Holy Mother Agafia the Wonderworker of Cușelăuca

Saint Agafia of Cușelăuca

Gentle readers of my blogs, I apologise. I have been struggling with some fairly severe health problems as of late, including a stay in the hospital, and I haven’t been able to put up much of anything by way of content for the past month or so, absent one or two hagiographical pieces. I hope that I am well enough now that I can get back to blogging on a regular basis.

Yesterday was the new calendar feast day of Blessed Agafia of Cușelăuca, a wonderworking monastic saint of Moldova. She spent most of her years in one of the poorest monasteries in one of the poorest parts of Europe. Although she spent most of her life in a state of pain and bodily infirmity, she continued to be sweet, kind and patient to all who met her, and healed many who came to her with their own pains and disabilities.

Agafia Maranciuc [Ru. Агафия Маранчук] was born in the year 1819, in the village of Păsățel. This Moldovan village is situated between the Bug and the Dneister, very close to the city of Odessa. Her parents, Ioan and Eudochia, were highly observant Orthodox Christians who strove to live a life of humility and service to God. They would on occasion visit holy sites nearby. On one occasion, when Agafia was only a little girl, her parents decided to take a pilgrimage to the Kiev Caves Lavra. Little Agafia begged her parents, with tears in her eyes, to be allowed to go with them. However, this was in a day and age when most pilgrimages were made on foot, and small children were at particular danger on the roads. Out of concern for her, Ioan and Eudochia decided to leave Agafia in the care of some family friends when they left for the Kiev Caves Lavra.

Agafia was not content with this. Aflame with the desire to visit the holy relics of the Russian saints in the Lavra, a few days after her parents left, she escaped her guardians’ care on her own and tried to catch up with her parents. However, as the little girl travelled by night and tried to make her way in the darkness, she fell into a deep abandoned well, mangling both of her legs. For three years, nothing was heard of her. Her guardians and parents were distraught when they learned of her disappearance, and they mourned for her, thinking she was dead. But little Agafia survived at the bottom of that well for those three years, miraculously sustained by the grace of God. Some testimonies assert that she was visited by the angels, and fed by manna from heaven during her imprisonment in the well.

She was eventually found by a local shepherd named Dimitriu Baciu. The grass was thick in the field around the well, and Dimitriu led his sheep there to graze. Once there, he began to sing Psalms to himself as he watched over his flock. As if in answer, he heard unearthly sweet angelic voices emanating from the well. Examining the well, he was shocked to find the young girl inside, alive, and having been there evidently for a long time. He managed to lift her out, and contacted her parents, who came to her. Her parents were astonished at this wonder of God, and when they asked the young sufferer how she survived those years, Agafia told them that a pair of pigeons had come to her, bringing her food and warming her to keep her alive. Being unable to walk, her parents placed Agafia in a cart and wheeled her back to their home.

Even though she was returned to her loved ones, who cared for her and looked after her with the greatest solicitude and affection, a change had come over Agafia. Formerly a curious and talkative child, Agafia had grown taciturn, and she spent several years in a state of silent prayer. The injury to her legs was severe, and she would never physically recover from it. In her childhood years, she suffered a great deal of pain and illness on account of this injury. Yet she did not become bitter because of it. Even though she was quiet, she continued to be kind and considerate to everyone, and she also was given by God the gift of healing others through her prayers. Word of this went out, and many came from the surrounding countryside to visit her, and she healed their afflictions and gave them helpful advice. Some years afterward, two monks from Athos visited Agafia at her parents’ house. They were astonished at the young woman’s patience and kindness even in her suffering, and after several discussions with her, they gave her a copy of the Holy Gospels printed on Athos, which was her constant companion for the rest of her life.

Agafia retired to Cușelăuca Monastery. As mentioned before, this was at the time the poorest monastery in Bessarabia, and consequently one of the poorest in all of Europe. Being completely bedridden, she still kept as much of the nuns’ rule as she was able in her infirmity, and did not vary it in the slightest using her disability as an excuse. She was given for her patience not only the gift of healing by God but also the gift of prophecy. She foresaw both the flourishing of her monastery, and later its persecution under the Soviets. In her final months she kept counsel with the abbess and with her monastic sisters, and urged everyone to carry their crosses in a spirit of peace and penitence. She had harsh rebukes for some of them, but she assured them of her love and prayed for them.

On the ninth of June – or rather the twenty-second of June on the new calendar – Blessed Agafia received the Gifts for the last time in this earthly life. Some witnesses report that after she took the elements, her face began to glow with an otherworldly light. She reposed in the Lord, at peace with her sisters and her family, that same day. Saint Agafia was formally glorified on the fifteenth of July, 2016, by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, at the request of Metropolitan Vladimir and the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Moldova. Her feast day is kept on the same day as her repose. Holy Mother Agafia, patient sufferer and kindly healer, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!

Cușelăuca Monastery, Moldova

Old Britain and the Balkans: similitudes of sanctity

I’ve observed several strong commonalities as I’ve explored the hagiographies of the old Celtic saints and the saints of Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. The style of monasticism which prevailed in each place is remarkably similar, with the Celtic style of monasticism privileging the lonely hermitage over the organised abbey. This style of monasticism is also prevalent in Romania and in Bulgaria even in modern times. This similitude presents itself in several ways in the hagiographies of these saints.

It is easy enough to see the commonalities, for example, between the hagiographies of Saint Melangell of Pennant and Saint Teodora of the Carpathians. Both women were engaged to men by their parents against their wishes, and sought out lonely hermitages in the wilderness when the time allowed; both were also quite close to nature and befriended wild animals. Equally so between Saint Illtud the Knight and Saint Prohor of Pčinja: both hermits protected deer from kingly hunters in their cells, and in turn served as mentors to the same kingly hunters, giving them spiritual guidance. And even the princes can sometimes appear similar! The abdication of the throne and resulting monastic obedience willingly undertaken by Saint Boris Mihail of Bulgaria mirrors the earlier monastic abdications of Celtic princes like Saint Elaeth, Saint Pabo and both Saints Custennin.

Bulgaria always has been remarkably westward-facing even among the Orthodox countries, going as far back as Boris Mihail. The position that Bulgaria occupied in the mediæval world as a buffer state between Byzantium and Francia ensured that certain forms of cultural exchange would be welcomed there. But this does not quite explain the similitudes between the animal-loving, near-to-nature, eremitical asceticism of the Celtic countries in the far chilly northwest of Europe, and the same phenomenon on the milder, more temperate southeast end of Europe.

What may explain it more thoroughly are the shared roots that each monastic tradition, the upper Balkan one and the Celtic one, have in the hermitages of the Ægyptian desert. William Dalrymple in his excellent book From the Holy Mountain explores the linkages between the early Ægyptian monastics and the saints of early Scotland and Ireland; Fr Gregory Telepneff also discusses this linkage in The Egyptian Desert in the Irish Bogs. Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania also received tutelage directly from the Ægyptian deserts in the Middle Ages, in the form of the leader of the hesychast movement Saint Gregory of Sinai, who spent the bulk of his life and took the Great Schema on that mountain, and only later in his life made the journey to Athos and then to Strandzha in Bulgaria. Hesychasm had a profound influence on the spirituality of the upper Balkans, and certainly influenced the character of the ascetics of the region.

The similarities of the Old British saints and the Balkan saints, however, should prompt reflection. More important than their shared roots are the lessons that we need to take from their lives. The kenotic, forgiving, nature-loving and wealth-renouncing nature of the Old British and Old Irish ascetics in particular ought rightly to be considered a part of the spiritual heritage of the English-speaking world, including North America. The saints whose example we venerate publicly, such as Saint Patrick, convey to us a distinctive spirituality. The Christianity which comes down to us from the Celts is distinguished by its love of nature, by its insistence of the immanence of God in all created things, by radical hospitality to the poor, by simplicity of spirit, by everyday prayer, by a particular care for children (especially orphans) and widows, and by a love for both Scripture and scholarship.

