Ignatius Troitsky

Holy Venerable Ignatius Troitsky, of the Trinity, of Radonezh († not earlier than the 1450s, at the Trinity-⁠Sergius monastery), was a disciple of Venerable Nikon of Radonezh. With Ignatius is linked one of the posthumous miracles of Venerable Sergius of Radonezh (Of the Vision of Saint Sergius in the Church), described in the third redaction of the Life of Venerable Sergius, composed by Pachomius the Logothete about 1442. The Life tells that in the time of Abbot Nikon, a spiritual man famous for virtues, named Ignatius, saw in his monastery clearly Saint Sergius, standing in the church at the all-⁠night vigil, in his place, and singing with the brethren. And so he declared to the brethren. The spiritual man of the story of the miracle may be identified with the constant disciple and cell attendant of Venerable Nikon, Ignatius, who was the main informant of Pachomius the Logothete when he was writing the Life of Venerable Nikon (end of the 1440s and 1450s). Of Ignatius it is said in a special redaction of the Life of Nikon: God was pleased that also in the last days of our race there should shine in the Russian lands many and great men in virtue, among whom was this blessed father Nikon, as his constant disciple Ignatius told me, who knew from the beginning.

Important information about Ignatius can be gathered from the acts of the Trinity-⁠Sergius monastery. Ignatius came from a family of landowners of Uglich. Between 1410 and 1427 (probably between the summer of 1423 and the summer of 1425) the monk Mina bought from Ignatius, for the Trinity monastery, his patrimony in the Town district of the Uglich district. Between 1410 and 1427 the appanage boyar Theodore A. Korovai made, by a charter in the name of Hegumen Nikon, a large gift to the Trinity-⁠Sergius monastery, in memory of his parents and his wife: the monastery received the village of Pereterye of the Koi volost of the Uglich district. Among the witnesses of the charter were well-⁠known monks of the Trinity, the elder Theognostus, the cellarer Savva (in 1428-1432 abbot of the monastery), Gelasius (Ionin) and Ignatius, the abbot's cell attendant. Ignatius's participation, as disciple and cell attendant of Hegumen Nikon, as a witness in this transaction is probably explained not only by his closeness to the abbot, but also by the fact that he came from the milieu of the landowners of Uglich.

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