Anthony of Dymsky

Saint Anthony of Dymsk (about 1206 to 1273) was a monk of Novgorod, a disciple of Saint Barlaam of Khutyn and founder of the monastery of Saint Anthony of Dymsk, on Lake Dymskoye near Tikhvin. He is the only saint of the Russian Church who laboured as a stylite on the waters. He is commemorated on 17 (30) January and on 24 June (7 July), in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod and that of the Saints of Saint Petersburg.

Life

He grew up in a pious family and early felt the attraction of the solitary and ascetic life. He asked Saint Barlaam, founder of the Khutyn monastery near Novgorod, to receive him among his disciples. The elder, seeing good fruit in him, fulfilled his wish, and the young monk soon surpassed the other brothers in ascetic labours. His humility and strict abstinence won him the trust and love of all.

The brothers sent him to Constantinople, to Patriarch Athanasius, on church business, and he needed five years to complete this hard obedience. Returning safely, he soon took the place of abbot of the Khutyn monastery after the death of Saint Barlaam, who before dying had blessed his beloved disciple as his successor.

Hermit and stylite on the waters

Anthony did not stay long at Khutyn. Fleeing human glory, he left the monastery in secret and settled in a cave on the shore of Lake Dymskoye, fifteen versts from Tikhvin, which was founded later. In the middle of the lake he found a large stone, the top of which barely showed above the water and which, according to the level of the lake, sank or appeared. The saint rowed out to the stone and prayed there alone, for hours and whole nights, standing on it. The stone survives today a few tens of metres from the shore, usually covered by water; in 1994 a wooden cross was set beside it.

News of the new hermit's labours spread, crowds began to gather around him, and with the permission of Grand Prince Alexander Nevsky, in 1243 Anthony founded on the shore of the lake a monastery dedicated to Saint Anthony the Great, of which he remained abbot. In it he reposed in peace on 24 June (7 July) 1273.

Relics

In 1370 his relics were found, and they stood openly in a shrine in the church until the invasion of the Tatars in 1409, when the brothers hid them in the ground so that they would not be dishonoured. Since then they lay under the stone. The monastery was laid waste by the Swedes in 1611 and since 1794 has been called the Holy Trinity Anthony-⁠Dymsky men's monastery. In 2001 the relics were found a second time and placed in the Dormition monastery at Tikhvin, and in 2008 they were brought back to the monastery founded by the saint.