Elisha of Radonezh

Holy Venerable Elisha of Radonezh, a hierodeacon of the Holy Trinity Monastery of Saint Sergius, was a relative and disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh and was born before 1332. The only source about him is the Life of Saint Sergius, written by Epiphanius the Wise around 1418-1419. The Life contains no precise dates, so the facts of his biography are reconstructed from indirect information.

According to the Life, at the beginning of the 1330s, probably after the famine of 1332, a large group of inhabitants of Rostov moved to the Grand Principality of Moscow, among them the boyar Cyril and his uncle Anisim, Elisha's father, who moved to Radonezh with the chief military officer Protasius. The Life says that many of those who moved came with their kin from Rostov, but does not say from where Anisim came.

Elisha's name does not appear among those who moved, so it may be supposed that Anisim came alone, and his son stayed at Rostov and came to the Trinity Monastery later, after his father settled there. The Life mentions Elisha's father among the first twelve inhabitants of the monastery, gathered on Makovets before the installation of Saint Sergius as abbot in 1354. The author explains that Anisim was a deacon and father of the deacon named Elisha. According to Archimandrite Leonid Kavelin, Elisha was buried under the monastery's Trinity cathedral.

The canonization of Elisha is confirmed by the inclusion of his name in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, established in 1964 on the initiative of Archbishop Nikodim of Yaroslavl and Rostov, and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Radonezh, whose celebration was established on 10 July 1981 with the blessing of Patriarch Pimen. He is commemorated on 19 July and on 5 September in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.