died 1392
A man of a noble Novgorod family who, fleeing the praise of men, took up the path of folly for Christ, and by his feigned quarrels with another holy fool rebuked the strife of the warring sides of the city.
The Holy and Blessed Nicholas Kochanov, Fool-for-Christ of Novgorod
Blessed Nicholas Kochanov was a fourteenth-century fool-for-Christ of Novgorod, born into a rich and illustrious family of the city. Pious from his youth, he attended church faithfully and devoted himself to fasting and prayer, but when the citizens of Novgorod began to praise his virtuous conduct he took up the difficult ascetic path of folly for Christ's sake in order to flee the glory of men.
Clad in rags, he ran about the city through bitter cold and summer heat, enduring beatings, insults, and mockery. Together with a fellow holy fool, Blessed Theodore of Novgorod, he is remembered above all for the pair's feigned public quarrels, which dramatized and rebuked the destructive civic strife that divided the city into warring quarters. He reposed in 1392.
Recognizing that his fellow citizens praised his evident piety, Nicholas rejected this earthly recognition and embraced the path of a fool-for-Christ. He roamed Novgorod dressed in rags, bearing beatings, insults, and mockery through the seasons of cold and heat. The accounts relate that the Lord glorified him with the gifts of miracles and clairvoyance.
Nicholas lived on the Sophia side of Novgorod, while Blessed Theodore, his fellow fool-for-Christ (commemorated January 19), was associated with the opposite Torgov quarter. The two were spiritually in agreement with one another, yet in public they pretended to be irreconcilable foes. When Theodore crossed the bridge over the Volkhov River to the Sophia side, Nicholas would push him back over to the Torgov side, and Theodore would do the same whenever Nicholas ventured into the Torgov quarter.
By this unusual behavior the two blessed ones reminded the people of Novgorod of the folly of their own internecine strife, which often ended in bloody skirmishes between the warring sides of the city. According to the accounts, during one such encounter Nicholas went along the Volkhov as if on dry land and threw a head of cabbage at Theodore — an incident traditionally connected with his epithet 'Kochanov,' understood to mean 'cabbage-head.'
The accounts attribute to Nicholas the gifts of miracles and clairvoyance. It is related that when the servants of a household turned him away from a feast, the wine afterward vanished from the barrel and reappeared only through the saint's prayer.
Nicholas reposed in 1392 and was buried at the end of the cemetery by the Yakovlev cathedral in Novgorod. His relics now rest under a crypt in the church of the Great Martyr Panteleimon.