Alexander of Rostov

Alexander of Rostov (in the world Alexis) was a Russian monk of the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the next, a disciple of Venerable Irinarkh the Recluse of the Boris and Gleb monastery of Rostov (1547 to 1616) and author of his life (1616?). He has not been canonized by the Church.

Nothing is known of him apart from what the life of Irinarkh, written by him, says. The picture that emerges is of a disciple zealous in prayer, obedience and fasting. About 1586/1587, hearing of the ascetic life of Irinarkh, he came to him at the Boris and Gleb monastery of Rostov, asking for tonsure and discipleship. He lived beside him for thirty years, for a long time his only disciple, sharing with him both labours and prayers and the oppression by the abbot and the other monks. In the words of V. O. Klyuchevsky, the life of Venerable Irinarkh vividly depicts the decline of monastic discipline and the moral laxity in Russian monasticism that had appeared from the middle of the sixteenth century.

Three times, at his teacher's command, he went to Moscow: in 1608, together with Irinarkh, who went to tell Tsar Vasily Shuisky of a vision of the coming devastation of the country by the Poles; in 1610, to Mikhail Skopin-⁠Shuisky, to bring back the teacher's cross, with which he had blessed Skopin-⁠Shuisky for the struggle against the invaders; and in 1612 to Dmitry Pozharsky, with the same purpose, and with the request that, because of the devastation, the monastery be freed from levies for the volunteer army. Alexander considered that the blessings of Irinarkh played an important role in the victories of these commanders over the enemy.

Only in the List of God's Servants of the Yaroslavl Diocese of 1887 is Alexander of Rostov singled out, with no day of commemoration given, as a locally venerated saint. He is not included in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov, established in 1987.