Arsenius of Athos

Arsenius of Athos was a Russian hieroschemamonk, the key figure of the renewal of Russian monasticism on Athos in the middle of the nineteenth century. He reposed on 25 March 1846 and is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

He was born at Balakhna on the Volga, in Nizhny Novgorod province, to devout parents, and received the name Alexei at baptism. In his youth he learned to read and write. At twenty he left home and wandered through Russia. He then joined the community of Peshnosha hermitage near Moscow, and after three years went to Moldavia with Nikita to visit its monasteries. They found a spiritual father in the Balashevsky skete near Butesani; there they were tonsured, Alexei with the name Abel, and Abel was made to accept ordination as hieromonk and became confessor of the skete. For eighteen years they obeyed their father until his death. Then they received a revelation to go to Athos, though the times were troubled and Patriarch Gregory had just been killed at Constantinople.

They reached Constantinople with great difficulty, wintered in want and then walked towards Athos, attacked by robbers. They found monasteries empty, gardens overgrown with forest and the monks fled. At Iviron they saw the icon of the Mother of God Portaitissa unharmed; the Greek monks told them that the Turks could not even approach it. They took a cell in the skete, grew a garden and carved spoons, but no one bought their work. They endured four years. A man from Chios, whose children had been taken as slaves by the Turks, asked for help, and Abel gave him all the money they had saved, though Nikandr wept at it; the elder's answer was one of trust. Soon they were tonsured into the great schema: Abel received the name Arsenius and Nikandr the name Nicholas.

Because of the crowds that came, they withdrew to a large cell in the inner desert, which they rebuilt with their own hands, consecrated the church and added two cells. They ate no fish, cheese, wine or oil; their food was rusks soaked in water, peppers, aubergines and rarely onion; they ate once a day at the third hour of the afternoon, and not on Wednesdays and Fridays. They prayed at night through Matins, carved ten spoons a day each and kept silence and the prayer of the mind. Arsenius celebrated the Liturgy almost daily, usually the two of them, with tears. They sent no one away sad; they pawned their books to help others. Arsenius's first question to every visitor was: Are you content, brother, do you have any need? For his gifts many, especially hieromonks and hierodeacons of the Greek monasteries, came to him to confess.

In 1835 the former prince Shirinsky-⁠Shikhmatov, the monk Anikita, came to Athos. Arsenius became his spiritual father, and from their conversations came the thought of helping the Russian monastery of St Panteleimon and bringing Russian monks back to it. After many years in the desert the two elders went to Jerusalem, to the Holy Sepulchre, and returned. On 6 February 1841 Father Nicholas died, and Arsenius remained alone. He then moved to a place closer to the skete; his Russian disciples on Kapsala and near Karyes grieved that their father was far away. He was buried beside the altar of the cell of the Holy Trinity of Stavronikita Monastery on 25 March 1846. He was of medium height, with a clean, bright face, cheerful by nature but with eyes always full of tears; when he served the Liturgy his face became like fire. His speech was gentle and brief, and whoever listened began to weep from the first words.