The Day of Russian Saints Pyotr and Fevronia is also known as Day of Family, Love and Faithfulness, officially introduced in Russia in 2008. The Orthodox patrons of marriage Pyotr and Fevronia inspired the artist Alexander Prostev to illustrate their story. According to the Life, Prince Pyotr Muromskii entered the throne in 1203. A few years before that, he was afflicted with leprosy, from which no one could cure him. In the dream, the prince discovered that the daughter of a beekeeper Fevronia can heal him. Fevronia lived in a peasant village in the Ryazan land.
Prince loved Fevronia for her piety, wisdom, and goodness, and vowed to marry her when healed. The girl cured the prince but he did not keep his word. Then again he was defeated by the disease and Fevronia cured him once again. And this time the duke married the girl.
However, when Peter inherited reign after his brother, nobles did not want to have a simple girl to have a title of princess and demanded that the prince divorced. But he chose to voluntarily relinquish power and wealth, and departed with his wife in exile. But in Murom turmoil began, the boyars called Prince back. Prince and Princess returned, ruled long and earned the love of the people.
In old age, they took vows in different convents with the names of David and Euphrosinya, prayed to God to die the same day, and to be buried together in a coffin with a thin partition in the middle. They died each in his cell the same day and hour – July 8 (old style – June 25) 1228.
But people have recognized the wicked to burry the monks in one coffin and have broken the will of the dead: their bodies were placed in the different realms. But the very next day they were found together. Twice their bodies were carried out to the different churches, but twice they miraculously were found side by side. And the spouses were buried together in the city of Murom at the cathedral church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.
Since that time the history of the spouses of Pyotr and Fevronia is the embodiment of the unquenchable love and loyalty and every year on 8 July the Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of Saints Peter and Fevronia. Peter and Fevronia of Murom were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1547. Their relics are now in the Holy Trinity monastery in Murom.
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