Gideon of Serpukhov

Venerable Gideon of Serpukhov was a monk of the Vladychny monastery in Serpukhov, a disciple and fellow ascetic of Venerable Barlaam of Serpukhov, the first abbot and builder of the monastery. He died in 1377 (by other sources in 1392). News of him is found in the tale "On the Conception of the Vladychny Monastery in Serpukhov" (seventeenth century).

According to it, after thirteen years as abbot Barlaam went blind, and so did his disciple Gideon. After two years, before his death, Barlaam received his sight, healed Gideon of blindness and foretold that he would die in three weeks. Gideon thought himself unprepared, but he died, as Barlaam had foretold, three weeks after his spiritual father's repose, in church, at the bringing of the Holy Gifts during the Liturgy. He was buried not far from Barlaam, whose remains rest in the narthex of the church of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple; Gideon's grave has not been preserved. He is named in the "Description of the Russian Saints" among those honoured at Serpukhov. He is commemorated on 5 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow (new style).