It strikes me that to honour this spiritual heritage correctly, we must defend the natural created order from destruction and sacrilege – and in particular defend our precious sources of clean fresh water. We must insist on the presence of God in that order. We must not only personally show hospitality and care for the poor, but also advocate for public policies that humanise the poor and working classes and treat them as worthy of life. We must aim for a greater simplicity of spirit – even, I will dare say, chastity – in our public and private lives. We must make space for prayer. We must make policies that encourage the healthy growth and flourishing of children, and which protect the most vulnerable – including the unborn. We should witness to such policies with the help of the Old Testament prophets and the founders of the Church. And we should exert ourselves to defeat the spirit of anti-intellectualism and anti-professionalism that continues to manifest itself in our culture.

Now, I understand that I tend to romanticise certain places, times and trends. And I understand quite well that Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Serbia and so forth are far from perfect. But a country that can publicly honour someone like Dobri Dobrev, who would likely be simply ignored here, clearly has something going for it. I would like to see a society that can begin to honour its Dobri Dobrevs again. That would be a good first step towards honouring the Christian heritage shared by Celtic, Balkan and Middle Eastern Christians.

Holy Hierarch Gavril, Archbishop of Chişinău and Hotin

Saint Gavril of Chişinău and Hotin

The thirtieth of March is the feast-day in the Orthodox Church of a great saint of Moldavia under the Russian Empire, Saint Gavril (Bănulescu-Bodoni) of Chişinău. A Romanian clergyman who served the Russian Church during a politically troubled period in the region’s history, Saint Gavril always showed his care and concern for the common people of Bessarabia and the edification and spiritual welfare of the Church and its clergy. Even though – then as now – the political struggle between the old Empire in Constantinople and the new Empire in Moscow raged with him in the middle, Saint Gavril never lost sight of what was important in his life and in the life of the Church. That is – the love of God and the love of his neighbours, whether Romanians or Russians. His life was marked by a self-giving pastoral ministry and missionary work, and he was not afraid to speak out on abuses within the Church, and called for greater autonomy of the Church from the Russian state.

Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni was born in the year 1746, in the Transylvanian town of Bistrița. His parents were from the town of Câmpulung Moldovenesc in Bukovina. He was twenty-five years of age when, in 1771, he went to study at Kiev Theological Academy, before he travelled for his studies to the Greek island of Patmos, Smyrna, and the Athonite monastery of Vatopaidi. He struck up a close friendship with polymath and ‘teacher of the Greek nation’ Nikēphoros Theotokēs, with whom St Gavril taught together at the Princely Academy of Iași in 1776.

Three years later, Saint Gavril was tonsured a monk in Constantinople, and travelled back to his homeland of Moldavia to serve in the Stratenia Church as a homilist in 1781. He taught philosophy and Greek language at the Slavic Seminary in Poltava in the Russian Empire. In 1784 he transferred to Iași again to serve under Metropolitan Gavriil (Callimachi), then to Huși as a parish priest. Saint Gavril was nominated to serve as the bishop of Romania; however, the Phanariot ruler of Moldavia barred him from consideration. During the ravages of the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-92, both Saint Gavril and the Phanariot prince Alexandru II Mavrocordat of Moldavia were compelled to flee to Russia together with a great many of the Moldovan people. He returned to Poltava and became the rector of the Seminary where he had once taught.

There were a number of administrative changes that were made to the Russian Church under Ekaterina ‘the Great’, among which were the reorganisation of diocæses in the Moldavian territories which came under Russian occupation against the Ottomans. Saint Gavril was appointed to one of these diocæses as Bishop of Cetatea Albă; eventually Saint Gavril was appointed Metropolitan of Moldavia. When the war ended and these territories reverted to the Ottomans, Patriarch of Constantinople Neophytos VII attempted to remove Saint Gavril from his see, and resorted to force. He pleaded with the Ottoman Sultân to arrest Saint Gavril and haul him to Constantinople in June of 1792. Neophytos tried to cajole Saint Gavril with the offer of a bishopric in Greece, but Saint Gavril refused to give up his Russian citizenship (as he would have to have done to accept). It was only after the intercession of the skilful Russian-Tatar statesman and ambassador Prince VP Kochubei with the Ottoman Sultân that Saint Gavril was released from captivity. As we can unfortunately see from this sorry episode of Constantinopolitan persecution of a brother-bishop, the scandalous rivalry between the two sees has a long and ugly history.

Saint Gavril returned to Russia after his release from Ottoman imprisonment, held several bishoprics including in Crimea and Kiev, and joined the Holy Synod of Petrograd. He administered the anointment of the sick to the Tsarina on her deathbed.

The foregoing litany of appointments and elevations might give one the impression that Saint Gavril was a political climber within the Church, but his subsequent career shows that this was not the case. He did care deeply for his flock, and in general did not fear to tread on political toes within the Tsarist bureaucracy when the right of Christ’s Church was at stake. After a period of illness and temporary retirement in Odessa, Saint Gavril was appointed primate in the new Exarchate of Bessarabia, which was created out of the occupation of Bessarabia in 1806 and the Treaty of Bucharest between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1812. During this time – particularly from 1808 on – Bishop Saint Gavril took immediate action to: reduce the interference of the Tsarist bureaucracy in the life of the Church; safeguard the people of Bessarabia against abuses and predations by the warring military forces in the region – including the Russian military; and weed out the priests who were mere functionaries and hangers-on of the state bureaucracy in preference to those genuinely committed to serving the spiritual and earthly needs of the Moldavian people. For this period of activity in his career, Saint Gavril is particularly beloved by modern Moldovans both as a committed religious guide and mentor, and as an activist-bishop for a kind of popular justice.

In 1813 he petitioned Tsar Aleksandr I for an ukaz for the creation of a new eparchy encompassing Bessarabia and parts of what are now the southern Ukraine and Crimea. This ukaz was granted, and the new Archbishopric of Chişinău and Hotin was allowed to organise itself in accordance with local customs. Saint Gavril, together with the local boyars, managed to leverage this ukaz in order to establish an autonomous region – in which both the local Moldovan dialect of Romanian and Russian were used by the state. During this same year, Saint Gavril founded a Romanian-language printing press, and in 1817 he oversaw the foundations for the Nativity of Christ Metropolitan Cathedral in Chişinău as well as the Soborul Cathedral. He oversaw a Romanian translation of the New Testament in 1817, followed by one of the whole Bible in 1819 in Petrograd. The hard-working bishop reposed in the Lord in 1821, and was interred with honour in the Church of the Dormition at Mănăstirea Căpriana near Chişinău.

Saint Gavril was glorified by the Orthodox Church in Moldova in a ceremony at Mănăstirea Căpriana on the fourth of September, 2016. This was due in no small part to the efforts of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, who received a letter of thanks for his efforts in this glorification, as well as that of Saint Agafia Maranciuc whose feast we celebrate in June, from Moldovan President Igor Dodon. Holy hierarch Gavril of Chişinău, friend of the downtrodden and defender of the rights of Orthodoxy, pray unto Christ our God this day that our souls may be saved!

Nativity of Christ Metropolitan Cathedral, Chişinău, Moldova

Holy New Hieromartyr Seraphim Chichagov of Leningrad

Saint Seraphim of Leningrad

The eleventh of December [N.C.] is also the Orthodox feast day of the holy hieromartyr and sufferer under the Bolshevik yoke, Saint Seraphim of Leningrad. I plan to be paying careful attention to some of these ones who have been glorified by the Russian Church in the wake of the fall of Communism, both because they stood bravely for the faith during a time of intense persecution, and because they have unfortunately been coopted by ideological elements particularly in parts of the Russian ‘far diaspora’ which they would likely find objectionable. Saint Seraphim was a devoted follower of Saint John of Kronstadt, and held fast to the same fervent love of Christ over any ideology. That said, he insisted on love of neighbour in such a way that renders him a problem for any apologist for an earthly ideology. His prophetic words were issued more against the modernising, industrial-capitalist society that was breeding the Bolsheviks, against a Russian society that had lost its unique and vital and God-loving spirit, than against the Bolsheviks themselves.

