Adrian of Monza

Venerable Adrian of Monza (in the world Ammos) was born at Kostroma about the middle of the sixteenth century and fell asleep on 5 May 1619. He was the founder of the Annunciation monastery on the river Monza. He is remembered on 5 May. Our sources say that he was canonized locally, probably in the 1630s and 1640s, and entered in 1981 in the synaxis of the saints of Kostroma.

The calling

Adrian, who in the world was called Ammos, was born at Kostroma. When he reached the proper age, his parents wished to marry him, but before the wedding he fell ill. During the illness he saw in a dream a church standing between two rivers and heard a voice: "Here is your place". After this vision, Ammos decided to become a monk and to find the church. He left his parents' house in secret and settled at the Tolga monastery, but his parents soon found him and brought him home. Ammos left again, for the Gennadiev monastery, where he was tonsured a monk with the name Adrian.

The monastery on the Monza

Later Adrian lived at the Spaso-⁠Kamenny monastery and at the Pavlo-⁠Obnorsky monastery. Then, at the direction of Ferapont of Monza, he settled in the region where the Monza flows into the Kostroma. On this place, about the years 1580 to 1590, he founded the Annunciation monastery. In his lifetime two churches were built. In the time of the Great Famine of 1601 to 1603, Adrian of Monza shared the monastery's stores with the inhabitants of the nearby villages.

He fell asleep in 1619 and was buried in the Annunciation church of the monastery, beside Ferapont of Monza. The monastery was abolished in 1764, but the church survived and services are held in it.

Canonization

The local canonization of Adrian took place, it is presumed, in the 1630s to 1640s. The first life was composed around 1645 and is in fact the life of Ferapont, the new wonderworker of Ustye Monza, in which the beginning of the Annunciation monastery is also told, arranged through the life and guidance of the elder Adrian, a God-⁠loving monk. In the seventeenth century the first icons of Adrian of Monza appeared, in the church of the village of Ferapontovo, and were lost in the twentieth century. In 1981 he was entered in the synaxis of the saints of Kostroma.