Gregory of Golutvin

Holy Venerable Gregory of Golutvin was hegumen of the Theophany monastery at Golutvin, near Kolomna, and a disciple of Venerable Sergius of Radonezh. His life is hidden from us, and the first author of the life of Saint Sergius, Venerable Epiphanius the Wise, devotes to him only a few brief lines. It is not known when he joined the company of Saint Sergius, from what family or station he came, where he came from, or whether he was among the first twelve disciples or came much later.

Epiphanius writes that the holy and right-⁠believing Prince Dmitry Donskoy, fulfilling the vow he had made to God before the battle of Kulikovo, to raise a monastery in memory of the help given to the Russian army against the Tatars, asked Sergius to come and bless the site for a monastery in honour of the Holy Theophany at Golutvin, near Kolomna, an estate of the grand prince. The venerable one, who used to go everywhere on foot, walked to Kolomna, blessed the place the prince had chosen and raised a church there. At the prince's earnest request Sergius released one of his disciples, Hieromonk Gregory, a reverent man full of virtues, to the new monastery as its builder.

The monastery was founded on the high bank of the Moskva River where it flows into the Oka, a place beautiful and also strategically important. Nearby was the ford over the Oka, by which not only merchant caravans passed to Moscow but also the raids of nomads, so that the monastery was an outpost on the border of the Moscow land. The name Golutvin comes from the golutva, the robbers and vagrants who in the deep forest of the place plundered the caravans. Gregory, who had received the blessing for the hegumenship from his elder, together with a hegumen's staff of black oak, was left like a lamb among wolves, yet he did not fear and stayed there. Soon a large brotherhood gathered, the communal life was set up after the example of the Trinity Lavra, and the grace of God scattered the enemy's schemes and drove away the wicked.

The monastery flourished and was adorned with stone churches, and the Lord supplied it with what it needed through those who loved Christ. The brethren kept as great treasures the lectern cross given by Sergius, his vestments of plain cloth left to the young monastery, and Saint Sergius's hegumen's staff, left in blessing to its first hegumen.

Venerable Gregory, having struggled the good struggle, passed peacefully to the Lord in the year 1394, surrounded by the love and reverence of the brethren he had raised. He was buried beneath the altar of the church of the Theophany, laid down by his great teacher Sergius and by himself. His relics rested in his monastery, where the church held, according to the inventory, an icon of him, and at the Trinity Lavra, where his memory was kept separately, on 7 February on the new style. On the splay of a window in the refectory church of the Lavra a fresco of him is preserved, among the other disciples of Saint Sergius, and his image was also painted in the cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

He is commemorated on 19 July, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Radonezh, and on 5 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow (new style, a movable day).