Myths and legends of Kyrgyzstan

An apostle and evangelist Matthew

Some arguments about a place of burying of some relics of saint apostle Matthew in Issyk-Kul haven’t died down yet.
A church tradition says that Matthew`s body, after being killed cruelly, was hidden by his followers from being outraged .There is a version that the place of his burying was at the beach of Issyk-Kul. This is a point of view of Metropolitan Tashkent and Central-Asian Vladimir .He says about this undeniable fact: “The sanctity was kept in an abbey, located at the beach of Issyk-Kul and all Christian world knew about this fact”. Saint Matthew is one of the most enigmatic Christian characters. The place of his grave hasn’t been identified for 2 centuaries. Several countries claimed having Matthew relics.
Italians alleged that the relics of the evangelist after his deaf immediately came to the Apennines peninsula in the 1 century and now they are still in a cathedral San-Matteo in Salerno city. The representatives of Catholic Church inclined to consider that the body of the apostle was found out while an excavation of one Lang bard castle.
Nowadays the cathedral castle San-Matteo is included into all catholic guides for many palmers. However there haven` been any documents for conformation this fact until now.
As for the official Vatican, it`s representatives claim: “According to an old catholic tradition, the relics in Salerno are the relics of the apostle Matthew”. Thereby, it wasn`t alleged that the relics are certain relics of Matthew.
The eastern version. In the middle of XIX century Russian scientist Semenov Tian-Shansky, finding himself in Venetia, had an opportunity to study so called katalon world map, had made in 1375-1377 years by Abraham and Iegudi Kreskes. There was a building with a cross and if what was depicted is true, the building was on the north beach of Issyk-Kul lake. The inscription nearby said: “The place, called as Issyk-Kul .There is a monastery of armenian brothers there , where the relics of saint Matthew, apostle ands evangelist, are tombed”. First this map was translated into the Russian by Semenov Tian-Shansky.
It is noteworthy that the building with the cross was connected with Jerusalem by straight line on the map. While traveling around Turkestan, Semenov Tian-Shansky was trying to find “the monastery or Armenian brothers”. He heard a lot of legends about a drowned town from Issyk-Kul kyrgyz people. The local people showed him some different findings from the floor of the lake. The monastery wasn`t found, but Semenov Tian-Shansky came up with an idea that the abbey existed in the area of Kurmentinskaya bay and was drowned in due course.
Matthew - the only apostle, who’s deaf is covered by a pall of suspense. And his relics haven`t been found until our days.
There is a place “Svetlyi Mys”on the north beach of Issyk-Kul lake, in the area of Tyupsky bay.
There is Kurmenty village there (old name is “Belovodskoe”). There was Svyato-Troitsky orthodox male monastery on “Svetlyi Mys”.
It is interesting that not far from that place where was the ancient Armenian monastery, later in 1882 – was established Svyato-Troitsky monastery. Nowadays there are only 2 buildings (refectory and tabernacle, made from so a solid wood that it is hard to cut it with an ax. There is an orphanage there nowadays.
A head of the orphanage told a miracle story, that one day she saw a dream: a bright column of light appeared from under the roof and crossed the darkness. In a moment it turned into a flaming cross. In the morning the woman told about this dream to some neighbors. It turned out that a lot of people saw that event indeed. Many people of Tyupsky region watch some flaming crosses above the assumed place of buried relics of Matthew.
While shootings, some operators of American television company, specializing on making movies about enigmatic events, found out some remains of ancient monastery on the floor of the lake and also a catacomb.
The scientist, who were in that expedition, alleged, that they determined a metal subject, which is similar to a feretory for the relics on the deep 24 meters by an up-to date equipment.

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