Ippolit Khalin

Archimandrite Ippolit (Hippolytus) Khalin (in the world Sergei Ivanovich, 1928-2002) was a monk at Pskov and on Mount Athos and, from 1991, abbot and confessor of Saint Nicholas Monastery in Rylsk, in the Kursk region. He is venerated by the faithful as an elder, without synodal canonization; materials are being prepared for his canonization.

He was born on 18 April 1928 in the village of Subbotino in the Kursk region, the eighth child of a devout peasant family; three brothers died at the front. The village lies near Moshnino, held to be the birthplace of Saint Seraphim of Sarov, which is why he was later called "the Seraphim of Sarov of our days". As a boy he served in the altar of his uncle's church, Archpriest Mikhail Khalin; he finished ten grades, vocational school as a foundry worker, and teachers' college. He did his army service between 1948 and 1951.

At twenty-⁠eight he resolved to give himself to God and on 1 August 1957 entered the Glinsk Hermitage as a novice, where he knew the elders Seraphim Amelin and Seraphim Romantsov. His confessor was Schema-⁠archimandrite Andronik Lukash. Gravely ill with pneumonia, he was healed after three days of prayer by Elder Andronik. After the closing of Glinsk he moved to Pskov, where he sought guidance from Hieroschemamonk Simeon Zhelnin (canonized in 2003) and the last elders of Valaam, Mikhail Pitkevich and Nikolai Monakhov. On 12 February 1959 Bishop John Razumov tonsured him a monk with the name Ippolit, in honour of Saint Hippolytus of Rome; he was ordained hierodeacon on 20 February 1959 and hieromonk on 14 June 1960.

In 1966 he was in a group of four monks of the Pskov monastery, the first able to leave the USSR for Athos, to Saint Panteleimon Monastery. He lived there seventeen years, in the cell of Saint Silouan the Athonite, as treasurer and steward, and represented the monastery on the Holy Community. With the other Russian monks he helped to preserve the monastery, which had fallen to fewer than ten monks, as a Russian community. It is said that he kept the relics of Saint Silouan, which some monks wished to hide. He was in contact with Paisios the Athonite, Arsenios the Cave Dweller and other elders of the Mountain. For reasons of health he left Athos on 4 September 1983, returned to Pskov in 1984, was raised to hegumen and, in 1985, to archimandrite.

In 1986 he was received into the clergy of the Kursk diocese, where he restored several village churches from ruin. On 16 October 1991 he was appointed abbot of Saint Nicholas Monastery in Rylsk, then in ruins, and gave the last eleven years of his life to restoring it. At first he slept almost in the open, under a broken roof; services began on the first day in the church of Saint Nicholas. He re-⁠established the monastery's farm, organised five sketes and in 1999 turned the skete at Bolshegneushevo into a convent. On 4 December 2002 he fell into a coma from a stroke and passed to the Lord on 17 December, at the monastery in Rylsk. He was buried on 19 December, the feast of Saint Nicholas, beside the altar of the church of Saint Nicholas.

Those who knew him describe him as an image of meekness, with a love that hid nothing. His grave is visited by ever more pilgrims, and in 2005 a monument to him was unveiled at Marino.