Hieronymus Solomentsov

Hieronymus Solomentsov was a Russian hieroschemamonk, confessor of St Panteleimon Monastery on Athos for nearly fifty years and, in the words of one biography, the heart of Russian monasticism on Athos for the last hundred and fifty years. He was born on 28 June 1802 and reposed in November 1885. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

He was the disciple and spiritual successor of the elder Arsenius. When the hieroschemamonk Paul died in 1840, Arsenius appeared unexpectedly at the funeral and Hieronymus was chosen to lead the Russian brotherhood. As confessor he guided the other, Greek half of the community too. Through him the monastery was freed of debt and doubled in size; he arranged the cenobitic life with great care, sent appeals to Russia for help and received every gift, great or small, with gratitude. For those able to bear a harsher life, he provided caves for hermits in a rock above the monastery, with precise rules. During the Crimean War the monastery, though poor, shared its bread with the hungry. In 1851 he received the young Michael Sushkin, the future Macarius, in whom he found the helper he had long prayed for. In 1857 he saw the first steamship from Russia arrive, with the icon of the Mother of God brought by the schemamonk Euthymius.

Towards the end, weighed down by illnesses yet tireless in spirit, he left his testament: to keep unshaken the full order of the community, obedience to the abbot, and to admit no parties among the brethren, for a single means upholds the monastery until the end of the world, the keeping of its rule. On 14 November the icon of the Mother of God the Deliverer and the relics of St Panteleimon were brought to his bedside. His last words, spoken clearly, accompanied his soul into eternity.