Arsenius of Tver

Saint Arsenius was bishop of Tver, who died on 2 March 1409, and is the author of the oldest redaction of the Kyiv Caves Paterikon (the Arsenian redaction). He was numbered among the saints, as a hierarch, for local veneration, at the Makaryev Council of 1547. He is remembered on 2 March and 2 July, on the old calendar.

Beginnings

The year of his birth and the names of his parents are not known. According to his life, he was born into a noble family of Tver, was inclined to monastic life and, after the death of his parents, gave the inheritance received from them to the poor and withdrew to the Kyiv Caves monastery, where he received monastic tonsure. He was noticed by Metropolitan Cyprian of Kyiv, who made him his archdeacon and entrusted him with the internal arrangement of the metropolis. The Serbian source says he was strict with himself, gentle with others and merciful to the oppressed and needy.

Bishop of Tver

In 1390, on his way to Moscow, Metropolitan Cyprian at Tver removed, on the complaints of Grand Prince Michael Alexandrovich of Tver, Bishop Euthymius (Vislen). The prince and the townspeople asked Cyprian to ordain Arsenius. He refused at first ("fearing the lordship at Tver, seeing that there was enmity and much strife there, he was troubled and terrified"), but then, under threat of conciliar prohibition, was consecrated bishop of Tver. The consecration took place on 19 (by other data, 15) August, with the participation of Saint Stephen of Perm. In the time of his rule the writing of the chronicle, interrupted by the Moscow-⁠Tver war of 1375, was resumed, many churches were built, the Transfiguration cathedral was renewed and the building of its bell tower begun. On the model of the Kyiv Caves monastery he founded near Tver, on the river Tmaka, the Zheltikov monastery and built the Savvino-⁠Sretensky monastery. The Serbian source says that in 1394 he raised in the Zheltikov monastery a stone church of the Dormition of the Mother of God.

In 1401 he took part in the council at Moscow, under Metropolitan Cyprian, which condemned Archbishop John of Novgorod and Bishop Savva of Lutsk. In the same year he was a mediator in a dispute over land between Prince Vasily Mikhailovich of Kashin and Grand Prince Ivan Mikhailovich of Tver. In 1406, on his initiative, the oldest known copy of the Kyiv Caves Paterikon was made, the "Arsenian redaction", known in twenty-⁠six copies.

Repose and relics

He fell asleep on 2 March 1409, "after suffering in the head", struck by paralysis and losing his speech. He was buried in the Zheltikov monastery, founded by him, in the porch of the right side chapel, of the icon of the Saviour Not-⁠Made-⁠by-⁠Hands, of the Dormition church, in the same tomb he had made with his own hand. A chronicle account of his burial survives, from the second half of the fifteenth century. The Serbian source says he carved for himself, in white stone, a tomb, and a lid for it from another stone. In 1483 Bishop Vassian of Tver, by order of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, found the relics of Saint Arsenius. Then the local commemoration of the saint was established at the Zheltikov monastery. The local commemoration at Tver was fixed by the Moscow council of 1547.