Relics to the Front: Faith in Miracles Versus the Reality of War

A medieval warrior prince, a Kremlin restoration project and relics that may be headed for the battlefield: the rediscovery of Dmitry Donskoy’s remains has quickly become part of Russia’s wartime mythology. Church officials hope that sending part of them toward the front will help bring victory – despite the awkward precedent set by the relics of his great-great-grandfather, Alexander Nevsky, which reportedly went missing in a drone attack only last month.

Restoration work began in July at the Archangel Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin after the floor collapsed in several areas of the historic cathedral. The damage posed a risk to the tombstones covering the remains of the Grand Princes of Moscow.

Near the cathedral’s south wall, part of the brick crypt also had to be dismantled. In the second half of August, three white-stone sarcophagi were discovered there. Scientists confirmed that they contain the remains of Dmitry Zhilka, Prince of Uglich; Ivan II the Fair, Grand Prince of Vladimir; and his son Dmitry Donskoy, Grand Prince of Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stands next to the newly discovered remains of Dmitry Donskoy. Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik/Reuters

A Saint of the Rurik Dynasty

The first wooden church was built at the site of the discovery in 1248, 100 years after the earliest written mention of Moscow. A stone church replaced it in 1333. Dmitry Donskoy was born in 1350 and went on to rule in the second half of the 14th century.

The Russian Orthodox Church canonized him in 1988 for his “merits before the Church and the people of God”, on the 1,000th anniversary of the Christianization of Kievan Rus’, a medieval state centered on Kyiv, which flourished from roughly the 9th to the 13th centuries. Ukrainian and Russian traditions, however, commemorate the event on different dates in 988.

Dmitry Donskoy’s ancestors originally ruled from Kyiv. However, his branch of the Rurik dynasty gradually moved to the northeastern edge of the state, to the cities of Vladimir, Suzdal and later Moscow. This led to a gradual separation from the capital and, ultimately, to the formation of Muscovy and the Russian state.

Grand Prince Dmitry did not receive the epithet “Donskoy” until after his death, specifically during the reign of his descendant Ivan IV the Terrible, for the victory of the army of the Grand Principality of Moscow and its allies over the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo in September 1380.

The site of the battle is located between the Don, Nepryadva and Krasivaya Mecha rivers in the south of present-day Russia, with the Don River being the most significant of these. Although the battle did not end Mongol rule, the Golden Horde gradually began to weaken, while Moscow grew stronger. The end of Mongol rule came in 1480 during the reign of Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow.

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A Descendant of Rurik?

Nikolai Makarov, director of the Institute of Archaeology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS that Dmitry Donskoy’s sarcophagus has a design typical of the late 12th through the 14th centuries. The remains belong to a well-built man 175 to 177 cm tall, aged 35 to 45, and bear signs of battle injuries.

According to him, the combination of historical sources, archaeological evidence and anthropological data leaves no doubt that the remains are indeed those of Dmitry Donskoy. However, scientists have taken a DNA sample from the remains. Only those results can confirm whether the prince actually belonged to the Rurik dynasty.

Although the discovery of the remains has revived interest in the Grand Prince of Moscow and his life, his 13th-century great-great-grandfather – Saint Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Vladimir – has held a far more significant place in the historical memory of the Russian people and in the official narrative of Russian history since Soviet times.

Paradoxically, the current Russian Patriarch Kirill praises Nevsky for having chosen “wisely” when he submitted to the Golden Horde in order to lead the fight against enemies from the West. Russian President Vladimir Putin takes a similar view of Alexander Nevsky’s reign, a fact that opponents of the regime pointed out in 2024 when Putin bowed before a statue of Genghis Khan in Mongolia.

“Let’s recall what happened in the time of, for example, Alexander Nevsky. After all, he went to the Horde, bowed to the khans of the Horde and received a yarlyk [a Mongolian permit to rule, ed.], primarily so that he could effectively resist an invasion from the west”, Putin said on National Unity Day in 2023.

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Back into the Fray

On 19 August, Metropolitan Kirill, namesake of Patriarch Kirill, head of the Synodal Military Department, expressed his hope that part of Dmitry Donskoy’s remains would be taken in a vessel he had consecrated to the area of the “special military operation” – the term the Russian regime uses to describe the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

According to him, this step “must lead in the near future to victory”, since the Grand Prince of Moscow will be at the head of the army. The local Orthodox Church supports the proposal. A small portion of the relics will be sent to other Russian churches.

Well-known Russian bloggers who have long backed the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine also support moving the relics closer to the front lines.

However, the Russians can only hope that Dmitry Donskoy’s relics fare better than those of his great-great-grandfather. In July, part of Alexander Nevsky’s relics was reportedly lost in a drone attack while being transported through the Russian-occupied Donetsk region for a prayer service intended to help overcome Russia’s fuel crisis. Three Russian servicemen were reportedly killed in the attack.