Anikita Shirinsky-⁠Shikhmatov

Anikita Shirinsky-⁠Shikhmatov was a Russian hieroschemamonk, a former prince and naval officer, benefactor of St Panteleimon Monastery and the Skete of St Elias. He reposed in Athens on 7 June 1837, aged 54, and is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Prince Sergei Alexandrovich Shirinsky-⁠Shikhmatov was born in 1783 in the village of Dernovo, Smolensk province, in a family of devout landowners. His father died when he was ten, and at thirteen he entered the Naval Cadet Corps. He left service with the rank of captain, lived in St Petersburg, held high posts, was known to Tsar Alexander I, and was also a poet. Of his large income he gave nearly everything away and could not long remain in the world. In 1828 he entered the Yuriev Monastery under Archimandrite Photius; on 25 March 1830 he was tonsured with the name Anikita, then ordained hierodeacon and priest. His superiors wished to make him an archimandrite, but he declined. He went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, stopping at many monasteries, and left a good example at Odessa. He reached Athos on 7 June 1835, lived in the Skete of St Elias and met the elder Arsenius, confessor of all Russian monks, whom he asked to be his father. From their conversations came the thought of helping the Russian St Panteleimon Monastery. He went to Jerusalem with Arsenius, returned to Athos, built in the Skete of St Elias a church of St Mitrophan of Voronezh and served forty Liturgies in fulfilment of a vow made at the Holy Sepulchre.

By order of the authorities he was appointed rector of the Russian embassy church in Athens, a post he did not want. He asked the Holy Synod to release him and wished to return to Athos, but his incurable illness worsened and on 7 June 1837, on Pentecost, he gave up his soul. Athens mourned him. He left a will that all his property be sent to the Skete of St Elias, and after some years his bones were brought there; when found, they gave off a wonderful fragrance. They now rest uncovered in the skete, as a treasure. The historian P. V. Troitsky says he was the first who in the nineteenth century renewed not only St Panteleimon Monastery but all Russian monasticism on Athos.