Saint Seraphim [Ru. Серафим] was born Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov, on the ninth of January [O.C.], 1856 in the city of Saint Petersburg. He came from an illustrious military family, and most of the male members of his extended family had served in the Russian armed forces. His father, Mikhail Nikiforovich, was a Colonel in the artillery corps. Admiral Pavel Vasil’evich Chichagov and his father, the famed Arctic explorer Admiral Vasilii Yakovlevich Chichagov were members of Saint Seraphim’s extended family.

Young Leonid Mikhailovich followed in his family’s footsteps and joined the Imperial Page Corps. Immediately upon graduating he, like his father, became an artillery officer and saw action in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 (the same which concluded at San Stefano and resulted in Bulgarian independence), where he took part in nearly every major engagement, and fought with distinction. After the war he was made responsible for organising aid and medical care to war orphans, veterans and military families who had suffered losses. This assignment awakened his pity, and furthered his desire to study medicine. It was in this capacity that he met with a local priest, Saint John of Kronstadt – a meeting that influenced the entire course of his remaining life.

Leonid met and courted another young aristocrat, Natal’ya Dochturova, and married her when he was twenty-three years old. The two of them had four daughters together. He was not, however, a ‘freethinker’ following the spirit of the times, and even though he was an aristocrat he made sure that he himself, along with his wife and daughters, strictly observed the Orthodox prayers and fasts at home. He visited France and made a tour of the artillery units there, reporting on his findings to his superiors. He also began his medical studies in earnest, and conducted researches into applied herbalism in military field medicine.

Leonid Chichagov retired from active service in 1891, moved his family to Moscow, and – under Saint John’s advice and blessing – entered seminary in preparation to enter the priesthood. After two years of prayer and study, Leonid was ordained a priest at the Moscow Church of the Twelve Apostles. His first years as a priest were very difficult, however, as his wife Natal’ya suffered from an illness that claimed her life in 1895. Father Leonid had her buried in the Diveevo Monastery graveyard.

Much of Fr Leonid’s efforts in those early years were invested in his work on an ecclesiastical history of the Diveevo Monastery, and in particular his scholarly treatment of Seraphim of Sarov, which figured out to be the most important factor in that holy man’s glorification in Russian Orthodoxy. Saint Seraphim Chichagov considered this history of Diveevo to be one of his life’s most important monastic obediences, and in historical terms it is certainly one of his most significant works. Here is what he himself had to say about it:

After many years of being in the civil service, I became a priest in a small church located behind the Rumyantsev Museum. I decided to visit the Sarov monastery, the place of Venerable Seraphim’s spiritual struggles. I spent a few days in prayer and, while staying there, visited all of the memorable sites related to Venerable Seraphim’s life. From there, I moved to the Diveyevo monastery, which I liked a lot and where Venerable Seraphim, who cared so much about its nuns, was deeply loved. The Hegumenia received me warmly; we had lengthy conversations and she mentioned in passing that there were three monastics still alive who remembered the venerable father. They were two nun elders and nun Pelagia (born Paraskevi, Pasha). I was escorted to Pasha’s dwelling. As soon as I entered, Pasha, who was resting on her bed (she was really old and ailing by then), exclaimed: “It is so good you came, I have been waiting for you: Venerable Seraphim asked me to tell you that you have to report to the Emperor that the time has come to uncover his relics and announce his glorification.” I retorted that I have no social status to be accepted by the Emperor and relay to him in person what she has just told me. To that, Pasha responded: “I do not know anything as I am just the messenger delivering the Venerable one’s words.” Soon afterwards, I left the Diveyevo monastery. On my way back to Moscow, I kept coming back to what Pasha had told me. All of a sudden, a thought pierced my mind: I could write down all the nuns’ memories of Venerable Seraphim. I could also find other contemporaries and let them share their stories about him, or delve into the Sarov and Diveyevo monastery archives to find everything relating to his life and events that happened after his death. I could systematize all the memoirs, factual data and archival documents and materials chronologically, presenting a complete picture of the venerable father’s life and ascetic endeavors and their meaning for the religious life of the people. This work could then be printed and gifted to the Emperor thus fulfilling the venerable father’s will that Pasha so expressly delivered to me. My resolve was further cemented by the fact that the Tsar’s family, over their evening tea, would customarily share spiritual readings. I therefore hoped my book would be one of them. That is how an idea of writing the “Chronicle” was conceived.

Fr Leonid left his four daughters in the charge of a family friend, and discharged his duties to them for care and education. He also retired from the military chaplaincy. Having put his worldly affairs in order, he left the world in order to become a monk, and was tonsured with the monastic name of Seraphim, after the same Saint Seraphim of Sarov upon whose life he had lavished so much obedient attention. This happened at Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Moscow on the fourteenth of August, 1898. A year later, in 1899, he was appointed by the Russian Church to become the abbot of a run-down monastic house in Suzdal, the monastery of St Evfemii. He held this office for five years. Abbot Seraphim’s sound sense, administrative skill, and heartfelt love for the monks caused that monastery to flourish again, both materially and spiritually, for a time prior to the Revolution.

At this time he was given a vision of Seraphim of Sarov, whom he saw as though he were still alive. The saint thanked Archimandrite Seraphim for the chronicle of his life and of the life of the Diveevo Monastery, and then bade him ask whatever he would desire for his work. But the archimandrite merely held him and told him that so great was his rejoicing, that he desired nothing more than to be with him always. Seraphim gave him a nod and then vanished, after which Archimandrite Seraphim understood that he had been given a vision.

After this, the Archimandrite Seraphim began working in small steps toward the glorification of his namesake, of whom he had received a vision. Having listened to Archimandrite Seraphim’s discourse on the many virtues and the saintly character of Seraphim of Sarov, Tsar Nikolai II ultimately authorised a commission to conduct an examination of Seraphim of Sarov’s cause, and appointed the Archimandrite Seraphim to coordinate provisions for the pilgrims who would appear at the glorification. The uncovering of Seraphim of Sarov’s relics occurred on the twenty-ninth of January, 1903, and his glorification took place on the seventeenth of July the same year.

In April of 1905, Seraphim was consecrated a bishop of Sukhumi in the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow. The monastic father dedicated himself totally to the service of his flock, no matter where he went. In short order he became the bishop of Orël in 1906, and then the bishop of Chișinău in Moldova in 1908. His service in Moldova in particular is warmly and fondly remembered. Again he displayed his remarkable administrative skills, good sense and warm pastoral care for the people of Moldova, and a see that had been poor and underserved was put into good order and transformed from the ground up in the spirit of Christ.

It is while Saint Seraphim (Chichagov) was serving as bishop of Chișinău that he demonstrated his amazing spiritual insight and prophetically foresaw the revolution which was to come, which would engulf Russia and do horrendous damage to the Church. Although Russia was in a period of material flourishing, Saint Seraphim saw no cause for rejoicing. Within the Church Seraphim saw moral complacency, lax discipline, abuse of alcohol, corruption and collusion with money and power. He grieved to see that the spirit of capitalism had infected even the bishops and the clergy. He foresaw even that the common folk would revolt against the Church, and that the Church had missed its moment to repent and to call the state to repentance:

Everything has fallen apart. Educated society has lost all understanding of what Christianity is. Every day I can see before my eyes the ongoing corruption of our clergy. There is no hope at all that they will come to reason or understand their condition. Everywhere is drunkenness, debauchery, simony, extortion, and secular interests. The last remaining believers are trembling with repugnance over the condition of their clergy. And there is no one to finally realize just what brink of destruction the Church is standing on, or what is happening. The opportune time was missed. A disease of the spirit has taken over the entire state organism. The moment of recovery cannot recur, and the clergy is rushing headlong into an abyss, having no strength or desire to stop the process. Just one more year, just a little while, and there won’t even be simple folk left around us. They will all rise up and reject such insane and repulsive leaders. And what will happen to the state? It will perish along with us. It no longer makes any difference who is in the Synod, who is the procurator, what seminaries and academies there are—our agony and death are near.

