Saint Euphrosyne Grand Princess of Moscow

A princess of Suzdal in the house of Moscow

Eudokia was the daughter of Dmitry Konstantinovich, Grand Prince of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod. Her marriage to Dmitry Donskoy bound together two of the leading princely houses of north-eastern Rus' and helped quiet the rivalry between Moscow and Suzdal during the decades in which Moscow rose to primacy among the Russian principalities.

Within the Moscow court she came under the spiritual influence of leading churchmen of her age. The sources name Saint Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow, and Saint Sergius of Radonezh, who by tradition baptized one of her sons, among those who guided her household.

Hidden asceticism beneath royal state

Though she lived outwardly in the splendor proper to a grand princess, the tradition relates that Eudokia kept a hidden ascetic life. During Lent she is said to have worn chains in secret beneath her royal garments, concealing her self-discipline from those around her so that her almsgiving and fasting would not be seen.

After the death of her husband she gave herself more fully to works of mercy and to the founding and adornment of churches. Her best-known foundation, the Ascension Convent in the Kremlin (established 1387), became the customary burial place of the grand princesses of Moscow; sources also associate her with the building of the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in Moscow.

Tonsure, repose, and veneration

Having raised her sons, the princess received the monastic tonsure with the name Euphrosyne and entered the Ascension Convent she had founded. She reposed on July 7, 1407, and was buried there. She was later canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church and is commemorated on May 17 and July 7. Her relics rested in the Ascension church in the Kremlin until the convent's destruction in the Soviet period.