Agapii

Agapii was a Russian schemahierodeacon, who died in 1820, a monk in the Russian cells of Athos, first in the Skete of St Elias. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

A Great Russian by birth, he entered the Skete of St Elias at the end of the eighteenth century, where he was tonsured into the mantle and ordained hierodeacon. For almost thirty years he bore various obediences without murmuring, with love for his brethren; for his boundless love for God and people the elders named him Agapii (love). Around 1818 he was tonsured into the schema with the same name and wished to labour alone in the desert, in stillness. With the blessing of the skete's elders he settled in a deep wilderness among mountains, in a valley with impassable forest.

He taught that solitude is the mirror of the soul, but that it can be sustained only on three conditions: to disclose one's thoughts without delay to the spiritual father, to have a strict daily order, a cell rule, and to keep unceasing remembrance of God: if not praying, to read Scripture; if not reading either, to sing. On Sundays and feasts he received Communion at the skete. He said: the desert is quiet until the soul-⁠killer comes; then it is sometimes so terrifying that the blood seems to freeze; a monk cannot leave the place assigned to him by the Lord. He made spoons and on Saturdays took them to Karyes. Once, ill in Great Lent and without food, he was visited by some fathers who sang him the Paschal canon and gave him food and wine.