Saint Seraphim had a rare gift for seeing beneath the surface of events and understanding the root causes. Similarly to Saint Andrei of Ufa and Saint John of Kronstadt themselves, Saint Seraphim was neither impressed nor cowed by displays of wealth and power. And – laudably for one born into the nobility, as he was! – he understood that the strength of the Church lay in the ‘simple folk’, not among the erudite and foreign-educated.

In 1912, Saint Seraphim was transferred to the see of Tver. In February of 1917 Saint Seraphim voiced his disapproval of the overthrow of Tsar Nikolai II and the subsequent social transformations that had accompanied the revolution, and he was therefore marked by the Bolsheviks as an enemy. After the October Revolution he was exiled from Tver. Patriarch Saint Tikhon attempted, unsuccessfully, to transfer the saintly bishop away from Tver and into Poland, but he was arrested by the NKVD in 1921 and sent into exile again in Archangelsk in 1923. He returned to Moscow the following year, but was soon involved in struggles against the Renovationist clergy who had taken control of the Church. He retired for a brief while to Shuya’s Resurrection Cathedral at the invitation of the abbess there; then he served as a bishop in the Leningrad diocæse where his presence served to bolster the faithful of the Church against the Sergianist compromise. He was forced into retirement in 1933 and sent into the countryside by the Soviet authorities. In 1937, as an ailing, elderly man, he was thrown into prison. A month later, the bedridden Seraphim had to be carried out on a stretcher to be shot by the NKVD at Butovo, and in this way he attained to the glory of martyrdom and the company of the saints. He was glorified by the Church of Russia on the twenty-third of February, 1997, sixty years after his death.

Saint Seraphim (Chichagov) is another one of the Russian New Martyrs whose legacy is quite a bit more complex, and much richer and deeper in its holiness, than many who venerate him (particularly abroad) appear to realise. Although he did not approve of the Revolution, it is clear that his prophetic gift made him much more a critic of the prevailing order prior to the Revolution than of the predictable situation that succeeded it. He did not once turn against the ‘simple folk’, and he is certainly not a straightforward ally of those who would attempt to rebuild a ‘white’ status quo ante in Russia today. Holy hierarch Seraphim, steadfast defender of Orthodoxy and bold speaker of the truth in good times and in evil ones, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Seraphim (Chichagov) of Leningrad, Tone 4:

By sharing in the ways of the Apostles,
You became a successor to their throne.
Through the practice of virtue, you found the way
To divine contemplation, O inspired one of God;
By teaching the word of truth without error, you defended the Faith,
Even to the shedding of your blood.
Hieromartyr Seraphim, entreat Christ God to save our souls.

Saviour Transfiguration Cathedral, St Petersburg, Russia

Venerable Antipa de la Calapodești, Schemamonk of Valaam

Saint Antipa de la Calapodești

Today is the feast-day in the Holy Orthodox Church of another of the great Romanian hesychasts – this time, one from the nineteenth century: Saint Antipa de la Calapodești, better-known as Saint Antipas of Valaam. Saint Antipa is much beloved on the Holy Mountain, and is well-known among the monks of Valaam Monastery in the oblast’ of Karelia in Russia. (He is also celebrated among the Orthodox believers in neighbouring Finland.) It is somewhat unfortunate that up until recently he had remained relatively unknown in his own native land, though this appears to be changing quickly.

Saint Antipa was born Alexandru Luchian, the son of deacon and choir director of the village church Gheorghe Constantin Luchian and his wife Ecaterina Manase, in the year 1816 in the village of Calapodești in Moldavia. His parents, who were both good decent working-class folks of peasant stock, struggled to conceive a child, and for many years God did not answer their prayers. When God saw fit to grant them Alexandru, his mother felt no pangs during the childbirth, and both parents were overjoyed with him.

Alexandru was not, however, the most ‘promising’ of children after the ways of the world. He was, so his hagiography says, slow and clumsy – and his marks in school were not particularly good. His teacher, who was frustrated with Alexandru’s poor performance, advised him to drop out of school and learn a trade. However, Alexandru was gifted with kindness and a meek and gentle heart. Animals did not fear him, and he was even able to pick up venomous snakes without risk of being bitten. He was also doggedly persistent, and with prayers to God and through hard work he continued to apply himself to reading and push himself through school. He particularly loved reading the lives of the saints, the Holy Fathers, the Gospels and the books of the Church. He had very nearly completed his course of study when he learned the news that his father Deacon Gheorghe had passed away, and his family was thrown into poverty.

To support himself and his widowed mother Ecaterina, Alexandru did learn a craft: the art of bookbinding. This trade gave him additional opportunity to learn wisdom and holiness from the Holy Fathers and the saints who loved Christ. His money problems were solved, but he was not satisfied with this life in a trade. At the age of twenty, however, while he was at prayer, he had a conversion experience and a sudden moment of clarity, being bathed in a miraculous divine light, and he left his home in secret to go to Neamț Monastery, and prayed before an icon of the Theotokos which was within the monastery chapel there. As he prayed, the Theotokos heard his prayers, and the curtains that shielded the icon from view drew themselves back although no one else but Alexandru was in the chapel. However, the abbot at Neamț Monastery refused to receive Alexandru as a postulant. His mother Ecaterina, at this time, also became a nun with the monastic name of Elisabeth.

Young Alexandru was therefore compelled to seek a monastic vocation elsewhere. He came to Vrancea, and he was admitted to a monastery nearby. Some sources say that this was Mănăsterea Căldărușani near Bucharest, but the more likely possibility appears to be that he entered the nearby Brazi Skete in Vrancea. (Some accounts have it that he spent some time first at one and then at the other.) At Brazi he witnessed the uncovering of the relics of the hieromartyr Saint Teodosie de la Brazi (22 Sep), and was ordained a novice (or rassaphore) by the Abbot Dimitrie with the name of Alimpie. He stayed in Vrancea for two years. At this time he became acquainted with an Athonite elder named Ghedeon, a recluse who lived close by the monastery, who taught him about the practice of hesychasm and instilled in the young monk Alimpie a desire for the life of inward prayer. He went to Abbot Dimitrie and made a request to visit Athos.

Normally the abbot, who was a monk of vast experience in spiritual striving and profound in his discernment, frowned upon such requests, seeing in them the seeds of spiritual vainglory. But in Alimpie’s case he astonished the brethren by allowing his request. Thus the rassaphore Alimpie departed for the Holy Mountain in Greece, seeking the wisdom of God in a foreign land but with his eyes ever on the homeland of all true Christians – the kingdom of God.

On Athos, at the Skete of Lacu, he met with two Romanian schemamonks named Nifon and Nectarie, but they would not allow him to join them in the wilderness, thinking it instead better for him to seek a cœnobitic community and live alongside other brethren of his own age and spiritual maturity and struggle against the passions together with them. He obeyed them readily, and he went to Esphigmanou Monastery, where he laboured in the kitchens preparing with his hands the brethren’s daily bread. Here he found himself struggling in particular against spiritual sloth and despondency, and found his inner prayer life to be dry and lifeless. Yet with trust in the Mother of God he endured.

Schemamonk Nifon took Alimpie as his spiritual son and entrusted him with the status of a full monk. As is customary for schemamonks, Alimpie was once more given a new name in Christ – Antipa. Nifon had long harboured a desire of building an Romanian monastery on Athos, and sought to enlist his new disciple Antipa in this worthy goal. However, Antipa was dedicated to living a hesychastic life in the desert, and he would not be deflected from his own purpose. Nifon, seeing that Antipa was insistent upon living a hermit’s life, gave his permission reluctantly. But he sent Antipa off with nothing to live on – no money, no food. Nevertheless, Antipa directed his prayers to the Mother of God and survived.

