“The Story of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” in brief
In the city of Murom, Prince Paul ruled. To his wife, the devil sent a flying serpent to fornication. He appeared to him in his form, and to other people he seemed Prince Paul. Princess in all confessed to her husband, but he did not know what to do. He told his wife to ask the serpent what death could come from. The serpent told the princess that his death would be “from Petrov’s shoulder, from Agrikaneme.”
The prince had a brother named Peter. He began to think how to kill the serpent, but did not know where to take Agrikov’s sword. Once in the church of the Vozdvizhensky Monastery the child showed him the Agrikov sword, which lay in the gap between the stones of the altar wall. The prince took the sword.
Once Peter came to his brother. He was at home, in his room. Then Peter went to his daughter-in-law and saw that his brother was already sitting beside her. Paul explained that the serpent knows how to accept his appearance. Then Peter told his
Peter’s body was covered with sores, he fell seriously ill, and no one could cure him. The patient was brought to Ryazan land and began to look for doctors there. His servant came to Laskovo. Entering one house, he saw a girl weaving a cloth. It was Fevronia, the daughter of a tree-dweller, who extracts honey. The young man, seeing the wisdom of the girl, told her about the misfortune that befell his master.
Fevronia replied that she knew a doctor who could cure the prince, and suggested that Peter be brought to her house. When this was done, Fevronia volunteered to undertake the treatment herself, if Peter took her as his wife. The prince did not take her words seriously, for she did not consider it possible to marry the daughter of a dwarf, but promised to do so in case of healing.
She gave him the vessel of her bread sourdough and told him to go to the bath, to anoint all the sores with leaven, except one. Peter,
The next morning he woke up healthy-there was only one plague on the body-but he did not fulfill his promise to marry Fevronia, but sent her gifts. She did not accept them. The prince went to the city of Murom, but his ulcers multiplied and he was forced to return to Fevronia with shame. The girl healed the prince, and he took her as his wife.
Paul died, and Peter began to rule Murom. Boyars did not like Princess Fevronia because of her origin and slandered Peter. One person told, for example, that Fevronia, getting up from the table, collects crumbs into her hand like a hungry one. The prince told his wife to dine with him. After dinner the princess gathered crumbs from the table. Peter unclasped her hand and saw in her incense.
Then the boyars directly told the prince that they did not want to see Fevronia as a princess: let her take herself what she wants wealth and leave Murom. They repeated the same thing at the feast of Fevronia itself. She agreed, but she only wanted to take with her husband. The prince followed God’s commandments and therefore did not part with his wife, although he had to renounce the principality at the same time. And the boyars were happy with this decision, because each of them wanted to be the ruler himself.
Peter and Fevronia sailed from the city along the Oka River. On the ship where Fevronia was, there was another man with his wife. He looked at Feb-ronia with a certain thought. And she told him to scoop up water on the right and left side of the boat and drink. And then I asked which water is more delicious. Hearing that the same, Fevronia explained: the same is the nature of the woman, so there is nothing to think about someone else’s wife.
A meal was prepared on the shore, and the cook knocked out small trees to hang boilers on them. And Fevronia blessed these trees, and in the morning they became big trees. Peter and Fevronia were going to go further. But then the grandees from Murom came and asked the prince and the princess to come back to rule the city.
Peter and Fevronia, having returned, ruled meekly and fairly.
The spouses implored God to die at the same time. They wanted to be buried together and told to cut two coffins in one stone, which had only a partition between them. At the same time, the prince and the princess took monastic vows. Peter received in monasticism the name David, and Fevronia became Euphrosyne.
Euphrosyne embroidered the air for the temple. And David sent a letter to her: he was waiting for her to die together. The nun asked him to wait until she finished embroidering the air. In the second letter, David wrote that he could not wait long, and in the third, that he could not wait any longer. Then Efrosinia, having finished embroidering the face of the last saint, did not finish the clothes, she sent word to David that she was ready for death. And, praying, they both died on June 25.
Their bodies were placed in different places: David – at the cathedral church of the Theotokos, and Euphrosynia – in the Vozdvizhensky women’s monastery. And their common coffin, which they themselves commanded themselves to be wrought, was placed in the Church of the Theotokos.
The next morning their separate coffins were empty, and the bodies of the saints were “in one coffin.” People re-buried them as before. Next morning they found them again in a coffin. Then people did not dare touch the bodies of saints anymore, and after fulfilling their will, they were buried together in the cathedral church of the Nativity of the Virgin. Those who faithfully come to their relics receive healing.
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