Athanasius of Syandema

Venerable Athanasius of Syandema was abbot and disciple of Venerable Alexander of Svir, founder of the Dormition hermitage of Syandema, in Karelia. The Russian Church honours him among the venerable fathers. His commemoration is on 15 May (finding of the relics), on 3 June, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Karelia, and on 14 July, in the Synaxes of the Saints of Saint Petersburg and of Vologda. His canonization was confirmed by the entry of his name in the Synaxis of the Saints of Karelia (feast established in 1974) and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Valaam (established in 1999).

He began his work in a church on Valaam, then at the monastery of Svir. He met Alexander of Svir on Valaam in the 1480s. After his teacher's death, he went to live in the wilderness in the dense forests of Karelia, in Obonezhye, in the Olonets district, where he founded a monastery on Lake Syandema and built a chapel. Later he had to return to the Svir monastery, because of the discontent of the local inhabitants. In the end, in 1577, he settled finally at Syandema, where he built a monastery with the permission of the archbishop of Novgorod. The years do not fit together on their own: Alexander died in 1533, so Athanasius would have lived very long.

Athanasius died at a great age. At his grave on Lake Roshchinskoe a church was built in the name of the holy hierarchs Cyril and Athanasius of Alexandria, destroyed by fire in 1720. When a new church was being built, in 1865, the incorrupt relics of Venerable Athanasius were found. His life is known from accounts collected by E. V. Barsov and Hegumen Damascene from the archives of the monasteries of the Olonets land.