Georgy Steblev

Georgy Steblev was a Russian hieroschemamonk, born in Kharkov province and coming to Athos in 1873, where he became elder of a cell on Kerasia. He reposed in May 1915 at Thessaloniki and is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Named Gury Platonovich Steblev in the world, he was born in the village of Lenivka in the Zmiev district of Kharkov province. He reached Athos at seventeen, in 1873, and entered St Panteleimon Monastery, where the famous elder Hieronymus lived. Because of his youth, Hieronymus sent him to Kapsala, to the cell of the Twelve Apostles, under a good elder. Georgy grew so used to the desert life that he did not wish to return to the monastery and moved to the cell of St Sabbas the Sanctified. He was tonsured a monk and ordained hierodeacon in 1879. He then moved to Kerasia, to the cell of the Holy Great Martyr George of the Great Lavra, to the elder Benjamin (Pletnev), where he received the great schema and was ordained hieromonk on 2 September 1884. After Benjamin's death he became elder of the cell.

Contemporaries counted him among the notable ascetics of Athos. He kept a strict rule and had a practical sense: he arranged the cell very well and had a painter called from Moscow to decorate the new church. His chief merit was his boundless hospitality: he received all pilgrims who climbed to the summit and passed through his cell, laying aside prudent calculation and trusting in God's mercy. He reposed in May 1915 at Thessaloniki, where he had gone for treatment.