Cyril Vasilyev

Cyril Vasilyev (born Kuzma Vasilievich Vasilyev, 1871 to 1944; in the schema, Macarius) was bishop of Malaya Vishera, vicar of the diocese of Novgorod, abbot of the hermitage of Saint Macarius and a confessor of the faith in the years of persecution. He died on 1 April 1944 in the Pskov-⁠Caves Monastery. Our sources do not say that he has been officially numbered among the saints; the record calls him a confessor, and the calendar gives him on 19 March (Old Style). What follows is his life as the sources present it.

Childhood and monastic beginnings

He was born into a peasant family in the village of Guba in the Tikhvin district of the Novgorod province; his mother came from Ukraine, brought home by his father on his return from military service. The family was poor and the boy was sent to the Anthony of Dymsk monastery, where he carried water. He had a good voice and began to sing in the choir, and the monks taught him to read. He finished the local school. From his youth he wanted the monastery, but all those in the diocese had their rosters full. In 1894 a missionary monastery was founded on the site of the abolished hermitage of Saint Macarius, and Kuzma entered it. In 1900 he was tonsured a monk with the name Cyril, and in 1901 ordained hieromonk.

After the monastery was changed to the cenobitic rule and its first abbot, Arsenius (Alexeev), was removed, the brothers unanimously elected Hieromonk Cyril abbot, and the Holy Synod confirmed the election on 19 August 1906. On 11 March 1910 he was raised to the rank of hegumen. The fame of the monastery, the number of brothers and of pilgrims grew, and people, especially from Petersburg, came to him constantly for spiritual consolation.

The time of persecution

In 1919 to 1920 the monastery was changed into the agricultural artel "Land and Labour", so that it would not be closed; services continued, and thirty to forty monks lived in the buildings. In the spring of 1922, when the campaign to confiscate church valuables began, Abbot Cyril called the faithful to defend the shrine with the relics of Saint Macarius "to the last, even to blood". Many precious vessels could be hidden. He firmly opposed the renovationist schism of May 1922 and became one of the leaders of the "autocephalist movement" in the diocese of Novgorod.

Archbishop Andrew (Ukhtomsky) proposed that he become a bishop, and he agreed. On 22 March (4 April) 1923 he was secretly consecrated bishop of Lyuban, vicar of Novgorod, by Trophimus (Yakobchuk) and Bishop Joseph (Nevsky) of Valday, while Patriarch Tikhon was under house arrest, in order to resist the renovationists. He remained abbot of the hermitage. On 15 July 1924 he was arrested together with fifteen monks for hiding the valuables and tried at Novgorod, being sentenced to five years of strict imprisonment. From 1927 he was bishop of Malaya Vishera. In July 1928 he was retired, and at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra he received the schema with the name Macarius. On 17 February 1932 he was arrested with the brothers of the Macarius hermitage and sentenced to three years of exile in Kazakhstan; he was released in 1935.

After his exile he settled near Chudovo. Until the Great Patriotic War he wandered through the lands of Novgorod and Petrograd with great caution, worked as a shepherd for peasants in the collective farms, travelled through towns and villages celebrating services in secret, prepared his spiritual children for ordination, tonsured monks and ordained. He said in jest that he had his own seminary and academy. He had many spiritual children, laity, secret monks and secret priests. He was close to the Josephites.

Last years

The arrival of the German troops found him at Chudovo. He went to his monastery to gather the survivors and revive it, but learned that the occupiers had shot the patients of the home for invalids in the monastery's buildings, and the Nazis did not allow the monastery to be restored. At the end of 1941, after the Soviet counter-⁠offensive at Tikhvin, the hermitage found itself near the front, and the Germans made a strongpoint in it. The schema-⁠bishop, who resisted, was taken to Chudovo, and in the fighting the hermitage was entirely destroyed.

At the beginning of 1942 the schema-⁠bishop and his cell attendant, Hierodeacon Bucolus (Nikolaev), were taken by the Germans to Pskov. On 14 April 1942 they settled in the Pskov-⁠Caves Monastery. Macarius, then seventy, decided to remain there for ever, in a room on the lower floor of the refectory. He led a strict life of prayer, went daily to church and served at times, beloved by all. He was tall, lean and ascetic in appearance. He took part in the work of the Pskov Mission. On 28 August 1943, in the Church of the Meeting of the Lord, he took part in a gathering of clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate in the occupied territories.

He died in the night of 31 March to 1 April 1944 in the Soviet air raid on the monastery: he refused to go down to the shelter and was struck by a bomb fragment. The funeral service was served on 2 April 1944 in the monastery caves, where he was also buried.