Venerable Daniel of Pereslavl

Venerable Daniel of Pereslavl (baptized Demetrius) was born around 1460 in Pereslavl-Zalessky. As a youth he secretly left with his brother Gerasim for the Pafnutiev-Borovsk Monastery, where he was formed in monastic life. Returning to Pereslavl, he devoted himself to works of mercy: he sought out the bodies of travelers slain by robbers, the drowned, and the homeless frozen on the roads, carried them himself to the paupers' burial ground, and buried them according to Christian custom. On the site of that cemetery he built a church of All Saints, later founding the Holy Trinity-St. Daniel Monastery. He served as godfather at the baptism of the sons of Grand Prince Vasili III — the future Tsar Ivan the Terrible and his brother George. He reposed in extreme old age in 1540, and in 1652 his incorrupt relics were uncovered and glorified.