Aristocleus of Athos

Schema-⁠hieromonk Aristocleus of Athos and Moscow (born Alexei Alexeevich Amvrosiev, 1838 to 1918) was a Russian monk of the monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Athos, abbot of its metochion in Moscow, who died in 1918 in the time of the Bolsheviks; our sources call him a martyr of the Russian Church. According to the English source he was numbered among the saints on 6 September 2004, and his relics were re-⁠interred on 13 November 2004 at the monastery of Saint Daniel in Moscow. The sources do not agree on the days of commemoration: 26 and 24 August according to the English source, 23 and 24 August according to the Serbian one.

Youth

He was born at Orenburg, into a pious peasant family, and lost his father early. According to the Life, he lost a leg after a severe illness at ten. His mother begged Saint Nicholas to heal him and vowed to dedicate him to a monastery; on the feast of Saint Nicholas, 6 December, Alexei was miraculously healed. At seventeen his mother sent him to a monastery. Other accounts say that he and his mother entered separate monasteries after his father's death.

Athos and Moscow

In 1876, right after the death of his wife, Alexei Amvrosiev went to Athos and entered the monastery of Saint Panteleimon, and on 11 March 1880 he was tonsured a monk with the name Aristocleus, after the martyr Aristocleus of Salamis. On 2 December 1884 he was ordained deacon, and on 12 December hieromonk. From 1891 to 1894 he was sent to Moscow as abbot of the metochion of the monastery of Saint Panteleimon, where he began to publish books and the magazine "The Spiritually Profitable Interlocutor", on the life of Russian monks on Athos; through it the Russian monasteries on Athos grew with many new novices. In 1894, after a false denunciation, he was forced to leave Moscow and return to Athos. In November 1909 he was appointed again abbot of the metochion in Moscow, where he had many people around him.

Gifts and martyrdom

In his time he was regarded as a healer: he is said to have raised a little girl from the dead and given sight to a blind boy. He is known outside Russia chiefly for a prophecy uttered in 1918, shortly before his death. As a leading churchman he was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and died at the beginning of the revolution; the Russian Church regards him as a martyr. He was buried in the monastery, in a marble tomb; after the revolution the monastery estates were nationalized and in 1923 he was moved to the Danilovsky cemetery in Moscow; on 6 September 2004 he was glorified as a saint, and on 13 November 2004 the relics were placed at the monastery of Saint Daniel in Moscow and at the church of the Holy Great Martyr Nikita in the city.