Ferapont of Borovensk

Venerable Ferapont of Borovensk was a hieromonk and the founder of the Dormition monastery of Borovensk, in the Mosalsk district, Kaluga governorate. He is a saint of the Russian Church, venerated among the venerable. His commemoration is on 6 July by the old calendar (19 July on the new style), in the Synaxis of the Saints of Radonezh.

Almost nothing has been preserved of his childhood and life in the world, and the other details about him are very few and scattered; it is known that he was a disciple of Venerable Sergius of Radonezh. About the founding of the Borovensk monastery a tradition has been preserved: the blessed Ferapont, seeking a place to found a hermitage, came there at a time when the whole neighbourhood of the present churchyard of Borovensk was covered with a dense pine forest (remains of which can still be seen on the way to the former monastery from Meshchovsk). He brought with him a precious pledge, the blessing of his elder, an icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God. Weary from the road, he lay down in the shade of one of the age-⁠old trees, setting the icon on it. But on waking he did not find it in its place; seized with perplexity and not losing hope in his divine guide, Ferapont, after a long search, found the icon deep in the forest on a pine. Three times the miraculous disappearance of the icon and its finding in the same place were repeated. Taking the event as a sign that the Most Holy Mother of God had been pleased to choose this very place for the dwelling of her sign-⁠bearing icon, the blessed Ferapont built a monastery here, gathered brethren and, after living in the world many years, laid down to eternal rest in the same place, in the wooden church founded by him.