Saint Antipa took refuge in the ancient debris of another hermit’s hut, long since moved on, deep within the Holy Mountain. The walls were barely standing and there was no roof. There was nothing within of any value, except for one priceless thing. The hermit who had abandoned the hut had left, amid the rubble, a long-disused, blackened and weatherworn icon. Only a small undamaged portion of the face showed it to have been an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. Saint Antipa took up this icon, and went and found a certain deacon named Paisie, who was well-versed in iconography. Paisie told him that the best he could do was to teach him how to clean it. Saint Antipa made an effort, but he soon found that the icon fairly began to clean itself, and soon all of its features were not only restored, but this icon of the Mother of God shone even brighter than one newly painted!

In this way the Most Holy Theotokos showed her favour upon her devoted servant Saint Antipa. It so happened that on the road back to the hut he met a stranger, who greeted him cheerfully in Christ’s name and dropped five gold coins into Antipa’s hand, telling him that they had come from some good people who had besought him to make a gift of them to the first hermit that he met – that perhaps they would be of some use to him. And so Antipa went and used them to hire a carpenter to repair the old hut. The carpenter set about his work, but soon slipped and injured himself so that he couldn’t stand or even speak. Fr Antipa was not able to lift the stout worker into the hut, and so he left his icon of the Theotokos near the carpenter’s head and went off by himself to pray. When he returned he found the carpenter well and fully recovered and hard at work. Saint Antipa asked him what had happened, and the carpenter cheerfully replied that the icon had healed the wounds upon his body and his head, and restored him to health. The hut was soon finished, and Saint Antipa was able to lead his solitary life of prayer and quietude for a time.

However, Father Nifon’s plans to build a Romanian skete on Athos began to bear fruit. He had obtained the rights to a metochion at Bucium (essentially a monastic holding for rent or directly providing income) in Iași, and set to work building a monastery – the Prodromou Skete – from the funds he obtained. Antipa was given charge, firstly, of the monastery cellars. Later, as the monastery grew and Nifon’s duties became greater, Antipa was given charge of acting as confessor and spiritual father to the new monks and novices. At length, Father Nifon sent Saint Antipa to Iași in person, to be steward over the metochion there.

Saint Antipa no longer had the solitude he had sought, but he was obedient to Father Nifon in all things. He returned home to his native Romania, to Iași. Despite being thrown into the tumult and the busy-ness of the city, Antipa did not alter one bit his way of life, but instead kept strict fasts and vigils, owned nothing, prayed constantly, and wherever he went greeted all who appeared before him with kindness and meekness and humility. He soon became known as a holy man, and his self-effacing manner, even temper and excellent patience drew many people to him for advice. He was trusted by both rich and poor within the city, both men and women, both Romanians and non-Romanians. Under his care, the metochion prospered, the monastery prospered, and many in Iași were enlightened and drew benefit from Saint Antipa’s great wisdom and love of God. He enjoyed a particularly close relationship and spiritual friendship with Metropolitan Sofronie of Moldavia.

Fr Nifon soon called once again on the services of his faithful disciple, and asked Antipa to accompany him on a voyage into Russia to collect funds for the Romanian skete. Again Saint Antipa dutifully did what he was bidden to do – but soon Nifon’s other duties caught up with him and he left Antipa alone in the midst of a country whose language and ways he did not know. Even so, with faith Antipa continued what he had come to do. He was kept at a small hut on the edge of an orchard where he could quietly pray during the day and the night, and he rarely left it.

He raised a large sum of money, with many great gifts from the generous Russians, and sent it by ship to Athos. However, the ship went down in a storm on the Black Sea, and the entire treasure was lost. Saint Antipa did not lose faith, but continued to pray to the Theotokos for aid. He raised another large sum of money, which had to be converted into gold before it could be shipped abroad, and he was told by a voice in a vision to seek the aid of the Metropolitan of Kiev. The Metropolitan, who had the ear of the Minister of Finance, was able to convert the sum into gold and have it shipped to Athos. At this success, the sunken ship was forgotten and again Saint Antipa was able to raise funds for Prodromou. During all this time, much to the amazement of the monks who came to his cell, Saint Antipa continued his prayers both in Greek and Romanian, such that he was never at rest but continually praying the entire day.

Saint Antipa again attracted others to him by his humble and holy way of life. He was revered in particular by Saint Filaret of Moscow, and by Saint Isidor of Petersburg. Indeed, the latter invited him personally to participate in the uncovering and translation of the relics of the great Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk.

However, Saint Antipa still desired solitude with his whole heart, that he might devote himself entirely to God. In 1865 he retired to Valaam, on the shores of Lake Ladoga in far northwestern Russia, near Finland. He lived in a lonely cell some ways removed from the Valaam Monastery, there to pursue his solitary life of prayer. His cell was entirely bare, having only a chair and a rough blanket on the floor, and of course the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos which he had brought with him from Athos. Here he prayed and wept for his sins constantly. However, he came to the monastery three times a year and, while there, conversed freely with the pilgrims and made himself available to all who would come for advice. When he was questioned about this by one of the postulants, who was not sure what to make of a hermit who could so freely and jovially converse with laymen, he answered with the words of St Paul: ‘I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.’

Saint Antipa was given to know of the end of his earthly life several days before it happened. Several unknown monks came to the monastery while he was there, and their faces shone in a way he was not able to describe. When he went back to his cell, the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos came down from his wall and settled upon his chest, while the other icons all fell to the floor. He was also given to know of events that were happening in the monastery, even as he lay upon his deathbed. He reposed peacefully in the Lord on the tenth of January, 1882. Holy father Antipa, constant in prayer and constant in faith, through your prayers to Christ our God beseech Him to have mercy upon us!

Apolytikion for Saint Antipa de la Calapodești, Tone 8:

By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
And your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
O our holy father Antipa, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!

Our venerable father Daniil the Hesychast of Voroneț

Saint Daniil of Voroneț

The eighteenth of December is the feast-day in the Orthodox Church of Saint Daniil the Hesychast, who is rightly venerated as one of the great Southern Europeans alongside Saint Teodosii of Tărnovo and Saint Paisii of Neamț who contributed to a rediscovery of the Jesus Prayer and the discipline of hesychasm in the early modern Orthodox Church. Saint Daniil is commonly called the ‘father of the Moldavian hesychasts’.

Saint Daniil was born Dumitru in a small village near Rădăuți at the beginning of the fifteenth century. His parents were poor peasants who lived on the land belonging to the monastery of St Nicholas in that town. He was a contemporary of Saint Ştefan ‘cel Mare’. His parents gave Dumitru to the monks of Saint Nicholas Monastery in Rădăuți to be educated when he was 10 years old. We are told in his hagiography that he quickly memorised the Horologion and the Psalter. When he was 16, he entered the monastery himself, and was tonsured a monk with the name of David. His spiritual father was Saint Leontie of Rădăuți, the great Romanian bishop whose life we celebrate on 1 July. After years of ascetic struggle and spiritual warfare he was appointed to the priesthood.

At some point, the monk David went to the Monastery of Saint Laurence near the commune of Vicovu de Sus. He fulfilled his daily obediences, and during the night he prayed, kept vigil and wove baskets. He took on the Great Schema and with it the monastic dame of Daniil. Feeling the need of greater solitude in his pursuit of Christ, Saint Daniil eventually obtained from his abbot permission to live in solitude in the wilderness. At some point before 1450, he came to live near Neamț Monastery on the Secu River. However, people discovered where he lived, and they began to visit him, seeking wisdom or aid. Further fleeing into the wilderness, Saint Daniil sought refuge in northern Moldavia, along the upper banks of the Putna River. Here he found a cliff face. He built himself a cell by carving a room out of the rock. He dwelt underground, and in a chamber aboveground on the cliff face he carved out for himself a complete chapel for prayer: including an altar, a cross-in-dome and a narthex.

When Saint Ștefan was on the run after the assassination of his father Bogdan II in October of 1451, he took refuge in this area. He discovered the chapel and cell of the holy Daniil, and the elder holy man sheltered and advised him, and furthermore prophesied that in time the hunted man would himself become prince of Moldavia.

