What does Saint Artemy help with?
Despite the fact that the holy relics were never found, prayer addressed to the righteous youth often gives results. People come to the icons of the righteous with requests for healing:
- from incurable diseases;
- blindness and poor vision;
- restoration of the musculoskeletal system.
Parents ask for children, children pray for health for their father and mother. And the righteous man answers sincere prayers.
Oh, holy miracle worker! You are a resident of God's Heaven, a righteous man and a saint of the Lord! Hear our prayers! Pray before our Father for our sinful deeds! For we repent and ask for forgiveness and remission of our sins! Become our intercessor! Protect from evil and various diseases! Do not let your spirit fall in difficult times and give you strength to move along the righteous path! We will never forget Your holy name! And we will praise You all our lives, O Most Holy Artemy! May God's will be done for everything! In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Miracle of the appearance of relics
32 years have passed. The deacon of the local church of St. Nicholas the Pleasant in the village of Verkola was enthusiastically picking mushrooms in the forest, when suddenly Father Agafonik’s gaze stopped on a bright pillar of light emanating from the ground.
Crossing himself and praying, the deacon went to the luminous place and froze in surprise - in front of him on a bed of birch bark lay a young man in a white robe. Amazed by what he saw, Father Agathonik fell to his knees in awe. In the incorruptible body the clergyman recognized Artemy, with whom he often spent his free time as a child.
Memorable events associated with the death and burial of the youth instantly surfaced in the deacon’s memory. During the prayer, the clergyman was enveloped in pleasant smells.
Artemy Verkolsky, whose life was short but righteous, after 32 years again reminded his fellow villagers of himself. The peasants simply moved the found body to the church porch, covered it with birch bark and forgot, plunging into the whirlpool of summer worries.
Hagiographic icon of Artemy Verkolsky
It was not by chance that the merciful God revealed the miracle of the incorruptibility of the body of the righteous Artemy. In those years, the Arkhangelsk province was covered by a wave of severe fever. From the high temperature, people, especially children, “burned” before our eyes, and Kallinikos, the peasant who participated in the transfer of the boy’s body, was not spared.
Unable to see his son dying away in a fever, Kallinikos knelt down with fervent prayer to God. Suddenly his mind was illuminated by a vision of the image of Artemy. The peasant grabbed his son and ran with him to the church, where a coffin stood in the far porch. After the prayer, Kallinik tied a piece of birch bark on which the body of the righteous man lay to his son’s pectoral cross, and the fever instantly subsided.
The miraculous healing of the baby became known in the village and throughout the area, the priests served a memorial service near the righteous Artemy, after which the epidemic rapidly subsided, and posthumous miracles occurred more and more often.
Childhood of a youth
In 1532, a son was born into the peasant family of Kosma and Apollinaria, living in the village of Verkola, Arkhangelsk province. Unlike other children, the boy was quiet from birth. Parents and neighbors noted his unusual obedience and modesty. Noisy fun games did not attract the baby; he enjoyed spending time in the temple and prayers.
Saint Artemy Verkolsky
Humility and patience, the main benefactors for which believers have been praying for years, were given to the boy with his mother’s milk. The chosen one of God stood out among his noisy peers:
- kindness;
- meekness;
- the ability to forgive;
- patience.
It’s hard for modern parents to imagine, but this child prayed a lot, he consciously protected his soul not only from bad deeds, but also from sinful thoughts, never upsetting his father and mother. The bright-hearted young man knew how to enjoy the gentle sun, slender birch trees, picking berries in the forest during the short summer, helping his parents.
He was fascinated by the smell of mown hay when men worked in the fields, and fluffy earth after plowing. The parents, seeing their son’s obedience and zeal for his work, hoped that in old age they would have a reliable assistant, but God decreed otherwise.
Sudden demise
On this July day there were no signs of trouble. It was a fine summer day, father and son were plowing in the field. Artemy walked ahead, leading the horse, his father drove the harrows.
The young man quietly read prayers, enjoying the sunny day. In an instant, an amazing silence covered the earth, the sky turned black from the quickly running dark purple clouds. Suddenly, after a bright column of fire, lightning, strong thunder shook the entire area, blinding and deafening for a moment the people working in the field.
Kosma only heard his son’s words: “Lord, have mercy,” when he fell dead on the freshly plowed ground. In deep despair, the father brought the young man home; the tragic news quickly spread throughout the area. Residents understood the unusual nature of what was happening; some superstitious believers argued that the youth who died without repentance was a secret sinner, and he had no place in the public cemetery.
Death of the Righteous Artemy Verkolsky
It is difficult to imagine the despair of parents who have just lost their beloved son, and who were told by the priest that he refused to perform the funeral service for the person killed by lightning in the church.
Kosma buried his son in a very unusual way. The father carried the body of the boy, wrapped in birch bark, into the forest in his arms. He collected pine needles, building the last bed for his son under a huge pine tree, after reading the prayer he laid the body down, but did not bury it in the ground, but covered it tightly with pine branches.
You should know! According to the laws of the church of that time, he could not put up a cross or leave a memorial inscription. The pine mound and fence became a monument to the righteous Artemy.
