Barlaam of Uleima

Holy Venerable Barlaam of Uleima, also called Barlaam of Uglich, lived in the fifteenth century and founded the Saint Nicholas Monastery of Uleima near Uglich. The main source is the "Uglich Chronicle" of the second half of the eighteenth century, which preserves fragments of a tale about him. He came from Rostov. In 1457 he went on pilgrimage to the relics of Saint Nicholas at Bari. There Saint Nicholas appeared to him and commanded him to buy his icon in the market, return to Rus with it and settle in the place that would be shown him. The venerable obeyed, bought the icon for three silver coins and set out on his way.

On 9 May 1460, on the feast of the translation of the relics of Saint Nicholas, he was in Uglich, and a few days later set out for Rostov. After twelve kilometres, tired, he stopped in a forest near the rivers Uleima and Vorzhekhot. He placed the icon between the branches of a pine and fell asleep. On waking he wished to go on and several times tried in vain to take the icon from the tree. Troubled, he fell asleep again, and in a dream Saint Nicholas appeared to him and commanded him to settle there, which he did.

The peasants of the neighbouring village of Dubrovskoe and the surrounding villages soon learned of the ascetic and the wonderworking icon and began to bring the sick to it, who were healed. They built him a cell, and for the icon a chapel by the road to Rostov. After a time the ruler of Uglich, Prince Andrew the Elder († 1493), fourth son of Grand Prince Basil II, came to venerate the icon. By his order and with the blessing of Archbishop Tryphon of Rostov, the place was cleared and about 1464 the building of a wooden church of Saint Nicholas was begun. Soon a monastery arose around it, and Archbishop Joasaph (Obolensky) of Rostov appointed Venerable Barlaam its builder.

The time of his death can be inferred from the charter of Prince Andrew to the Epiphany Monastery of Uglich, issued between the mid-1470s and 18 September 1491. The prince gave that monastery lands he had bought, not the Uleima Monastery, which he had supported during the lifetime of its founder, from which it may be supposed that by then the venerable was no longer living. It is unlikely that he is the same as the Abbot Barlaam who took part in the burial of Venerable Paisius of Uglich († 6 June 1504), since in 1457 he was already an old man. He was buried beneath the floor in the church of the Saint Nicholas Monastery of Uleima. In the iconography of Uglich he appears from the seventeenth century, which shows local veneration after the Time of Troubles. Veneration throughout the Church is confirmed by the inclusion of his name in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, the feast of which was established with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy I and by decision of the Holy Synod of 10 March 1964. The calendar page gives no particular day.