Alexander of Kushta

Saint Alexander of Kushta (about 1371 to 9 June 1439) was a hieromonk and founder of the Alexander-⁠Kushta Hermitage of the Dormition at the mouth of the river Kushta, forty kilometres from Vologda. He is commemorated on 9 June Old Style (22 June New Style). The sources do not say when he was canonized.

Monastic youth

He was born at Vologda, about 1371, with the name Alexei. As a young man he came to the Spaso-⁠Kamenny monastery, to its founder, Abbot Dionysius the Holy Mountaineer, a Greek from Constantinople. The abbot received him as a novice and put him in the care of an experienced elder. According to the Life, the abbot, seeing in Alexei a future ascetic, shortened the time of novitiate and after a few months tonsured him a monk with the name Alexander. For many years Alexander lived on the island of Kamenny and was deemed worthy of the priesthood.

Hermit and founder

To live in stillness he went to the northern shore of the lake and then eastward. On the river Syanzhema, among forests and swamps, he found a solitary place and made a small cell. When people began to come to him, he left the place and went toward the shores of Lake Kubenskoye. At the mouth of the river Kushta he met Saint Euthymius, who lived in solitude. After a time he asked him to leave his cell, in exchange for another on the Syanzhema. Blessed Euthymius took the request as a sign of Providence and, leaving, left his cross as a blessing to Alexander.

After a time Alexander resolved to build a church and found a monastery. He made a new cell nearer the lake and cleared the forest for the future monastery. Once an elder came to him, whom he asked to stay, and after five years a second brother came. Then he went to Rostov, to Archbishop Dionysius, former abbot of the monastery on Kamenny island, to ask a blessing for the building; he received it and what was needed, and built the church of the Dormition of the Mother of God. Prince Dimitri Vasilievich, lord of the Zaozerye region, helped him, and his wife, Maria, adorned the church with icons and gave an apraksos Gospel.

Repose and veneration

Before his death, taking leave of Savvaty and Symeon, he ordered them to build a church in honour of Saint Nicholas at the place he indicated. He reposed at the age of sixty-⁠eight, on 9 June 1439, and was buried on the south side of the altar of the church. A rowan tree grew on his grave, the fruit of which brought healings through faith. In 1519, on 26 October, in the time of Abbot Nathanael, both churches burned and others were built in their place. Many sick people brought to the church saw Saint Alexander together with Saint Nicholas, praying together or censing the church. His service was composed about 1575.

The monastery was attached to Spaso-⁠Kamenny in 1833. The ancient handwritten Life records twenty miracles at his tomb, the last in 1573. His relics rest under a stone in the church of Saint Nicholas of the Kushta monastery. In 1764 the monastery was abolished and the church of Saint Nicholas became a parish church. His chains are kept in the parish church of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria in the settlement of Ustye, in the Ust-⁠Kubinsky district of the Vologda region.