Irenarch the Recluse

Venerable Irenarch was a recluse of the monastery of Saints Boris and Gleb at Rostov in Russia, one of the best-⁠known ascetics of the early seventeenth century. He was born in 1547 or 1548 and reposed on 13 January 1616. The Church commemorates him on 13 January and, in the synaxis of the saints of Rostov, on 23 May.

Early life

He was born into a peasant family in the village of Kondakovo in the Rostov district. At baptism he was named Elijah, son of Akindin. Until the age of thirty he was a trader, and then he was tonsured a monk at the monastery of Saints Boris and Gleb in Rostov. There he took up the monastic labours with zeal, attended the services, and at night prayed and slept on the ground. Once, taking pity on a beggar who had no shoes, he gave him his own boots, and from then on he went barefoot through the snow.

The recluse

He took on a severe struggle, the life of a recluse, and for more than thirty years he never took off his chains. After a quarrel with the abbot, who laid on him tasks beyond his strength, he had to leave the monastery for a year. He lived then at the Abraham Epiphany monastery, where he was made cellarer. Then he returned to his own monastery and went on with his ascetic labours. He is said to have been a man of visions.

Many notable people of the Russia of that time came to him for a blessing. In 1609 Mikhail Skopin-⁠Shuisky sent for his blessing, and Irenarch blessed him with a prosphora and a cross and charged him: "Be bold, and God will help you." The organisers of the people's militia, Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin, came to him in person. He is said to have been a companion of John the Hairy.

Repose and veneration

In his lifetime he found a devoted disciple, the monk Alexander, who wrote his Life. Before his death he called his disciples Alexander and Cornelius, gave them his last counsels, and departed to the Lord. After his death there remained one hundred and forty-⁠two copper crosses, seven shoulder chains, a chain twenty fathoms long worn about his neck, iron leg fetters, eighteen hand shackles, belt chains weighing a pood, and an iron staff with which he beat his body and drove away demons. These objects are venerated as relics and healings are ascribed to them.

The relics of Saint Irenarch lie in the monastery of Saints Boris and Gleb at Rostov. It is said that many healings of body, mind and spirit were worked by touching them. Since 1997, each year before the feast of the Prophet Elijah, a procession goes on foot from the monastery to the spring of Saint Irenarch near the village of Kondakovo, forty kilometres away, and pilgrims take turns carrying the saint's chains.