Agapitos of Optina

Saint Agapitus of Optina (in the world Baron Mikhail Mikhailovich von Taube, 1894 - 18 July 1936), confessor, was a monk of the Russian Orthodox Church, born at Gatchina, a disciple of the Optina elders, arrested three times and dead of illness at Oryol. He was glorified by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 27 December 2007, among the confessors and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. He is commemorated on 5 July by the old calendar (18 July by the new), and in the synaxis of the New Martyrs on 7 February.

Youth

His father was Baron Mikhail Ferdinandovich von Taube, and his mother Baroness Anna Alexandrovna von Taube, née Baranova (1862-1915). Mikhail was born together with a twin brother, Sergei, and his mother had to hire a wet nurse for the twins; the nurse was Maria Volkova (1869-1939), daughter of Praskovya Krasenkova, who ran the baroness's kitchen. In 1905 he entered, and in 1912 graduated with a gold medal from, Karl May's gymnasium and enrolled in the law faculty of the University of Saint Petersburg. In 1916 he was mobilized and sent to the front, where he was wounded. In 1918-1922 he served in the Red Army.

His brothers and sister had varied fates. Alexander (1889-1964) was a military translator, professor at the military institute of foreign languages, a colonel, author of many military and naval dictionaries. Ivan (1892-1941?) graduated from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, was an officer of the White army and emigrated. Sergei (1894-1937) was a pupil of the Corps of Pages, a staff captain of the Preobrazhensky Guards, served in the Red Army, and was repressed and shot in 1937. Maria (1899-1929) graduated from the Lesgaft institute and was repressed in the case of the religious-⁠philosophical circle "Resurrection" in 1929, sentenced to three years in a camp; she reached the Kem transit point (Popov Island) on 11 July 1929 and died a few days later of typhus.

Spiritual path

On 15 September 1921 he petitioned to be admitted as a free listener at the Petrograd Theological Institute and was enrolled. There he was regarded as an "active" listener. He studied a year and a half and left in the second year. On 17 April 1923 he went to Optina. He was keeper of the monastery library, where he got to know patristic literature and manuscripts of great spiritual value. At Optina he lived at the apiary of the Skete, where two monks lived. Elder Nectarius (Tikhonov) received him among his spiritual children.

In 1924 the monastery was closed. Then Mikhail Taube became an employee of the museum "Optina Hermitage", set up on the site of the closed monastery on the initiative of Lydia Vasilievna Zashchuk, who became its director; he was her deputy. He spent much time with the elder, writing down his teachings; of the notes only brief jottings survive. Often the future monk Agapitus (Taube) read to the disciples of Elder Nectarius papers on theological topics. After the exile of Elder Nectarius from Optina he became a spiritual son of Hieromonk Nikon (Belyaev), who tonsured him into the mantle with the name Agapitus. In May 1925 Monk Agapitus was dismissed from the museum. After dismissal he lived now in his native Petrograd, now near Optina. He earned his living by teaching foreign languages, of which he knew French, German, English, Italian and Latin well.

Arrests

On 16 June 1927 he was arrested in the group case of Hieromonk Nikon (Belyaev) and imprisoned in the Kaluga investigation prison. On 19 December 1927 a special conference of the OGPU collegium sentenced him to three years of forced-⁠labor camp, which he served at the Solovki camp (SLON). On 25 May 1930 a special conference of the OGPU collegium sentenced him to three years of exile in the Northern Region, and he lived at Arkhangelsk. In 1931 he was arrested in exile as a "participant in a counter-⁠revolutionary grouping among local and exiled clergy", and on 2 December of the same year a special conference of the OGPU collegium sentenced him to a labor camp and he was sent to the Mariinsk camps in Siberia. After serving the term he settled in Oryol. Sometimes he came to Moscow, where he met acquaintances from Optina.

Illness and death

At the beginning of 1936 Fr. Agapitus fell ill: a tumor formed on his tongue, and friends advised him to enter hospital. He went to Moscow, was operated on, but the doctors warned that consequences might follow, and after a while he discovered a new tumor, and operating had no sense. Before his last departure for Oryol he said farewell to all his acquaintances for ever, simply and calmly, as if leaving for a short time, to meet again, if God grants, in the other life. His sufferings in illness grew more and more, he could neither eat nor speak, but he did not lose his strength of spirit and, while he had strength, went to church. When Fr. Agapitus needed anything, he wrote notes to his old landlady, who lived in the other half of the house, through the wall from him. He had warned her that when he felt very ill he would knock. On 18 July he knocked on the wall, and when the landlady came in, she saw Monk Agapitus lying with his eyes fixed on the icon of the Mother of God. Afterward she said that "his face was concentrated and meek, neither pain nor fear distorted it. He did not groan, only his breathing grew slower..." and that "he bore his sufferings so brightly that she prays for him as for a saint".

Monk Agapitus (Taube) died on 18 July 1936 and was buried in one of the cemeteries of Oryol; his grave was later lost.

Canonization

The name of Agapitus of Optina was entered in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 27 December 2007, among the confessors, with commemoration on 5 July by the old calendar. He is venerated as a New Martyr of Russia, the venerable confessor Agapitus of Optina. His day is 18 July, and the synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church is celebrated on 25 January (7 February) or on the nearest Sunday after that date, if it does not fall on a Sunday.