Litany of Saints
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John of Rila

Bulgarian hermit (876–946)

SaintBulgariaPre-congregation

Feast: 18 August (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)

Born
876
Died
946
Beatified
not needed: before formal processes
Canonised
By tradition
recognised before formal processes began

Who they were

Saint Ivan of Rila, also known as Ivan Rilski (Bulgarian: Свети преподобни Иван Рилски Чудотворец, romanized: Sveti prepodobni Ivan Rilski Chudotvorets, lit. 'Saint John of Rila the Wondermaker'; c. 876 – 18 August 946), was the first Bulgarian hermit. He was revered as a saint while he was still alive. The legend surrounding him tells of wild animals that freely came up to him and birds that landed in his hands. His followers founded many churches in his honor, including the famous Rila Monastery. One of these churches, Saint John of Rila was only discovered in 2008 in the town of Veliko Tarnovo.

Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), until this page is written up in full.

The miracles

Limited information available on this saint.

Why that counted as sanctity

Limited information available on this saint.

Sources
  • Wikidata Q351805 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
  • English Wikipedia — John of Rila (CC BY-SA)

Not yet written up in full: no Church source with an account of this person has been found yet. The name, dates and step come from Wikidata and are not yet checked against Church records.

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