Aristocles of Moscow

Holy Venerable Aristocles of Moscow, in the world Alexei Alexeevich Amvrosiev, was a monk of Mount Athos and a spiritual elder in Moscow. He was born in 1846 in Orenburg and went to the Lord in 1918. He was glorified as a locally venerated saint of Moscow on 6 September 2004. His relics were found, and they now rest in the church of the Great Martyr Nikita at the Athonite Metochion in Moscow.

Childhood and healing

He was born into a pious peasant family and soon lost his father. At the age of ten, after a grave illness, the boy's legs were paralysed. His mother, Matrona, prayed with tears to Saint Nicholas for her son's healing, and promised that she would dedicate him to God and herself enter a monastery when the son reached monastic age. On the feast of Saint Nicholas, 6 December, Alexei was healed in a wondrous way. When he turned seventeen, Matrona withdrew to a monastery.

On Athos

In 1876, immediately after the death of his wife, Alexei Amvrosiev set out for the Holy Mountain of Athos and entered the Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon. On 11 March 1880 he was tonsured a monk with the name Aristocles, in honour of the Hieromartyr Aristocles of Salamis in Cyprus. On 2 December 1884 he was ordained hierodeacon, and on 12 December of the same year hieromonk. On 12 February 1886 he received the great schema without change of name.

The Moscow metochion

In 1887 he brought to Moscow an olive branch from the place where the Great Martyr Panteleimon the Healer was beheaded. From 1891 to 1894 he was abbot of the Moscow metochion of the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon. At that time the metochion stood in a small town house on Bolshaya Polyanka street, which the benefactress Akilina Alekseevna Smirnova had given to the monastery in September 1879. For several years Father Aristocles led the metochion and the chapel of the Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon.

The elder had the gift of healing and of insight, and each day he received hundreds of people in need of help. The many gifts of the faithful he distributed to the suffering, and he paid for the schooling of children from poor families. From 1888, through his efforts, the magazine Dushepoleznyi Sobesednik began to appear at the metochion, telling of the life of the Russian monks on the Holy Mountain, publishing lives of Athonite ascetics and letters of elders to their spiritual children. Thanks to the magazine, the Russian monasteries on Athos received new monks, buildings damaged by fire were rebuilt from the generous gifts of the Russian people, and new churches were raised.

In 1894, after a false denunciation, the elder had to leave Moscow and return to Athos. In 1909 the council of confessors of the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon named him abbot of the metochion again, and from 29 November 1909 he lived in Moscow. After his return, thousands of people again began to come to the metochion. Between 1909 and 1918 two three-⁠storey buildings were erected: in one was placed the library, and the other was given to charitable institutions. On its third floor, in a corner room, the Father arranged a house church in honour of the icon of the Mother of God known as Skoroposlushnitsa, which he loved and revered above all. The church was consecrated after his death, on 30 September 1918, by Patriarch Tikhon.

Repose and glorification

The elder fell asleep in the Lord on 24 August by the old calendar (6 September) in 1918. Three Moscow bishops served his funeral: Bishop Arsenius, Bishop Trifon Turkestanov and Bishop Joasaph, abbot of the Epiphany Monastery, who was then carrying out the duties of Metropolitan of Moscow. He was first buried in a marble crypt at the metochion. After the revolution, however, all monastery property was nationalised and house churches were closed. Searches, arrests and confiscations began at the metochion, and in January 1919 Hieromonk Macarius, the head of the chapel, was arrested. For this reason the elder's spiritual children decided to rebury him, and in 1923 Hieroschemamonk Aristocles was moved to the Danilov cemetery in Moscow.

In 2001 the Synodal Commission for Canonisation of the Russian Church, having studied the materials received, concluded that there were no obstacles to the glorification of Hieroschemamonk Aristocles as a locally venerated saint of Moscow. In the summer of 2004 his holy relics were found at the Danilov cemetery. On 6 September 2004 he was proclaimed among the locally venerated saints of Moscow and the Moscow diocese, at the Divine Liturgy served by Patriarch Alexy II in the Dormition Cathedral of the Kremlin. At the service the decree of canonisation was read for the venerable Aristocles Amvrosiev, elder of Moscow (1846-1918). On 13 November 2004 the relics were carried in procession from the Danilov Monastery to the Athonite metochion in Moscow.

He is commemorated on 6 September, the day of his glorification, and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow. On 20 May he is remembered in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Athos.