Barlaam of Tobolsk

Saint Barlaam (in the world Vasily Petrovich Lavrovsky, 1728-1802) was Archbishop of Tobolsk and Siberia for thirty-⁠four years, a pastor strict with himself, merciful and a lover of learning, founder of the Abalak monastery and of many stone churches. He was glorified in 1984, in the synaxis of Siberian saints. He is commemorated on 10 June, in the synaxis of Siberian saints.

Childhood and formation

He was born around 1728 or 1729 in Moscow, in the family of the synodal subdeacon Pyotr Fyodorov of the church of Cosmas and Damian in Stariye Pany and Paraskeva Semyonova. He was the elder brother of Metropolitan Gabriel of Novgorod and Saint Petersburg (1730-1801). Children of church servants were taught at six the alphabet, the Horologion and the Psalter. Until 1752 he was a synodal singer, but was dismissed when his voice broke. In 1753 he entered the Kiev Caves Lavra as a novice and a pupil at the Kiev Academy, where he received the name Lavrovsky. He was tonsured a monk in 1759.

He was transferred to Moscow, then to the Holy Trinity Saint Sergius Lavra, and from there to Bishop Gedeon of Pskov and Narva, who put him in charge of the bishop's house at Pskov and made him abbot of the Lyubyatovo Monastery. In 1764 he was abbot of the Eleazar Monastery at Pskov, in 1765 he passed to the Tver diocese, led by his brother Gabriel, and in 1768 he was raised to archimandrite of the Saints Boris and Gleb Monastery at Torzhok.

Archbishop of Tobolsk

He was consecrated Bishop of Tobolsk and Siberia in the church of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, successor to Metropolitan Paul. He was a strict ascetic, gave alms abundantly to the poor, whom he invited every Saturday to the bishop's house, and in 1783 founded near Tobolsk the Abalak monastery of the Sign for men, where the wonderworking icon of the Mother of God of the Sign was placed. He was raised to archbishop. He cared especially for the Tobolsk seminary, which he moved in 1770 to the Monastery of the Sign, and he added to its curriculum Greek (1785), Tatar (1788), mathematics, physics, rhetoric and geography (1793) and medicine (1802). In 1800 he opened a drawing class in the seminary so that icon painting would flourish in the diocese, and asked the Synod to forbid bringing icons into Siberia without examination by the local bishops, because icons of very poor quality were coming from Suzdal. During the Pugachev uprising (1773-1775) he wrote and sent to the diocese an exhortation, to be read by priests in churches, and visited in person several districts neighbouring the rebel ones.

In his time stone churches were built at Tyumen, Ishim, Kurgan, Tomsk, Barnaul, Yeniseisk and other towns, as well as at Tobolsk, where in 1788 a fire destroyed much of the town, the bishop's house, the Monastery of the Sign, fourteen churches and the consistory. On days of rest he withdrew to the Mezhgorye Monastery, ten versts from Tobolsk, for fasting and seclusion. He also took an interest in the history of Siberia. He received the Order of Alexander Nevsky, the Order of Saint Anna, first class, vestments and a diamond cross from Empress Catherine II.

Repose and veneration

He fell ill with fever after a chill, confessed and received communion, and fell asleep at Tobolsk on 27 December 1802, aged seventy-⁠three, after thirty-⁠four years of governing the diocese. He asked to be buried beside Metropolitan John of Tobolsk, whom he greatly revered, in the Saint Sophia Cathedral. In 1984, through the efforts of Bishop Maxim of Omsk, with the blessing of Patriarch Pimen, he was glorified in the synaxis of Siberian saints. On 26 August 2005, during the restoration of the cathedral, his grave was found, with a tin plate reading: The Most Reverend Barlaam, archbishop and knight; governed the Tobolsk diocese for 34 years; a Muscovite; tonsured at Kiev; died 27 December 1802; 73 years. The holy relics were moved into a new coffin in the altar of the cathedral and in 2013 exhibited in a carved wooden shrine for veneration.