Cornelius of Aleksandrov

Holy Venerable Cornelius of Aleksandrov was born at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in the hard time of the Time of Troubles, in a merchant family, Ignatius and Evdokia, who lived near Moscow in the Troitskaya sloboda. At holy Baptism he was given the name Cosmas. He read the Holy Scriptures and other spiritually useful books with zeal and learned to lift his mind to God. From youth he bore the seal of a chosen man. His heart was not drawn to his father's trade but longed for the incorruptible wealth hidden in faith, and the words of the Gospel about the one who leaves house and brothers for the Lord's Name stayed in his soul all his life.

Tonsure and first struggles

At twenty-⁠three he decided to renounce the world. In a Moscow monastery he received the angelic monastic habit with the name Cornelius and stayed there five years, then, seeking a more perfect life, moved to the Florishchev hermitage, known for the strictness of its rule. He kept the monastery's rules and all its obediences with zeal, with one aim: to put to death the passions of the flesh and give place to the spirit, guarding himself always with deep humility. The enemy rose against him with temptations and terrors, but the saint drove them off by the power of the Holy Cross. For his righteous and gentle life many came to him for guidance. Displeased at this, the enemy stirred the abbot to hate him, and the venerable one accepted the persecution meekly, never repaying evil with evil.

The two monasteries

He had to leave the Florishchev hermitage and came to the Nativity of the Mother of God hermitage, founded by the Venerable Lucian. The brethren, left orphaned after Lucian's repose, grew fond of him and begged him to accept the priesthood and be their shepherd and builder; thinking himself unworthy, he consented with difficulty, seeing in it the will of the Lord. Coming to the Aleksandrovskaya sloboda, he did not neglect the nuns of the Dormition monastery, also founded by Lucian, and the abbess Julitta and the sisters begged him to be their shepherd. In 1658 Patriarch Nikon confirmed him in the office of builder of Lucian's hermitage and entrusted him with the direction of both houses, of monks and of nuns.

He was a humble and loving shepherd. His preaching filled the churches, and no one went away from him without peace. Human glory weighed on him and he wished to withdraw for a time into solitude, but the power of God turned him back to his monasteries, where he was received with joy.

Common life and teaching

The Venerable Cornelius urged the sisters of the Dormition monastery to renew the common life, which had broken down after Lucian's repose. He proposed it first, by lot, to only three cells, as a trial. The tsar Alexis Mikhailovich even commanded that the ruga be given to the nuns if all entered the common life, and benefactors were found with generous gifts. The elder women feared disturbances, but the blessed one wisely explained to them the benefit of living together, reminding them of the words of Christ and of the psalmist about brethren dwelling together, and urged them to hide nothing, lest they suffer like Ananias and Sapphira. The sisters obeyed, gathered their possessions and began to work and live together.

As more sisters came, he did not receive them quickly but tested them with care. He taught them first obedience as the first virtue of a monk, then prayer as the main work of the soul, and avoiding idle talk. He himself worked with his hands and taught the sisters the skills of the monastery, from bread and kvass to sewing and shoemaking. He took great care of the order of services, taught the sisters church singing and the less lettered to read. He weaned them gradually from the ties of the world, like a skilled fisherman who does not pull in the big fish at once, and when he saw them downcast, he sent them to rest in a quiet place in the field or by the river.

Mercy and labours

He built a hospital for the sisters and visited it every week; those who died he buried himself with the funeral service, and on Saturdays he remembered all of them. He gathered orphans and poor girls, from the age of two, in a school at the monastery and appointed a teacher for them, and for strangers and the poor he always ordered a meal to be laid, teaching them to see Christ Himself in them. By his care, with the help of benefactors from the tsar's family, princes and boyars, both monasteries grew and strengthened. In 1680 he laid the foundation of the stone church of the Epiphany in Lucian's hermitage, and at the Dormition monastery churches, stone cells, a refectory and part of the wall were renewed and built. Often in the day the tsar's craftsmen worked, and from evening to matins Venerable Cornelius with the sisters; the man appointed over the building confessed: "Holy father, a hundred men in the day do not do for me as much as you do at night with the old women".

Murmuring and temptations

The brethren of Lucian's hermitage began to murmur against him, saying that he had left his own monastery to care for another. The saint bore it meekly, and the abbess Anisia went to Moscow to Patriarch Joasaph II (1667-1672), who blessed his staying at the Dormition monastery, without his ceasing to care for Lucian's hermitage. The enemy raged: he brought terrors in sleep, beat on the walls of the cell, and once, on the road, a storm tore the cowl from the saint's head and a voice from the forest told him it would fight him until it overcame him. The venerable one signed himself with the Cross, prayed with tears, and all grew calm. Then some robbers attacked him, but his horse tore loose and carried him back; the other dangers he bore with God's help, grieving only for the salvation of his flock.

Repose and veneration

For more than twenty years he cared for the monasteries founded by Lucian. Reaching deep old age, he reposed on 11/24 August 1681, as a hieroschemamonk, and his relics were buried in a crypt beneath the altar of the Trinity cathedral of the Dormition monastery. Every year, on the day of his repose, a memorial service was held at his tomb; on a wall of the crypt an inscription survives about a healing in 1882. In 1984 the venerable Lucian and Cornelius were glorified in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir, for local veneration at Aleksandrov, and in May 1995 their relics were found, preserved incorrupt. The relics of Venerable Cornelius rest in the Trinity cathedral of the Dormition monastery, and by the blessing of Archbishop Eulogius of Vladimir and Suzdal their memory is kept everywhere in the Vladimir land. Saint Cornelius is commemorated on 6 July, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir, in the new style.