Diodorus of Yuryegorsk

Venerable Diodorus of Yuryegorsk (in the world Diomid Yerofeevich) was the founder and builder of the Demyan Hermitage of Yuryegorsk, near Olonets, born around 1580 and died in 1633. He is commemorated on the day of his death and in the Synaxes of the Saints of Arkhangelsk, Karelia, Novgorod and Solovki. The Russian source says that he died on 27 November 1633 and that his commemoration is on the day of death, but the record gives 20 November; the dates do not agree.

He was born around 1580 in the village of Turchasovo, Kargopol district, on the river Onega, to Yerofey and Maria. Around 1595, with his parents' blessing, he went on pilgrimage to the Solovki monastery and soon received monastic tonsure with the name Diodorus. The desire for the hermit's life that developed at that time touched Diodorus too; he was found barely alive from hunger, and the abbots were even forced to take measures against the passion for the solitary life: together with others, Diodorus was put in chains and brought back to the monastery.

After three months Diodorus withdrew into the wilderness again and lived on the island of Solovki for six months, then left the Solovki islands and went toward the Onega, and on Yuri's Mountain, above Lake Vadlo, in the Olonets governorate, he lived for seven years in complete solitude. Diodorus obtained permission to build a Holy Trinity monastery, built there two churches and cells for the brethren. The new monastery had many needs, it did not even have its own ploughland, and the monks often went hungry; the discontented more than once wished to kill Diodorus.

Venerable Diodorus passed to the Lord on 27 November 1633 at Kargopol, where he was on the monastery's business. After two months his incorrupt relics were brought to the Holy Trinity monastery he had founded. He was buried beside the monastery cathedral. In 1764 the relics of Venerable Diodorus of Yuryegorsk were under a slab in the Holy Trinity church itself of the Yuryegorsk monastery.