St. Vasily the Blessed lived in the reign of Ivan the Terrible. While still a youth, he left home and took upon himself an ascetic feat of Fool-for-Christ.

Vasily had no possessions and wore no garments, going about naked both in summer and in winter and thus humbling his body and soul.

The saint strove to instill a pious way of life among people around him; he foretold calamities, miraculously saved the afflicted, and helped everyone, from the czar to an ordinary person, with his advice.

The righteous man’s fame eventually reached the royal family. Ivan the Terrible himself more than once witnessed extraordinary miracles worked by the saint.

One day the czar invited Vasily to his palace to celebrate his name day. When drinks were offered to the saint, he poured them out of the window three times. Ivan the Terrible was enraged, but Vasily explained to him that he was thus extinguishing a fire that was raging in Novgorod right at the time.

The czar did not believe the saint and sent a courier to Novgorod. The local residents told him about a terrible fire that had enveloped the entire city and about a naked man who poured water on the flaming fire. The fire immediately abated and went out.

On another occasion, the saint saved a Persian ship sailing across the Caspian Sea from sinking. As the wind grew stronger and the waves began to crash over the deck of the ship, the voyagers abandoned any hope of being saved.

At the time, Orthodox Christians recalled St. Vasily the Blessed to mind. No sooner had they called his name than they saw the saint, who took the ship’s helm and began to steer her amidst the turbulent waves.

Soon the waves and the wind subsided, and everyone escaped death. Later on, the Persians who had then survived arrived in Moscow on some commercial business and, having come across St. Vasily the Blessed in the street, recognized him as their rescuer.

After Vasily passed away on August 2 (August 15, New Style), 1557, the royal family accompanied the coffin containing the saint’s body on its journey to the place of his burial at the walls of the Cathedral of the Protecting Veil, which was then under construction. Soon he was canonized.

The fame of the miracles worked by the Moscow fool-for-Christ in his lifetime and those that happened at his reliquary spread throughout the country. The saint’s name became the second name of the Cathedral of the Protecting Veil.