Why people ask St Sergius of Radonezh
Students and exams
The Russian prayer book prints prayers to him among its prayers for children’s understanding, because of what happened to him when he was a boy.
His feast day
25 September: His feast in the Orthodox churches on the new calendar. Those on the old calendar keep it on 8 October.
Repose of Venerable Sergius, 25 September, Orthodox Church in America
When it is said
It is sung on his feast, 25 September, the day he died (8 October in churches on the old calendar).
Anyone may say it at home to ask his prayers.
Where it comes from
No author known
Who St Sergius was
St Sergius of Radonezh (lived from 1314 to 1392) was a Russian monk. After his parents died, he and his brother Stephen went into the forest near Radonezh, where they built a hut and a small church. Disciples came to join Sergius, and the Holy Trinity monastery that grew up there became a centre of Russia’s spiritual life.
Azbyka.ru, St Sergius of Radonezh; OCA, the life of St Sergius
The boy who could not read
His Life tells that the boy Bartholomew, as Sergius was first named, started school at seven with his two brothers. They learned well, but he fell behind and begged God with tears to let him read. Out looking for his father’s horses, he met an old monk praying under an oak, who prayed for him and gave him a piece of blessed bread. From then on he read without difficulty.
Sergius and study
The hymn says nothing about study. The link comes from the story of the boy who could not read, which his disciple Epiphanius wrote down in 1418, 26 years after Sergius died. The Russian prayer book lists prayers to St Sergius among its prayers for the growth of a child’s mind.
Azbyka.ru, St Sergius of Radonezh; Azbyka.ru prayer book, “Prayers for the development of the mind in children”
The Scripture in it
Join me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
И́же доброде́телей подви́жник,
я́ко и́стинный во́ин Христа́ Бо́га,
на стра́сти вельми́ подвиза́лся еси́ в жи́зни вре́менней,
в пе́ниих, бде́ниих же и поще́ниих о́браз быв твои́м ученико́м;
те́мже и всели́ся в тя Пресвяты́й Дух,
Его́же де́йствием све́тло укра́шен еси́.
Но я́ко име́я дерзнове́ние ко Святе́й Тро́ице,
помина́й ста́до, е́же собра́л еси́, му́дре,
и не забу́ди, я́коже обеща́лся еси́,
посеща́я чад твои́х,
Се́ргие преподо́бне, о́тче наш.
From the troparion in the fourth tone, from his service for 25 September, on azbyka.ru.