Augustine the Russian

Saint Augustine the Russian, a venerable monk, was born in 1882 at Aliskoye, near Poltava in Russia, with the name Anthony Korra, to pious parents, Nicholas and Catherine. From childhood he entered a monastery in his homeland as a novice. There a temptation led him to throw himself into a deep river so as not to fall into sin; God held him up on the water without wetting his clothes. Without telling the abbot anything about the girl who had tempted him, he asked a blessing to go to Athos and came in 1908.

He was tonsured a monk in 1910, with the name Augustine, in the Cell of the Holy Cross of the Karakallou Monastery. In 1943 he moved to a cell of Philotheou, "The Entrance of the Theotokos", where he struggled until old age. He was full of kindness. He looked after old and poor animals and gave away what he received. His cell was a meeting place of the workers who loaded the monasteries' timber. He ate a flatbread of flour, water and salt; if he received a salted sardine, he kept it for a guest. When his sight weakened, the fathers of Philotheou took him into the monastery with his animals. There, it is said, saints, angels and the Mother of God visited him, and he urged his fellow old men to stand when he saw them. At the moment of his death his face shone three times. He reposed in the Lord on 27 March 1965, aged eighty-⁠three. He is honoured by the faithful, without synodal canonization.