book of eight tones)
• On Dragons and Ghosts

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• A, Louth (2005). St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-927527-4. 
• Mike Aquilina. The Fathers of the church: an introduction to the first Christian teachers (illustrated ed.). Our Sunday Visitor Publishingyear=1999. ISBN 0-87973-689-5, 9780879736897. http://books.google.ca/books?id=Hb-S41iWo7oC&pg=PT235&dq=john+damascene&hl=en&ei=GIHKTo2IC6z14QSDqoFg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CF0Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=john%20damascene&f=false. 
• Hoyland, Robert (1996). Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. Darwin Press. 
• Michiel Op de Coul en Marcel Poorthuis, 2011. De eerste christelijke polemiek met de islam ISBN 978-90-211-4282-1
• Brown, Peter Robert Lamont (2003). The rise of Western Christendom: triumph and diversity, A.D. 200-1000 (2nd, illustrated ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-22138-7, 9780631221388. http://books.google.ca/books?id=i7lcmtHQOLIC&pg=PA307&dq=john+of+damascus+arab#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Butler, Alban; Jones, Kathleen; Burns, Paul (2000). Butler's lives of the saints: Volume 12 of Butler's Lives of the Saints Series (Revised ed.). Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0-86012-261-1, 9780860122616. http://books.google.ca/books?id=eOVkcqmS_okC&pg=PA36&dq=john+damascus+leo#v=onepage&q=john%20damascus%20leo&f=false. 
• Jameson (2008). Legends of the Madonna. BiblioBazaar, LLC. ISBN 0-554-33413-5, 9780554334134. http://books.google.ca/books?id=ZPdIuT4BvsEC&pg=PA24&dq=john+damascene+cut+hand+legend#v=onepage&q=john%20damascene%20cut%20hand%20legend&f=false. 
• Louth, Andrew (2002). St. John Damascene: tradition and originality in Byzantine theology (Illustrated ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-925238-6, 9780199252381. http://books.google.ca/books?id=PhoYQTwcqrEC&pg=PA284&dq=john+of+damascus+education#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Louth, Andrew (2003). Three treatises on the divine images. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 0-88141-245-7, 9780881412451. http://books.google.ca/books?id=x_U1mtafEPMC&pg=PA9&dq=mansur+john+damascus&hl=en&ei=DQnMTs6_Bcv64QSi2Nxz&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDEQ6AEwATgo#v=onepage&q=mansur%20john%20damascus&f=false. 
• Irfan Shahîd (2009). Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century: Economic, Social, and Cultural History, Volume 2, Part 2. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0884023478, 9780884023470. http://books.google.ca/books?id=js30HODt2aYC&pg=PA195&dq=John+of+Damascus+arab&hl=en&ei=UFjFTo7zB6Pm4QTjvLSeDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=John%20of%20Damascus%20arab&f=false. 
• McEnhill, Peter; Newlands, G. M. (2004). Fifty key Christian thinkers. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-17049-4, 9780415170499. http://books.google.ca/books?id=F1jhun5szTUC&pg=PA154&dq=john+damascus+leo#v=onepage&q=john%20damascus%20leo&f=false. 
• Sahas, Daniel J. (1972). John of Damascus on Islam. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-03495-1, 9789004034952. http://books.google.ca/books?id=pYSl_cyYHssC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=John+of+Damascus+origin+family. 
• Vila, David (2000). Richard Valantasis. ed. Religions of late antiquity in practice (Illustrated ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-05751-6, 9780691057514. http://books.google.ca/books?id=-N6u74StgmUC&pg=PA454&dq=%22john+of+damascus%22&cd=9#v=onepage&q=%22john%20of%20damascus%22%20%22arab%22&f=false. 
• The Works of St. John Damascene. Martis Publishing House, Moscow. 1997. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John of Damascus

• 131 Christians Everyone Should Know- John of Damascus
• Catholic Encyclopedia: St. John Damascene
• Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
• Catholic Online Saints
• Details of his work
• Excerpt from John Damascene
• "Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images" at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
• A Philosophical Explanation of Hypostatical Union in John Damascene's Fount of Knowledge
• The Concept of Unbounded and Evil Matter in Plotinus and John Damascenus
• Works by John of Damascus at Project Gutenberg
• "St. John of Damascus' Critique of Islam" at the Orthodox Christian Information Center
• Greek Opera Omnia by Migne, Patrologia Graeca with Analytical Indexes
• St John of Damascus Orthodox Icon and Synaxarion (December 4)

v t e Syriac Christianity Churches (West Syrian) Orthodox: Syriac Orthodox Church Catholic: Syriac Catholic Church · Maronite Church Churches (East Syrian) Historically: Church of the East - Related: Nestorianism Presently: Ancient Church of the East · Assyrian Church of the East · Chaldean Catholic Church Churches (in India) Historically: Malankara Church Presently: Eastern Oriental: Chaldean Syrian Church (Assyrian Church of the East in India) Orthodox: Jacobite Syrian Christian Church · Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian Orthodox Church) Catholic: Syro-Malabar Catholic Church · Syro-Malankara Catholic Church Reform: Malabar Independent Syrian Church · Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church · St. Thomas Evangelical Church Languages Assyrian Neo-Aramaic · Bohtan Neo-Aramaic · Chaldean Neo-Aramaic · Garshuni · Hértevin · Koy Sanjaq Surat · Syriac · Mlahsô · Senaya · Turoyo National identity Names of Syriac Christians · Assyrianism · Chaldeanism · Aramaeanism

v t e Doctors of the Church St. Gregory the Great St. Ambrose St. Augustine St. Jerome St. John Chrysostom St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzus St. Athanasius of Alexandria St. Cyril of Alexandria St. Cyril of Jerusalem St. John Damascene St. Bede the Venerable St. Ephrem St. Thomas Aquinas St. Bonaventure St. Anselm St. Isidore St. Peter Chrysologus St. Leo the Great St. Peter Damian St. Bernard of Clairvaux St. Hilary of Poitiers St. Alphonsus Liguori St. Francis de Sales St. Peter Canisius St. John of the Cross St. Robert Bellarmine St. Albertus Magnus St. Anthony of Padua St. Lawrence of Brindisi St. Teresa of Ávila St. Catherine of Siena St. Thérèse of Lisieux St. John of Ávila

Persondata
Name	John of Damascus
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	676
Place of birth	Damascus
Date of death	749
Place of death	Mar Saba, Jerusalem