Arcadius of Vyazma

Venerable Arcadius of Vyazma was a recluse and hermit at Vyazma in Russia, a disciple of Venerable Gerasimus of Boldino. He died in 1592 and is commemorated on 11 July, the day of the finding of his relics.

On the spot at Vyazma where he struggled a church was later built, and since 1832 the Arcadius convent for women has stood there. His relics were found in the seventeenth century, in the time of Patriarch Joachim, on 11 July, and rest hidden under a covering in the monastery of Saint Gerasimus at Boldino, near Dorogobuzh.

In the Great Menaion Reader of Metropolitan Macarius, under 31 July, there is a polemical treatise by Venerable Arcadius, written in 1538. The treatise is aimed chiefly against the Council of Florence of 1438 and against Metropolitan Isidore, who signed the act of union of the two Churches there. The year 1538 sits uneasily with the saint's death in 1592, so the dates of his life remain uncertain.

At the end of the seventeenth century his veneration merged with that of Venerable Arcadius of Novy Torg, who lived in another place, and icons appeared inscribed “Venerable Arcadius, wonderworker of Vyazma and Novy Torg.” The habit of joining them led to the name Arcadius of Novy Torg and Vyazma being included in the Synaxis of the Saints of Smolensk, established in 1984.