La canonizzazione del primo santo del Settecento russo : storia e funzione

In the 18th c. only 4 saints were proclamed in Russia. One of them was the Ukrainian monk Dimitrij Tuptalo, who became Metropolitan of Rostov (1701). His fame as a learned and pious monk was spread in Ukraine and Russia already during his life, but it was only in the middle of the 18th c., in the time of Elisabeth II, that he was proclamed a saint. The records of the discovery of the mortal remains, of the creation of the hagiographical account and the liturgical chants, of the fabrication of a coffin and of popular worship demonstrates at the same time the religious signification of the saint and the political circumstancies of the creation of his cult.