Saint Paisios Velichkovsky

Saint Paisios Velichkovsky was son of a priest, born in 1722 in Poltava, Ukraine. From an early age he showed a great tendency in theology. Therefore, he was sent to study at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy. The teachings influenced by Western scholasticism and foreign culture, frustrated him and made him abandon his studies. He settled in various monasteries and especially in the sketes of Moldavia, where Russian monks had taken refuge after being persecuted by Peter the Great's reforms. He then went to Mount Athos, where he initially practiced alone in a hut, around the Monastery of Pantokrator. Four years later he became a monk.

As years passed by, a great number of disciples gathered around him and the brotherhood moved to the Skete of Prophet Elijah (about 1758). At a certain point he sought to revive the Monastery of Simonopetra but he failed. Due to the pressure that was put on him from the Ottoman authorities he decided to return to Romania together with his seventy disciples (1763). They settled in the Dragomirna Monastery and practiced mental prayer for the first time. Until then this technique of praying had been practiced only by hesychasts and hermits. At the time of his studies in Kiev, Saint Paisios had become aware of the inadequacy of the ancient Slavonic translations of the patristic texts. When he settled in Mount Athos, he learned Greek and began to collect manuscripts with texts.

In Dragomirna he worked tirelessly translating the works of holy fathers as Saint Anthony, Saint Macarios, Saint Hesychios, Saint Diadochos of Photiki, Saint Philotheus of Sinai, Saint Theodore Studites, Saint Symeon the New Theologian, Saint Gregory of Sinai and Saint Isaac the Syrian. In 1779 he settled in the Neamț Monastery in Moldavia, which then experienced days of glory and reached a number of 700 monks. In 1793 he achieved translating into Slavonic the Philokalia, a collection of patristic texts compiled and published by Saint Makarios of Corinth and Saint Nicodemos the Athonite (1782). With these translations and with his modest life, Saint Paisios was essentially the initiator of the great monastic revival movement that Russia experienced during the 19th century. This revival, reflected in the starets of the Optina Monastery and in books such as “Adventures of a Pilgrim”, contributed to the monastic revival of the last decades in Greece and Mount Athos. He died in 1794.

He is commemorated on November 15 (28).