Much of what is holy in Saint Ștefan’s highly-sæcular life may be attributed to the influence of Saint Daniil the Hesychast upon his spiritual child. Daniil hated bloodshed and war, and mourned for those whose lives were taken in war. And yet such things happen in the fallen world, and this was not a happy time for the Moldovan people: the Turks incessantly attacked Moldavia, and the Moldavian princes themselves killed each other and went to war with each other. He strictly enjoined the prince under his care to erect monasteries on the battlefields where much blood had been shed, so that there might be mourning and prayers even for his fallen enemies in battle – and he also enjoined the prince to pray for them himself, for the sake of his own soul. As we know from Ștefan’s hagiography, he did indeed submit to Daniil in this obedience.

It was thus under these directives that Putna Monastery was established near Daniil’s cell in 1470. Saint Daniil then removed himself to another cell, also carved out of rock at Șoim Cliff [that is, ‘Falcon Cliff’], near the Voroneț in the vicinity of Suceava. In 1488, after a Moldavian victory against a Turkish invasion, Saint Ștefan also built a monastery at Voroneț, and Saint Daniil – then over 80 years of age – was elected by the monks to head this monastery as its abbot. To this obedience he, we may imagine reluctantly, submitted – but he fulfilled this obedience as he fulfilled all of those he had prior, in a spirit of self-giving love.

On account of this, God favoured Saint Daniil with the gifts of wonderworking and discernment, and he spent his last days of life in the monastery guiding the monks and performing works of healing for both monastics and laity. Many came to him for this healing, and for spiritual advice, and to confess their sins. Saint Daniil reposed peacefully in the Lord in 1496, and was buried at Voroneț Monastery. He was glorified formally by the Church of Romania on the twentieth of July, 1992.

In addition to the hagiography above, which is largely taken from the resources provided by the Orthodox Church in America on the great hesychast, my good friend Fr Dcn Aaron Taylor at Logismoi has compiled an enviable collection of other sources on the life of Saint Daniil. I think it is fitting to quote from these sources to provide an assessment of Saint Daniil’s significance. The following was written by Archimandrite Ioanichie (Bălan) in 1996:

By the holiness of his life, Saint Daniel the Hesychast showed himself to be a Christ-bearer and a great teacher of silence and the Jesus Prayer or even from his youth. During his lifetime there was no hesychast and spiritual father in Moldavia more renowned than he, nor any doer and teacher of prayer more skilled. For this reason all the abbots and spiritual fathers of northern Moldavia, as well as the high officials of the National Council (the Sfat), had him as their spiritual father.

Venerable father Daniil, spiritual father of many monks and wonderworking lover of peace, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Daniil the Hesychast, Tone 8:

By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
And your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
O our holy father Daniil, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!

Cell of Saint Daniil at Putna

Holy Hierarch Dosoftei Barilă, Metropolitan of Moldova

Saint Dosoftei of Moldova

Today, the thirteenth of December, is the feast-day of the great Romanian-language poet and holy hierarch of the Orthodox Church, Saint Dosoftei of Moldova. As well as being a prolific poet in his own right – sometimes counted as the first great poet, indeed, in his own language! – Saint Dosoftei was also an erudite scholar who translated numerous Greek editions of Liturgical texts into Church Slavonic and Romanian. He was also a dedicated and active archpastor. However, owing to the political climate of the time – the incessant wars the Turks waged on Orthodox peoples throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe on one hand, and the machinations and force of the Uniates on the other – Saint Dosoftei was among those who were persecuted. Because of his steadfast Orthodoxy and his criticism of worldly kings, he ended his life, like Saint John Chrysostom, in exile.

Dosoftei was born Dimitrie Barilă on the twenty-sixth of October, 1624, in Suceava, to Leontie and Misira Barilă. He was named for the fourth-century Saint Dēmētrios of Thessaloniki, on whose feast-day he was born. His parents were faithful Orthodox Christians, and he loved Christ and His Church as much as they did. His parents took care to educate him carefully, so that when Dimitrie was a young man he already had a quick mind, a humble and curious disposition and an ear for languages, of which by adulthood he knew five besides his native Romanian: Greek, Latin, Church Slavonic, Polish and Ruthenian. He attended school at the Three Hierarchs Monastery in Iași, and subsequently from the Orthodox Brothers at the Kiev Caves Monastery. At the age of twenty-five, he forsook the life of the world and took the tonsure of a monk, along with the monastic name Dosoftei – that is to say, Dositheos.

The new monk Dosoftei was a wondrously gifted student. Again, he was not only adept in learning other languages, but he also loved studying the natural sciences and philosophy. But what really drew him were the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, the Scriptures and the Psalms. As a monk in the Probota Monastery, as well, he learned and practised the ascetic disciplines of prayer, fasting and obedience to the abbot. By looking to Christ he grew in love and wisdom, and soon he became a mentor, an educator and a spiritual father to other monks in Probota. This was a discipline that well suited his disposition and intellectual strength, and he undertook it for many years, gently and mildly guiding monks in the way of truth and in the love of God.

Advanced in both knowledge and in virtue, he was chosen by God to fulfil the office of an archpastor, although as a monk this was not his first choice. In 1658, at the age of 34, he was anointed as the bishop of Huși, and the year afterward he was transferred to Roman. Thirteen years later, in 1671, Saint Dosoftei was elected to the office of Metropolitan of Moldavia. His wisdom and his kindness were legendary, and he astonished everyone. As the chronicler John Neculce put it:

Acest Dosoftei mitropolit nu era om prost de felul lui. Și era neam de mazâl. Prea învățat, multe limbi știa: elinește, slovenește, și altă adâncă carte și-nvățătură. Deplin călugăr și cucernic, și blând ca un miel. În țara noastră, pe ceasta vreme nu este om ca acela.

This metropolitan Dositheos was not a simple man of his sort. He was of boyar blood; and being so learned, he knew many languages: Greek, Slavonic, and many other profound books and doctrines. A complete and devout monk, as gentle as a lamb. In our country nowadays, there is no such man as this.

Saint Dosoftei lived in very troublous times, with the Moldavian principality being subject to invasions from every side, and particularly by the Turks. And yet it was during this time of trials and hardships that he produced some of his most significant scholarly work – the translations of Liturgical, Scriptural, hagiographical and Patristic texts, into Church Slavonic for the benefit of the Russian people, and into Romanian for the benefit of his own. He wrote a recension of the Greek Old Testament in Romanian which remained in use for many centuries afterward. The fact that he was able to do this, as well as caring for war refugees, widows and orphans in his own territory, tells us much about his spiritual quality and his care for all dimensions of the lives of his flock.

The wars against the Ottomans and the wars against the Poles claimed Saint Dosoftei as one of their victims. When the Turks captured the country in 1673, on account of his anti-Ottoman stances, Metropolitan Dosoftei was deposed from his see and sent into exile in Poland. The following year he was replaced in office by a good monk named Teodosie, but upon Dosoftei’s return from this first exile Teodosie gladly relinquished the Metropolia of Moldavia back to its previous holder. Teodosie himself retired into Bogdana Monastery in Bucovina, and soon thereafter suffered martyrdom.

In Iași Metropolitan Dosoftei restored the printing-house, and used it to publish his new written volumes in Romanian. These included Divine Liturgies (1679 and 1683); a Psalter (1680) with parallel Slavonic and Romanian text; and a Book of Prayers (1681). From 1682 to 1686 he worked on developing a Romanian Paterikon based on Greek and Slavonic sources on the lives of the saints; however, this work was left unfinished, being interrupted by his second exile into Poland. Still, this work demonstrates his great love for the saints – both those of distant antiquity and far-off lands, and Romanian saints whom he knew and treasured personally. He wrote about people like Saint Daniel the Hesychast and Saint Raphael of Agapia. And he supported and encouraged printing of holy books by others, and the establishment of other monastic presses. At his urging and with his backing, Mitrofan of Buzău printed several editions in Greek from his monastery: Cetățuia Monastery in Iași.

