FROM RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA:
Blessed Nicholas of Pskov, Salos, Fool-for-Christ, March 13 (movable)

Blessed Nicholas of Pskov lived the life of foolishness for more than three decades. Long before his death, he acquired the grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit and was granted the gift of miracles and prophecy. His Pskov contemporaries called him Mikula (Mikola, Nikola) Salos, which means "blessed, fool-for-Christ" in Greek, and even during his lifetime they venerated him as a saint, also calling him "Saint" (Mikula).

In February 1570, after a devastating campaign against Novgorod with his oprichnina army, Tsar Ivan the Terrible marched on Pskov, suspecting treason and preparing for it the same fate as Novgorod. As the Pskov Chronicle attests, "the Tsar arrived... with great fury, like a roaring lion, eager to tear innocent people to pieces and shed much blood."

The entire city prayed for the Tsar's wrath to be averted. Hearing the matins bells ringing throughout Pskov, the Tsar, as the inscription on the miraculous Lyubyatovo Icon of the Tenderness of the Mother of God (commemorated on March 19) states (Lyubyatovo was where the Tsar's army was stationed), "was moved to the heart and said to his soldiers: 'Sharpen your swords on stone, let the killing cease.'"

All the inhabitants of Pskov took to the streets, and each family knelt at the gates of their home, bringing out bread and salt to greet the Tsar. On one of the streets, Blessed Nicholas ran out to meet the Tsar, riding a stick, as if galloping on a horse, and shouted at the Tsar: "Ivanushka, Ivanushka, eat bread and salt, not Christian blood."

The Tsar ordered the holy fool's capture, but he became invisible. Having forbidden murder, Ivan the Terrible, however, intended to plunder the city. The Tsar attended a prayer service in Trinity Cathedral, venerated the relics of the holy and faithful Prince Vsevolod-Gabriel (commemorated on February 11), and asked for Blessed Nicholas's blessing.

When the Tsar arrived at the blessed one's cell, he said: "Don't bother us, passerby, and leave us, you will have no means of escape." The holy fool offered the Tsar a piece of raw meat as a treat. "I am a Christian and do not eat meat during Lent," Ivan told him. "You drink human blood," the blessed one replied, lecturing the Tsar "with many terrible words" to stop the murders and plunder of God's holy churches. But Ivan disobeyed and ordered the bell of Trinity Cathedral removed, and then, according to the saint's prophecy, the Tsar's best horse fell.

The blessed one's prayer and words awakened the Tsar's conscience. Frightened by the fulfillment of the prophecy and accused of his crimes, Ivan the Terrible, having ordered the plundering to be stopped, fled the city. The oprichniki, witnesses to this, wrote: "The mighty tyrant... departed beaten and shamed, as if driven away by the enemy. Thus did the penniless beggar frighten and drive away the Tsar with many thousands of warriors."

Blessed Nicholas died on February 28, 1576, and was buried in the Trinity Cathedral of the city he saved. Only Pskov princes and, later, archpastors were granted such an honor.

Local veneration of the saint began just five years after his death. In 1581, during the siege of Pskov by the troops of the Polish King Stefan Batory, the blacksmith Dorofey had a vision of the Mother of God with a host of Pskov saints praying for the city, among whom was Blessed Nicholas (information about the Pskov-Pokrovskaya Icon of the Mother of God is published on October 1).

The relics of Blessed Nicholas of Pskov, who "was a fool in the flesh, ... became a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem..., turning the royal power and the sense of cruelty into mercy," are still kept in the Trinity Cathedral in Pskov.