Jeremiah (secular name Irodion Solovyov; c. 1799 – not earlier than 1887) was Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas, holding the see from 1851 to 1857. The son of a village sexton, he rose from monastery cattle-keeper to bishop and left a notable mark on church-building in the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese in the mid-19th century. Irodion Solovyov was born on April 10, 1799, in the village of Georgievskoye in Livny Uyezd, Oryol Governorate; his father's name was Ioann Yakovlevich, and his mother's name was Maria.[1][2]

Life before the episcopate

In the theology class of the seminary, Irodion Solovyov became close friends with Ivan Borisov, the future renowned preacher Innokenty of Kherson. Upon completing the seminary course in 1819, the twenty-year-old Solovyov was appointed teacher of Greek and inspector at the Kiev Theological School, while Borisov entered the Kiev Theological Academy.[2]

For about four years Solovyov taught in Kiev, yet the thought of monasticism never left him. The Bishop of Oryol, Gavriil (later Archbishop of Ryazan), offered him a priest's post in Bolkhov, and Solovyov had been inclined to accept: he liked both the position and his bride-to-be. However, during a visit to a monastery he prayed alone in a grove, asking God to show him his path in life — and after that prayer he returned the marriage certificate to the bishop and submitted a petition to be accepted as a novice at the Bryansk Pechersk Monastery.[2]

Solovyov covered the roughly 200 versts to the monastery on foot, through the spring mud season. The monastery authorities, receiving the former teacher-inspector with distrust, assigned him as stoker and cattle-keeper. He performed these obediences for four months, then was transferred to the post of sacristan. Unexpectedly, in 1824, by order of the Commission of Theological Schools, Solovyov was summoned at state expense to the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy — this "surprise" was arranged for him by his boyhood friend Ivan Borisov, who by then had become a bachelor-instructor at the academy and had taken monastic vows with the name Innokenty.[2]

Solovyov studied at the academy for three years and, before completing the course, petitioned the authorities not to grant him any academic degree — hoping that, without one, he would remain forever in the humble rank of hieromonk. On November 21, 1824, Irodion was tonsured a monk with the name Jeremiah; on December 25 of the same year he was ordained hierodeacon, and on August 14, 1827, ordained hieromonk. After the academy he served as choir teacher under Bishop Filaret of Ryazan, then as religious instructor at the 2nd Cadet Corps in Saint Petersburg, and in 1829 he became a bachelor-instructor of the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy in the theology class.[1][2]

Activity in the Nizhny Novgorod see

Jeremiah was Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas from 1851 to 1857. During his administration of the diocese, residents of the area around present-day Lyadov Square (formerly called Krestovozdvizhenskaya Square) appealed to church authorities with a request to build a parish church: the nearest church, the Pokrovskaya Church, was hard to reach because of ravines and spring torrents.[2]

The bishop supported this petition and appealed to Nizhny Novgorod Military Governor Fyodor Vasilyevich Annenkov with a request to allocate a site for construction. A plot was granted at the intersection of Kanatnaya and Nemetskaya Streets; the land was purchased from the townswoman A. A. Nazarushkina and the soldier's wife A. S. Pozdeeva. In 1860 the Church of the Moscow Saints was built on this site.[2]

Before his appointment to Nizhny Novgorod, Jeremiah headed the Caucasus and Black Sea Diocese (from 1843), where he founded a theological seminary, donating up to 8,500 rubles of his own money to it, consecrated a new cathedral, and established the Ioanno-Mariinsky women's convent in memory of his parents; from 1849 to 1851 he governed the Poltava Diocese, from which he was transferred to Nizhny Novgorod.[1]

In the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese under Jeremiah, the foundations were laid for the Trinity Church on Old Sennaya Square and the Church of the Three Hierarchs on New Sennaya Square; the Verkhne-Posadsky Trinity five-domed church in the Byzantine style with a tall bell tower on Bolshaya Pecherskaya Street, whose foundation was laid under Jeremiah, was finally completed in 1867 and destroyed in the 1930s.[3] In addition, the bishop contributed to the construction of a church at the Nizhny Novgorod Boys' Governorate Gymnasium, and the capital of the Society for the Care of the Poor of the Clergy grew to 85,000 rubles during the years of his administration.[1]

On August 28, 1851, Jeremiah consecrated the main side chapel (in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God) of the three-altar church in the lower level of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral; on February 26, 1852, the side chapel in honor of Cosmas and Damian; and on October 26, 1853, the side chapel in honor of Demetrius of Thessalonica, the Myrrh-Streaming.[1]

On February 14, 1851, Jeremiah arrived in the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese, which he governed for six and a half years.[3]

On June 11, 1857, Jeremiah was retired to the Nizhny Novgorod Pechersky first-class monastery with a lifetime pension of 1,000 rubles, with the right to use the best quarters, with heating, servants, and a carriage. In 1860 Jeremiah took the schema with the name John, in memory of his father; in retirement he lived in the Gorodets Feodorovsky Monastery, and in the last period before his death, in the Nizhny Novgorod Annunciation Monastery. Jeremiah died on December 6 (18), 1884, at the age of 85 and was buried on December 9 in the Annunciation Men's Monastery, in the Church of St. Alexis.[3]

Sources

  1. nne.ru — Irodion Solovyov was born on April 10, 1799, in the selo of Georgiyevskoye, Livny Uyezd, Oryol Governorate; his father's name was Ioann Yakovlevich, and his mother's was Maria. From 1810 (archive)
  2. azbyka.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Bishop Jeremiah — Andrey Aleksandrovich Titov — read, download (archive)
  3. nne.ru — On February 14, 1851, Jeremiah arrived in the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese, which he administered for six and a half years. (archive)