Adrian of Ondrusov

Venerable Adrian of Ondrusov was a Russian monk of the sixteenth century, founder of the Andrusov hermitage, venerated as a wonderworker. He was killed by the peasants of the village of Obzha, on the way back from Moscow, in 1549 or 1550. He is remembered on 26 August (the day of his repose) and on 17 May (the finding and translation of his relics).

He was born Andrew Zavalishin, of a family of Muscovite boyars, son of Nikifor. He owned a rich estate, Andreevshchina, not far from the monastery of Saint Alexander of Svir; according to the sources, the Grand Prince Ivan III had sent him to hold land in the Obonezhie region of Novgorod. One day, chasing a deer while hunting, he saw the cell of Saint Alexander of Svir and from then on he went often to him, listening to his counsels, bringing him bread and helping to supply the needs of the ascetics. Soon he left his estate and went to the monastery of the Transfiguration at Valaam, where he was tonsured with the name Adrian. After a few years, with the blessing of Saint Alexander, he chose a place of solitude on a rocky cape, on a peninsula in the southeast of Lake Ladoga, on the shore of Andrusov Bay. Disciples gathered around him and the Andrusov hermitage was founded, dedicated to Saint Nicholas. The monastery existed by 1533 at the latest, for a charter of Grand Prince Vasily III to Adrian's hermitage survives.

The account of Adrian says that he brought two robbers to repentance. One, named Ondrus, lived with his friends on the island of Sala, opposite the hermitage, and demanded that the saint leave, but Adrian begged him not to destroy the monastery. In a fight with other robbers Ondrus was beaten, bound and thrown into a boat, but by Adrian's prayer he was unexpectedly freed. He came to the monastery and found Adrian singing psalms, without having left the hermitage; he was amazed, repented and stayed in the wilderness.

In 1546 Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible ordered the authorities of Novgorod to give the abbot of Ondrusov the tsar's grant every year, for he held Adrian in deep respect. In 1549 Adrian and Venerable Gennady of Kostroma baptized the tsar's daughter, Anna, at the Novodevichy convent in Moscow. On the way back to his monastery he was killed by the peasants of the village of Obzha, and his body was thrown into a swamp. The sources differ on the day: according to some, it was 26 August 1549, the feast of his patron saint, Adrian of Nicomedia, according to others, 15 May 1550.

After two years the brothers of the hermitage he had founded found his relics incorrupt, on 17 May, and placed them in the wall of the church, then in the church. In 1828 they were moved to the cathedral church of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple.