Benedict of Rossikon

Benedict of Rossikon was a Greek hieroschemadeacon who lived on Athos for more than seventy years and had a decisive part in the return of the Russians to St Panteleimon Monastery. He reposed on 11 December 1840, aged 106. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Very learned and spiritual, he was sought three times by the patriarch of Constantinople to be ordained bishop, but he declined not only the episcopate but even the priesthood, and died a deacon. After the uprising of 1821, St Panteleimon Monastery, laid waste by Turks and robbers, could not rise on its own. God showed the elders the way of renewal: to invite Russian monks. In 1834 the monk Anikita came to Athos and asked permission to build a church of St Mitrophan and, with it, to have thirty Russian monks live in the monastery. Benedict supported this wish. When the Russians were at last received, the elder called the brotherhood to his bedside and urged them to live with the Russians in love and unity, bearing one another's burdens, and entrusted them to the abbot Gerasim, his disciple, whom he called thrice blessed, since he alone had stood for the Russians. He said that now he was no longer their persecutor but their protector and defender. After the reception of the Russians he lived only forty days.