Barlaam of Suzdal

Holy Hierarch Barlaam was bishop of Suzdal and Tarusa in the Russian Church and passed to the Lord in 1586 at the Makhrishchi Monastery. He was canonized in 1988, among the hierarchs. He is commemorated on 21 August (3 September) and on 19 November (2 December).

He was born at the beginning of the sixteenth century into a family of landowners and was probably named Basil at baptism. His great-⁠grandfather, Hieromonk Serapion, had been among the first monks of the Holy Trinity Monastery of Makhrishchi, whose abbot at the time was Venerable Stephen. It seems that Barlaam also began his monastic life at Makhrishchi. His tonsure was performed, it seems, by Hegumen Jonah, who governed the monastery for over thirty years. From 1557 he was hegumen of the monastery and cared zealously for strengthening its well-⁠being. He built in it a stone church dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

In 1560, by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, he restored the burned Holy Trinity Monastery of Avnezh, in the diocese of Vologda, founded by disciples of Venerable Stephen of Makhrishchi and placed under the Trinity-⁠Saint Sergius Lavra. In his time the relics of Venerable Stephen were found. He strictly kept the rule left by Stephen, who had ordered that the poor should not be let leave the monastery without food. In 1570 he was consecrated bishop of Suzdal and Tarusa.

The source says that on the feast of Pentecost in 1587, a year after the death the same source gives, more than two thousand pilgrims gathered at the monastery, while there was bread for scarcely a thousand. After the Liturgy, Bishop Barlaam prayed with tears at the tomb of the venerable one that he might bless with the few loaves all who had come to the feast. Then he ordered the refectory brother Simeon to prepare a meal for all. Simeon doubted how so many people could be fed with so little, but God gave the miracle according to the bishop's faith. The hegumen blessed the meal and all began to eat. The bread and drink not only sufficed for all, but so much remained that the brethren lived on the remains for three months after Pentecost.

Through Bishop Barlaam's petition to Tsar Ivan the Terrible and Metropolitan Anthony, Venerable Euphrosyne of Suzdal was canonized. It was also he who found the service and canon of the venerable one, thought lost, and fixed the day of her commemoration. He left to the monastery the wonderworking Tikhvin icon of the Mother of God. In 1583 he retired to the Makhrishchi Monastery and reposed there in peace on 21 July 1586, and was buried in the same monastery.