Arsenius of Novgorod

Venerable Arsenius of Novgorod (born Ambrose, about 1500 to 11 July 1570) was a recluse, a tanner by trade and founder of the Arseniev men's monastery of the Mother of God in Novgorod, today abolished. His relics rest at the Kirillov monastery in Novgorod. He is commemorated (Old Style) on 12 July, in the whole Church, and on 8 May, locally.

Life

He was born about 1500 at Rzhev-⁠Vladimirov, in the family of the tanner Gregory and Pelagia (later the nun Apollinaria); he had brothers and sisters: Gregory, Stephen, Tatiana and Vassa. From childhood he was trained in the trade, in which he helped his father until the latter's death. Half a year after his marriage he left secretly for Novgorod, from where he wrote to his mother and wife a letter with the reasons for leaving the world. For five years at Novgorod he worked as a tanner, fasting and praying in secret. Of his pious life a known builder of churches and monasteries, the Novgorodian Fyodor Dmitrievich Syrkov, learned, and showed himself ready to provide means for the building of a monastery.

Ambrose received tonsure with the name Arsenius and in 1562 built a monastery and church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, near the church of the Myrrhbearers, on the commercial side, in Yaroslav's court, on the right bank of the Volkhov. After founding the monastery he continued a strictly spiritual life, always wearing chains. In 1570, after the killing of the Novgorodians, Tsar Ivan the Terrible wished to build himself a palace in Yaroslav's court, but, learning of the stay of Saint Arsenius, he came first to him with gifts and outward humility. The monk did not fear to rebuke Ivan for his cruelty and did not accept the gifts. Ivan was silent. On 11 July of the same year, about to leave for Pskov, the tsar visited him again and asked his blessing for the journey. "Tomorrow, sovereign," the recluse answered, "I am ready for the road after you." Ivan rejoiced, thinking that Arsenius would go with him to Pskov, but the next morning the venerable one died. He was buried in the same cell of reclusion in which he had lived.

The relics

After the finding of the relics a stone chapel was raised over them, and then a church of the Nativity of Christ, with a side chapel of Saint Leontius, bishop of Rostov. On 8 May 1785 the relics were moved from the abolished Arseniev monastery in Novgorod to the Kirillov monastery in Novgorod, where they rest under a stone in the side chapel to the right of the great church. The local commemoration is on 8 May, and the general one on 12 July. His Life was written in 1701.