Jacob of Kostroma

Holy Venerable Jacob of Kostroma, hegumen of Solovki and later archimandrite of the Ipatiev monastery at Kostroma, headed the Solovki monastery from 1582 to 1597. The sources show him as an outstanding man, equally able in administrative and spiritual matters, with literary gifts and evidently a good education, from which it is thought that he was not of simple birth. In the Life of Metropolitan Philip, hegumen of Solovki, Jacob is called his faithful disciple. His activity is as many-⁠sided as that of his teacher, and in a way he can be called the second Hegumen Philip.

Before the hegumenship

About the time before his hegumenship we can judge from the Solovki chronicles, one of which was apparently his cell attendant's and contains notes of a personal character. From them it may be supposed that the future hegumen was of Novgorod origin. The chronicle says that in 1563-1564 Jacob, arriving at Solovki in the time of Hegumen Philip Kolychev, was tonsured. So he received monasticism soon after entering the monastery, contrary to the usual custom, when between the arrival of a layman and his tonsure not one year passed. For so quick a tonsure there must have been serious grounds, but we do not know them.

Only two years did disciple and teacher struggle together. On 25 July 1566, in the Dormition cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, Hegumen Philip of Solovki was ordained Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia. Even in his absence, on the day of the Transfiguration, 6 August, the Transfiguration cathedral was consecrated at Solovki, Hegumen Philip's greatest work, and two days later, on 8 August, the relics of the founders of Solovki, Venerable Zosima and Savvatius, were moved into their side chapel in the new cathedral. After this translation, in keeping with the old custom, the hieromonk Spiridon was sent to the tsar in Moscow with particles of the relics and holy water. From the chronicle it follows that with the elder Spiridon Jacob also went to the tsar, honoured so only two years after arriving at Solovki. In the following years he went several times to Moscow and Novgorod on monastery business and even had conversations with the tsar, according to the notes of 1567-1572.

At that time the need arose to appoint a new hegumen at the Paleostrov monastery. By the tsar's will, Jacob, a monk of Solovki, was chosen. In 1572-1573 Hegumen Jacob was taken from Solovki for the hegumenship on the island of Paley. The Nativity of the Mother of God monastery of Cornelius of Paleostrov was founded at the beginning of the fifteenth century by Venerable Cornelius, a monk of Valaam, on the island of Paley in Lake Onega, six kilometres from the village of Tolvuya, in the native land of Venerable Zosima of Solovki. The monastery, with its strict monastic rule, was then very famous. Of Jacob's work as hegumen at Paleostrov no information has been preserved. Only two journeys of his to Novgorod are known, where he was received by Archbishops Leonid and Alexander. For some five to seven years he governed Paleostrov. For some reason, in 1578-1579, Hegumen Jacob resigned the hegumenship at Paleostrov and came to Solovki.

Hegumen of Solovki

In spring 1581 Hegumen Barlaam, for age, left the hegumenship of Solovki, and the brethren sent to petition the tsar to give Jacob as hegumen, and the tsar consented. The new hegumen took up office on 5 May 1582. The beginning of his hegumenship fell in a very hard and dangerous time for the country and above all for the Russian North, the last years of the Livonian War, the time of Swedish attacks. Immediately after arriving from Moscow, from the tsar, Jacob, in place of the wooden stockade around the monastery, began to build at Solovki a stone fortress. By 1594 a grandiose fortress had been raised around the monastery, which amazes to this day by its strength and grandeur. The True and Brief Reckoning of the Venerable Fathers of Solovki calls Hegumen Jacob the builder of a wonderful wall-⁠building. The fortress, built by the town master Ivan Mikhailov of Vologda and the Solovki monk Tryphon Kologrivov, was the greatest work of defence and management of Hegumen Jacob, who continued the work of Hegumen Philip. At the same time Jacob built a wooden stockade in the Suma district, for another century and a half the monastery's stronghold on the White Sea shore. Its effectiveness was proved in 1592, when the Swedes plundered the coastal villages but could not take the new stockade by assault. After this Hegumen Jacob received funds from Tsar Feodor Ivanovich for a wooden stockade at Kem too.

