Antonin of Uglich

Venerable Antonin of Uglich (Anthony), abbot of the Intercession Monastery in Uglich, died a martyr in 1609, in the sacking of Uglich by the Poles in the Time of Troubles. He is commemorated on 23 May (5 June), in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl.

The main information about him is in the "Uglich Chronicler" (eighteenth-⁠century copies), where it is said that Abbot Anthony "in deed and in life became an imitator of his pastor, Venerable Paisius", the founder of the Intercession Monastery. In the summer of 1609 the Tushino colonel Mikulinsky took Uglich by storm, "burned the castle and half the suburb". The troops of the supporters of the False Dmitry, under Unkovsky and Baklanovsky, "with the boyars' sons from Kashin and with thievish Lithuanians from the camp", besieged the Intercession Monastery. Abbot Anthony gathered the brethren and townspeople in the monastery cathedral, confessed and communed them. Then, with the cross in his hand, together with twelve monks, he went out to meet the invaders and tried to persuade the besiegers not to shed the blood of the peaceful people who had taken shelter in the monastery. The abbot and the monks with him were cut down with sabres. The bodies of those killed were thrown into the Volga, but were soon found near the monastery. Then the besiegers put the monks' remains in a boat, which they let float down the river, but the martyrs' bodies again stood, "floating against the water", at the Intercession monastery. At night the monks went secretly out of the monastery and, gathering the bodies, buried them within the precinct, opposite the bell tower. The next morning the besiegers broke into the monastery and plundered it, and the shrine of Venerable Paisius they cut with swords. The forty monks and more than a thousand inhabitants of Uglich who were in the monastery were cut down with swords, and some died in the fire. The surviving inhabitants buried the slain. Later, over the grave, a great stone was laid with the inscription "In the year 7117, bodies killed by the Lithuanians", and over the grave a wooden chapel was built, which existed until the 1920s.

A memorial service for the slain monks of the Intercession monastery and the more than a thousand laity was appointed for 14 May and for Meatfare Saturday. In 1964 the names of the martyrs of Uglich were included in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl. In the Uglich Museum of History and Art the cross of Abbot Anthony, cleft by a sabre blow, is preserved.