A prince of Kyivan Rus’ murdered in 1015, venerated with his brother Gleb as among the first native saints of Russian and Ukrainian Christianity.

Saint Boris was a layman of Kyivan Rus’ martyred in Kyiv, in present-day Ukraine, in 1015, killed together with his brother Saint Gleb in the succession violence that followed their father’s death. The brothers became the first saints formally venerated within the newly Christianized lands of Kyivan Rus’.

Quick Facts

• Died: 1015, in Kyiv, Ukraine
• Brother: Saint Gleb
• Venerated as: Lay martyr

Who Was Saint Boris?

Boris was a layman, a prince of Kyivan Rus’, killed in 1015 during the violent struggle for succession that followed the death of his father, Vladimir the Great, who had brought Christianity to Kyivan Rus’ a generation earlier. He died together with his brother Gleb, and their deaths were quickly interpreted by their community as innocent, faith-filled martyrdom rather than mere political murder.

Historical Setting

Kyivan Rus’ had only recently accepted Christianity as its state religion when Boris and Gleb were killed, making their deaths especially significant to a young Christian community still forming its own tradition of sanctity. Their willingness, as later accounts describe it, to accept death rather than resist their brother’s forces became a foundational story of this newly Christian land.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Boris

He is remembered, together with Gleb, as among the very first saints venerated natively within Kyivan Rus’, a foundational pair whose martyrdom came to symbolize humility and nonresistance to violence for the sake of peace within a still-young Christian nation.

Canonization and Feast Day

No formal canonization process for Boris is recorded in the Western sense; his veneration, together with Gleb, rests on the ancient and immediate recognition given by the Church in Kyivan Rus’ itself, a recognition later received into the wider Church’s memory.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Boris’s willingness, as tradition holds, to accept death rather than take up arms against his own brother offers a stark model of nonviolence and trust in God even amid the deadly ambitions of one’s own family.

A Prayer to Saint Boris

Saint Boris, martyr who chose peace over violence even at the cost of your life, help us to resist the temptation to answer harm with harm. Amen.

Sources

• Roman Martyrology
• Primary Chronicle of Kyivan Rus’