What happened in 1686 that interrupted Saint Dosoftei’s work and sent him into exile again, was the invasion of Moldavia by John III Sobieski, which resulted in the plunder of much wealth from the Moldavian people by the Poles, as well as of the relics of Saint Ioan the New of Suceava. Metropolitan Dosoftei spent the rest of his earthly days in exile from his earthly homeland, though all the time he was preparing both himself and his people for entry into the heavenly one. In exile he continued his translations of holy texts into Romanian, including the Patristic writings of Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Ephraim the Syrian, Saint Germanos of Constantinople and Saint Symeōn of Thessalonikē.

Saint Dosoftei endured his exile at Stry Castle with equanimity and set about practically with what he was able to do, providing pastoral care to the mostly Ruthenian flock of Orthodox Christians in Poland. He was, all the same, subject to constant political pressure from the Polish King John III, and attempts to persuade him and his flock to convert to the Unia. However, Saint Dosoftei condemned the Unia in no uncertain terms, and steadfastly refused to abandon Orthodoxy, thus saving his flock from becoming spiritually as well as politically colonised people under Polish dominion. He remained steadfastly Orthodox to the end of his life; he reposed on the thirteenth of December, 1693. Accounts of the monks who were with him show that he was given by God to know the day of his repose in advance. He was buried at the Zhovkva Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God.

The Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church glorified Metropolitan Dosoftei as a saint on 14 October, 2005. An adept student, a prolific scholar and literary mind, a great transmitter of tradition to the future generations, a loving spiritual father to many young monks and a caring and practical archpastor to many more of the laity, Saint Dosoftei is deeply beloved by Romanians, Moldovans and Carpathian Rusins alike. Holy hierarch Dosoftei, angelic scholar and tutor and gentle archpastor to generations of Orthodox Christians, pray unto Christ our God for the salvation of our souls!

Probota Monastery, Romania

Our venerable father Paisii Velichkovskii, Abbot of Neamț

Saint Paisii of Neamț

On the Old Calendar today, as well, the Holy Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Paisii (Velichkovskii), one of the sweetest and most luminous of the monastic fathers of our modern time. He would be worth commemorating alone for his translation and propagation of the spiritual texts of the Philokalia into the Russian language, but more than that, Saint Paisii is, with some justice, considered to be the ‘founding father’ of the tradition of startsy – spiritual elders – in Russia. He is commemorated with deep fondness in the churches of Russia and Romania, and especially the local church in Moldova, having been for part of his life the abbot of the Neamț Monastery.

Father Paisii [Ru. Паисий, Ro. Paisie, L. Paisius] was born Pyotr (after the Holy Apostle) on the twenty-first of December, 1722, into a quiet, modest clerical family, which was descended from the officer ranks of the Cossacks. He was the eleventh of twelve children. His father, Ivan Velichkovskii, was a protopriest who served as the dean of the Cathedral of the Dormition in Poltava. As might be expected growing up in such a household, Pyotr was a quiet, meek, fastidious and studious little boy who loved to read. He pursued specifically the spiritual readings that were present in his father’s house and in the Church library, and it was not long before he had read them all. He had a particular love for the homilies of Saint John Chrysostom and the hymns of Saint Ephraim the Syrian. It was in this way that he grew to love Jesus. He came to the Liturgy, prayed and worshipped and partook of the Elements, and yearned to follow in his father’s footsteps in service to the Church.

After his father died when he was age four, he was raised by his mother Irina, as well as by his older brothers. At the age of thirteen, in the year 1735, he entered the Collegium founded by the great Orthodox pædagogue Saint Petru Movilă in Kiev, and bent himself entirely upon his studies toward the priesthood. He was particularly keen on learning other languages. Latin, of course, was part of Movilă’s required curriculum. He also learned Greek, Polish and Church Slavonic. Pyotr’s interest in his studies began to wane after a couple of years, however, as God began calling him to become a monk. In 1739 he left the Collegium and began looking for a monastic community to serve. He went to several monasteries in the Ukraine but he found himself ill-suited to the life in each of them. At last he met two Moldavian monastic refugees of the Turkish War there, and when he attended Liturgy with the two of them he was struck by the beauty of their devotion. He came at last to the monastery of Saint Nikolai Medvedovskii on the Khasmin River, where evidently the life suited him much better and he became a robe-bearer. Here he took on the monastic name of Platon.

The new monk Platon’s life was not at all easy, however. Even back then, the Uniates were more than happy to use dirty tricks, political manipulation, force and fraud to get their way. At their behest the political authorities forced the Medvedovskii monastery to close, and they drove and scattered the monks who lived there. Elder Paisii himself, however, later said that he was somewhat dissatisfied with the life in Medvedovskii, because there was no elder and experienced monk to guide his spiritual strivings. Platon sought refuge at the Kiev Caves Monastery, and found a vocation there working at the printing-press (another of Petru Movilă’s innovations).

In 1741 he found his sister-in-law and his mother still living in Poltava. Irina was deeply opposed to her son’s going off to become a monk, and she wept and pleaded with him to stay, and threatened to starve herself if he did not obey her wishes. However, that night she was visited by an angel who upbraided her for loving the creation (her son) more than the Creator. The angel told her that she should be happy that her son was devoting himself entirely to God, and that she would do well to follow his example. When she awoke the following morning she found her soul was at peace, and she made up the mind to enter the monastic life herself. She was tonsured a nun with the name of Yulyana, and she faithfully followed the monastic discipline of her cloister for ten years, to the end of her earthly days.

Again, however, the monk Platon had an encounter with monastics from Moldavia. He met with the Abbot Mihai of the Saint Nicholas Skete in Trăisteni in Buzău, who welcomed him to join them. What Platon found there convinced him that here the love of Christ could be found. Mihai led a monastic community made up of brothers in Christ from many different national backgrounds: Romanians, Bulgarians, Russians, Serbs. Many of them were refugees from the Turkish incursions or from the oppression of the Catholic great powers to the west. Abbot Mihai and a monastic Elder named Vasile were particularly strong influences on Saint Paisii at this point in his life, and he writes about them both with deep fondness. It was Vasile who began to teach Platon the way of hesychasm and the prayer of the heart, the Jesus Prayer.

Young Platon’s spirituality has several episodes we might attribute to a certain excess of youthful zeal. In one particular instance, he overslept the bell for Matins, and when he arrived at the Church he found that the Gospel for the day had already been read and that they were starting the Canon. He returned to his cell in tears and did not come out. When the meal was served, Abbot Mihai and Prior Dimitru noticed that Platon was missing from the table. Mihai sent a hieromonk, Afanasii, to find out what had happened to Platon. When Fr Afanasii found Platon, he discovered him weeping. With some difficulty Afanasii was able to get out of the young monk what guilt was eating at him, and urged him to come to the refectory anyway, for his brother-monks missed him. When Platon went into the refectory and found that none of the monks had started eating but that they were all waiting for him, he fell down on his hands and knees with fresh tears, begging his brothers’ forgiveness. Abbot Mihai, Elder Vasile and Prior Dimitru all did their best to console the young monk not to grieve overmuch over something that had happened in a moment of weakness. However, from that time on, Platon would never sleep lying down, but instead only ever slept sitting up on a bench.

The cluster of monasteries overseen by Elder Vasile and Abbot Mihai were Athonite in their structure and in their daily observance; when Platon was age 24, he began to long himself to see the Holy Mountain, and he asked the blessing of his abbot to go, which he was granted – along with the company of a hieromonk named Trifon. (In his autobiography, Elder Paisii notes that part of his motivation was his eagerness to avoid being made a priest, which was something his Moldavian elders were urging him to do.)

Platon made his way to the Holy Mountain and was accepted into the Slavonic community of the Pantokrator Monastery on Athos. He was sent into a small skete to observe their rule of life. However, in that skete and in the several around it, Platon could find no monks suited to teach him further in the way of hesychasm, and so he went off by himself and lived a life of solitude for the following four years.

