Can't be a saint if drowned?

Factual Questions
1

I was watching a show that described the death of Rasputin. That it was reported that despite being poisoned, shot, stabbed, and beaten, when they tied him up, put him in a sack, and threw him in a river he was still alive - they figured it out because he’d managed to struggle out of his bindings before drowning.

But some historians cast doubt on that explanation, giving one possible reason that there was concern that due to his ties to the royal family, Rasputin might be made a saint - and so to prevent this, his enemies made up the story about drowning because “you couldn’t be a saint if you died by drowning.”

Is there any truth to this? If so, what’s the reasoning?

2

Perhaps the Russian Orthodox have different rules for canonisation, but at least one Catholic saint, Saint John Nepomucene, drowned.

3

I’m pretty sure that’s witch. You can’t be a witch if you drowned.

4

More swimming-impaired Catholic saints:

Saint Stratonicus - drowned in the River Danube in 315

Saint Phocas of Antioch - drowned in his bath c.320 at Antioch

Saint Hermylus - drowned in the River Danube in 315

Saint Basileus of Amasea - Bishop of Amasea in Pontus. When he was killed in the Licinius persecutions by being thrown into the sea to drown, one of his disciples was directed to his body by an angel so it could be recovered and given Christian burial.

Saint Hieronides - drowned c.300 at Alexandria, Egypt

5

What the heck was going on in 315 the 2 Saints both drowned in the Danube?

6

Perhaps a spring or autumn flood? Maybe they were both traveling together as well?

7

Apparently, if you follow the link to Saints.SQPN.com, St Stratonicus was the servant of St Hermylus, and they were martyred in the same persecution.

8

Once again it seems there is a perfectly logical explanation that just didn’t occur to me.

9

But only after he was “burned, then tied to a wheel and thrown off a bridge into the Moldau River on 20 March 1393…”

Religious persecution just isn’t what it used to be.

10

First one I thought of, too. There’s a little cross inlaid on the Charles Bridge at the spot where he was supposedly thrown over.

11

This sounds like a reverse of the reasoning that a witch could not drown, and so you would throw a suspected witch in a body of water - if the body sank, the person wasn’t a witch. Maybe the historians are mistaken. (Or Rasputin’s murderers were checking to see if he had the same weight as a duck, another well-known method for determining witchraft) Another guess - if he was a saint, God would have rescued him and he wouldn’t have drowned?

P.S. I was interested to see a mention of St. John Nepomucene. Just recently I was back in Switzerland and saw a statue of him on a bridge in the small town of St. Ursanne. Now I know why - the link given by Fear Itself shows that he is the parton saint of bridges.

12

I haven’t heard the he can’t be a saint if he drowned line. However, one could argue that his struggling could disqualify him. Supposedly, Thomas A Kempis’, a Catholic monk and write of " The Imitation of Christ," canonization process is on permanent hold because of what happened due to his premature burial. When his body was later exhumed, scrath marks were found on the coffin. They concluded that if he had truly loved God and was close to seeing Him, why would he fight?

13

Probably because be couldn’t breath I’m guessing.

14

drowning doesn’t stop one from being a saint as far as i know. the saints mentioned above dating before 1054 ad would be saints in both churches, as they hadn’t formally split.

not drowning, by virtue of walking on water would give a person a bit of a head start on the sainthood path, ie mary of egypt.

15

Part of his celebrity was his reputation as a faith-healer and miracle-worker. Death by something as mundane as drowning would cast doubt on his supernatural credentials.