Venerable Sava, Abbot of Zvenigorod

Savva was one of the early disciples of St Sergius of Radonezh and for a time abbot of the Dormition monastery on the river Dubenka. About 1398 Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod, Sergius’s godson, asked him to settle near his town. On Storozhi hill above the Moskva river Savva built a wooden church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, and a monastery grew around it.

His Life tells that he carried water up the hill from the river on his own shoulders, to teach the brothers to work. According to tradition, he blessed Prince Yury before a successful campaign against the Volga Bulgars. Savva died on 3 December 1406. His relics were uncovered in 1652, and Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich became a devoted patron of the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery.