Avel Makedonov

Avel Makedonov was a Russian schemaarchimandrite, born on 1 June 1927 in the Ryazan region, elected abbot of St Panteleimon Monastery in 1971 and then head of the St John the Theologian Monastery in the Ryazan diocese. He reposed on 6 December 2006, aged eighty, after a short but severe illness. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Named Nikolai Nikolaevich in the world, he grew up in a large, hardworking, Orthodox peasant family, with a hard childhood of hunger. In 1970, on the recommendation of his childhood friend Archbishop Nikodim (Rotov), he was sent to Athos to strengthen the brotherhood of St Panteleimon, and entered Rossikon on 22 February 1970. On 13 March 1971 he was elected abbot and on 23 March tonsured into the schema, but the Kinot of the Holy Mountain did not confirm his appointment, because he had lived too short a time on Athos; Avel accepted the decision humbly. On 16 May 1989 the Holy Synod appointed him superior of the St John the Theologian Monastery in the Ryazan diocese, just returned to the Church, which lay in ruins and was revived in the years of his leadership. He died on 6 December 2006 in the St John monastery, dear to his heart. Patriarch Alexy II wrote an epistle on his death.