St Symeon, Bishop of Tver (+1289)

Saint Symeon, Bishop of Tver, descended from the family of the princes of Polotsk, was the seventh Bishop of Polotsk and the first bishop of the diocese of Tver. The hierarch’s see was at first in Polotsk, but the hostile attacks of the Lithuanian prince and the unrest, and in 1263 the treacherous murder of the prince of Polotsk, forced the saint to move his residence to Tver (the prince of Tver, Yaroslav Yaroslavich, had at that time become grand prince and chosen Tver as his capital).

The blessed Symeon, a hierarch of a lenient and merciful character, was distinguished by the greatest firmness and love of justice. History has preserved the saint’s conversation with Prince Constantine of Polotsk. The prince wished to mock his judge, and at dinner asked the hierarch: “Where will judges be in the next world?” Symeon answered: “The judge will be where his prince is.” Constantine did not like the answer: “The judge judges unjustly, takes bribes, torments people; but what wrong do I do?” “If the prince is good and God-fearing, he will love justice too, and will appoint as judge a man like himself, good and God-fearing, wise and a lover of justice. Then both the prince and the judge will be in paradise. If the prince has no fear of God, does not pity Christians and does not think of orphans and widows, he will choose as judge an evil and senseless man only in order to gain profit from him. Such a prince will be in hell, and the judge with him,” the venerable father explained.

Saint Symeon died on 3 February 1289.