Cyril of Chelmogorsk

Venerable Cyril of Chelmogorsk (Cyril Chelmogorsky) was born in September 1285 and reposed on 8 December 1368. He was one of the first hermit monks who came to the Onega region, by Lake Onega, in northern Russia. The Russian Church commemorates him on 8 December, by the old calendar.

In 1316 Venerable Cyril, tonsured at the Saint Anthony Monastery in Novgorod, chose as a place of permanent dwelling the mount Chelma, near Lake Lekshmozero, in the land of the Chud. The first winter he lived in a small cave, then built himself a wooden cell and a chapel. Toward the end of his life all the local Chud were baptized. For the newly baptized a church was built in the name of the Epiphany of the Lord. The venerable one lived on Mount Chelma fifty-⁠two years. He was buried in the chapel on the north side of the Epiphany church. According to the Serbian source, his holy relics rest in his monastery.

Ten years after the death of Saint Cyril, in 1378, Hieromonk Arsenius founded the Cyril-⁠Chelmogorsk Monastery. In 2005 Bishop Tikhon of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory consecrated, near the ruins of the former monastery, a pilgrimage cross in memory of Venerable Cyril of Chelmogorsk. The inhabitants of the villages near the monastery venerate the spruce tree and the cave of Cyril.