Vasily Kalika

Vasilii Kalika (Russian: Василий Калика) was Archbishop of Novgorod the Great and Pskov from 1330 to 1352. He is in large part responsible for reinvigorating the office after it had fallen into decline to some extent following the Mongol Invasion.

His baptismal name was originally Grigorii and he had been a priest of the Church of Cosmas and Damian on Slave Street north of the Detinets in Novgorod before his archiepiscopate. The name Kalika means "pilgrim" in Russian (there is another word, Palomnik) and indicates that he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land sometime prior to his archiepiscopate. He, in fact, mentions this in a famous letter he wrote to Bishop Fedor of Tver' in 1347 which has been inserted into two Russian chronicles, the Sofia First Chronicle and the Novgorod Second Chronicle. In one redaction of the Novgorodian First Chronicle, he is referred to as Kaleka (rather than Kalika, Church Slavonic: Калѣка), a word meaning "lame" or "cripple." Thus, he is sometimes referred to as "Vasilii the Lame" in some hagiographic literature, although the vast majority of scholars consider his surname to be Kalika; if he was lame, there is no other indication of it in the sources.

Vasilii was elected by the Novgorodian veche after the retirement of Archbishop Moisei (1325–1330; 1352–1359). At the time of his election, he was a monk at the Holy Angels' Monastery in Novgorod. The following year, he was sent to Vladimir-in-Volynia to be consecrated by Metropolitan Feognost, who lived in Volynia for several years. According to a Greek-language register, Vasilii was then canonically-elected from among three candidates by a council of bishops there in Volynia.

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