Dear brothers and sisters!
Today, when our historical memory is relentlessly rewritten for the needs of short-term political
expediency, when those who have nothing to do with our spiritual tradition are declared heroes,
we should look more attentively into the image of the Holy Right-Believing Prince Alexander
Nevsky.
Today is the day of his bright memory. And no matter how aggressive propaganda tries to portray
the Right-Believing Prince Alexander as 'alien' to us, he cannot be an alien for us. He was Great
Prince of Kiev for fourteen years — and Kiev, where rulers changed kaleidoscopically, had not
known so long a rule since the times of Monomakh. Alexander is flesh and blood of our history and
our Orthodox civilisation, a figure which does not divide but unites historical traditions and
peoples. His path is at the same time a warning and hope for contemporary Ukraine.
The holiness of Prince Alexander is neither a romantic legend nor a stillness of an icon. It is a heavy
cross of power, borne for the sake of the salvation of the people. He clearly understood: a true
ruler is not one who enjoys strength but one who is able to lower his pride for the lives of the
people entrusted to him by God.
The prince was faced with a terrible geopolitical rift — astonishingly similar to the present one.
The West offered assistance, splendid alliances, and a 'civilisational choice', but it demanded the
most important thing — to betray Orthodoxy, renounce the faith of the ancestors. Some
contemporaries of the prince followed that path. But did apostasy help them? It was a salvation of
the body at the cost of the death of the soul.
The East demanded obedience and tribute, but it did not meddle in faith or encroach on the
Church.
Prince Alexander made a choice which many considered to be insanity. He rejected an alliance
with the West because the price was unacceptable — to adopt Catholicism. And he bent his knee
before the East — not out of fear, not for gain, but for the preservation of the people and the
faith. Almost all of the princes of Rus' underwent such a humiliation. Vae victis! And the times
were dark: the Tatars went through Rus' and half of Europe, reached the Adriatic, and subjugated
many mighty states.
Alexander's ardent brother Andrey Yaroslavich, Prince of Vladimir, tried to oppose the Horde —
and was defeated at Pereslavl. That was followed by punitive expeditions, murder, and the
sending of thousands of the Orthodox into slavery. Alexander, in turn, realised all the difficulty of
the moment and tried to preserve people and lands but first of all the rights of the Orthodox
Church. He understood: a loss of power is a trouble yet a correctable one; a loss of the Church is
death forever.
His trips to the Horde, which were humiliating for a prince, were not a humiliation but a feat — a
bloodless martyrdom. He broke himself so that his people would not be broken. He took the blow
so that cities would not be ruined and Orthodoxy would not be destroyed.

What a striking difference from the actions of the contemporary minions! For more than ten years
now, Ukraine has been forced to make the opposite choice: to renounce the faith of the ancestors,
destroy her Church, rewrite history, sell not only land but also soul itself for dubious political
alliances and empty promises, only to get new slavery — external and internal — in exchange.
Authorities which struggle against their people and the people's spiritual foundation cannot be
called defenders of the Motherland. They are merely usurpers and minions.
The story of the Right-Believing Prince Alexander clearly says, 'God is not in might but in right.'
Everything built on lies, gain, and hatred will inevitably fall — no matter how self-confidently it
stands. And what is erected on the firm foundation of faith and the truth will stand for ages.
The lifepath of the prince ended not in gold and glory but in a monastic schema. The name Alexy,
received by him before his passing away, shows: his heart belonged not to an earthly throne but to
God alone. Power was not a privilege for him but obedience — a sacrifice for the sake of his
people.
May the prayers of the Holy Prince Alexander, our common heavenly intercessor, sober at least a
little bit, if not bring to reason, those who so unthinkingly raise their arms against the spiritual
pillars of the people and the Holy Church of Christ today.
And may God give all of us the courage to keep faithfulness to the Truth — calmly, firmly, and till
the end, like the Right-Believing Prince Alexander did.
Happy feast, dear brothers and sisters!