It happened after that that his former elder Vasile went to visit the Holy Mountain, and found his former pupil living the life of a hermit on Athos. Vasile had a long conversation with the young monk, telling him that at his stage of life it wasn’t good to live alone, and that he should have at least a few brothers around him to aid him in the struggle against the passions. Vasile tonsured Platon with the lesser schema, and it was at this time that he took on the name of Paisii. Paisii took on his first disciple, a Romanian named Bessarion, and founded a small monastic community. Several more Romanians joined him, and then later a few Slavs. As a result, Paisii’s monastery alternated the Liturgy between Romanian and Church Slavonic.

In 1758 Saint Paisii was at last ordained a priestmonk by Bishop Grigore Rasca, and the community he led was growing large enough that it had to move into the Skete of St Elias on Athos. Paisii’s community became renowned for the beauty of its Liturgies and the zeal and spiritual power of its monks: a mark of Paisii’s own intense inner life. Even the retired Patriarch Seraphim, who was then a monk at Pantokrator Monastery, came to Paisii’s Skete to receive the Eucharist. While living on Athos, Saint Paisii came to the disquieting realisation that contemporary Orthodox monastic life was dreadfully lacking in terms of living spiritual guidance, for monastics to be able to go and seek wisdom from someone trustworthy with experience in ascetic struggles and inward prayer life. He made it an object of his life’s study to approach the Church Fathers in their writings as though they themselves were living guides, and made a slow and often thankless and (in those early days on Athos) fruitless research into the writings of the older Church Fathers on the life of hesychastic prayer.

Here Saint Paisii’s aptitude for languages came in great handy. Together with two of his disciples, he embarked on a close study of mediæval Greek for the express purposes of translating such saintly authors such as Hesychios of Jerusalem, Theodoros of Edessa, Peter of Damascus, Anthony the Great, Grēgorios of Sinai, Philotheos of Constantinople, Thalassios of Libya, Diadochos of Phōtikē, Symeōn the New Theologian and Nikēphoros of Chios into Russian.

Saint Paisii’s growing popularity, and his clear preference for hesychastic prayer, earned him some critics even upon the Holy Mountain. The Skete of the Prophet Elias was soon too small to house all of Saint Paisii’s followers, and they soon had to spend much effort building out their physical premisses. This caused Paisii to recommend that the monks begin substituting repetitions of the Jesus Prayer for some of the daily singings from the Typikon if they were too busy and did not have time to attend. This provided Abbot Athanasios of Kavsokalyvia Monastery with a pretext to begin delivering pointed barbs against Paisii for his ‘innovations’, for his reliance on the teachings of Grēgorios of Sinai, and for his supposed cutting of corners.

Even though Athanasios made himself out to be a defender of Orthodox rigor and the discipline of the monastic Typikon, at stake there were two very different visions and understandings of monastic Orthodoxy. Abbot Athanasios represented a style of Orthodoxy which was, in the spirit of the times, dependent upon the Westward-looking scholasticism and structural formalism which were the hallmarks of the Counter-Reformation. Saint Paisii, who had grown up and had been educated in precisely this intellectual formation – the same formation which Saint Petru Movilă had worked so hard to inculcate in Kiev – was attempting to resuscitate a more inward-looking, more contemplative and more spiritually-free tradition of the life of prayer.

In answer to the accusations of Abbot Athanasios, Saint Paisii wrote a Letter of Apology in which he defended his researches into the hesychastic tradition and his prerogative as abbot to prescribe œconomia for his spiritual children within certain bounds if the need arose – for example, if the monks were at work on physical tasks like construction. He continued both his spiritual and his physical labours upon the Holy Mountain for six years more, before he was invited to Moldavia.

In 1763, at the express invitation of Grigore III Ghica of Moldavia to found monasteries and teach in his country, Elder Paisii tearfully took his leave of the Holy Mountain and left with sixty-four of his Athonite disciples for that country. He and his disciples had been given, by Metropolitan Gabriel of Iași, the use of the building of the Dragomirna Monastery in Bukovina. The monastic rule at Dragomirna was based on the rules of Saint Basil the Great, Saint Theodoros the Studite, and Saint Nil of Sora. Saint Paisii emphasised the importance for his monks of non-possession, of simplicity of spirit, of obedience to the elder and of the inward prayer of the heart. The services were sung in two languages: Slavonic in the right kliros, and Romanian in the left.

Saint Paisii was able to give practical talks and advice to his monks on the meaning of the inward prayer and the correct method for attaining it. He also continued his painstaking work on compiling and translating from Greek into Slavonic the writings of the mediæval Patristics, particularly those which had bearing upon the Jesus Prayer and upon the pursuit of inward stillness. He also took on the Great Schema from the hieromonk Aleksii, although he did not change his name further from Paisii.

Events further continued to try the life of Saint Paisii. The Dragomirna community grew to house over 350 monks. However, there was an incident in which a certain Ukrainian monk living nearby, who was opposed to hesychasm, gathered together a number of hesychast texts and instructed local believers to throw them into the river. This event prompted Saint Paisii to write his Six Chapters on the Prayer of the Heart. In addition, the incessant wars of the Turks against all of their neighbours, including Russia, forced many poor people to flee their homes as refugees. Saint Paisii made sure that Dragomirna was one site of safe passage and refuge for these people, of which there were often too many to adequately house and feed.

As a result of this Russo-Turkish war, Bukovina was conquered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1775. The Austrians expelled the Orthodox monks from Dragomirna. The monks were offered refuge at the Secu Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner. They set up their own quarters and continued to follow the rule they had established at Dragomirna. However, the conditions for the monks soon grew unsanitary and overcrowded, with as many as five monks sharing a single cell. They built out as many cells as they could but these accommodations were still not enough. Saint Paisii appealed to the new Greek Prince of Moldavia, Kōnstantinos Mourouzēs, for the right to establish new quarters in a separate monastery for the former monks of Dragomirna, but Mourouzēs actually granted him instead the entire monastery of Neamț in 1779. Paisii was reluctant to accept such a large and extravagant gift, which went against his principle of non-possession, but Mourouzēs enjoined him to be obedient, and to think of it as an opportunity to serve as an example to other monasteries. On these terms, Saint Paisii had little other choice than to accept.

Saint Paisii spent the remainder of his earthly days presiding over Neamṭ Monastery. Under his rule as many as 700 monks came to live at the monastery, and he made a number of renovations and improvements to the monastic complex while he was abbot there, including a hospital, a hostel for travellers, and housing for pilgrims, refugees and the poor. Hospitality was as important at Neamṭ as it had been at Dragomirna. He continued to research, compile and translate Patristic texts on the discipline of hesychasm. Toward the end of his life he was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite by the Archbishop of Moldavia.

Saint Paisii fell asleep in the Lord on the fifteenth of November, 1794. He was nearly seventy-two years old. He had been ill for several days prior to his passing, but he felt well enough to serve the Liturgy on the Sunday prior to it, and he asked all the monks to come forward to receive his blessing. He then retired to his cell and would not see anyone. He came out to receive the Gifts one final time and then reposed in peace. His death was mourned by great multitudes of monks, clergy and lay folk from all the countries around Moldavia, including Russia and Romania. Several times over the course of the nineteenth century – 1846, 1853, 1861 and 1872 – his relics were uncovered and were discovered to be incorrupt.

Saint Paisii is a pivotal figure in Orthodox monasticism particularly, but he had an outsized influence over the direction of Orthodox spirituality in general from the 1700s on. His writings, his translations and his methods of prayer were brought to Optina, where they were adopted with great care and attention by the Elders of that monastery, from whose wisdom and kindness the entire Russian nation has benefitted in incalculable ways throughout these past two centuries. Venerable father Paisii, good and wise teacher attentive to the heart which is deep beyond knowing, pray unto Christ our God for the salvation of our souls!

Apolytikion for Saint Paisii of Neamț, Tone 2:

Having become a stranger on earth,
You reached the heavenly homeland, venerable Father Paisii.
You taught the faithful to lift up their minds to God,
Crying out to Him with all their hearts:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!”