Besides defence, Jacob attended also to church building: under him the covered passage between the Dormition refectory church and the Transfiguration cathedral was built (work was finished in 1602, after his departure) and the building of the gate church of the Annunciation was begun, consecrated under Hegumen Isidore.

The most important work of Hegumen Jacob was the care to preserve the memory of his teacher, Saint Philip. In 1591, in the name of the whole Solovki brotherhood, Jacob asked Tsar Feodor Ivanovich to transfer the relics of the former hegumen from the Otroch monastery in Tver to Solovki. By the tsar's order, Bishop Zacharias of Tver commanded the coffin of Saint Philip to be dug up and opened: both the body and the vestments were found incorrupt. With honour, the people of Tver escorted the venerable relics to the bank of the Volga, whence, by water, accompanied by Hegumen Jacob, they were brought to the Solovki monastery. There, on 8 August 1591, the relics were laid beneath the porch of the Transfiguration cathedral, in the grave which the saint had prepared for himself in the time of his hegumenship. They remained there for fifty-⁠five years, until their translation on 31 May 1646 into the cathedral. By the transfer of the venerable remains of Saint Philip from the place of his exile and martyr's death to his native monastery, Jacob began the church veneration of the martyr-⁠metropolitan. Under him too began the gathering of material for the saint's life. There are also considerable grounds to suppose that Jacob was the author of the service for the repose of Metropolitan Philip, celebrated on 9/22 January.

Despite constant care for the defence and management of the monastery, the pious hegumen gave great attention to the monastery library: in the years of his hegumenship it was enriched with ninety-⁠four books written in the monastery, granted by Tsar Feodor Ivanovich, given by pilgrims or acquired by himself. Inscriptions on some books say that they were made at the command of Hegumen Jacob. He also assembled a considerable private collection: twenty-⁠seven manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, his own, entered the monastery library, many bearing an ex libris, a sign of ownership, one of the first in the history of the Russian book.

Archimandrite at Kostroma

In spring 1597 Jacob was appointed superior of the Ipatiev Holy Trinity monastery at Kostroma. Boris Godunov, brother-⁠in-⁠law of Tsar Feodor and the real ruler of the country, showed it particular care, for the monastery, by tradition founded by the ancestor of the Godunov line, the Tatar prince Chet (Zacharias in baptism), held the Godunovs' family cemetery. Boris established the archimandrite's rank at the Ipatiev, and Jacob was its first archimandrite. The monastery also took on the function of a fortress, where in case of need the Godunovs could shelter. On 7 January 1598 Tsar Feodor died without an heir. On 17 February the assembly of the land elected Boris Godunov tsar. Among those present was the archimandrite of the Ipatiev, Jacob. Under Archimandrite Jacob the stone construction begun by his predecessor, the builder Gurias Stupishin, was completed, and the last building of the cathedral complex was the stone bell tower of more than 30 metres, built between 1601 and 1603, when the Godunov dynasty was at the height of its power.

On 13 April 1605 Boris Godunov died unexpectedly. The throne was taken by False Dmitry I, who, to strengthen his position, sought the support of the Orthodox clergy, above all the monks, and therefore the Ipatiev continued to enjoy protection. But in May 1606 False Dmitry was killed, and Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky ascended the throne, crowned in Moscow on 17 June 1606. At the coronation Archimandrite Jacob was apparently present, come to receive from the new tsar the charters confirming the Ipatiev's holdings. On 20 June he received the charters. But the abbot close to the Godunovs was not to the new tsar's liking, who used his presence in Moscow to send him into retirement on promise, that is, to the place of his tonsure, the Solovki monastery.

It is not known how long Archimandrite Jacob lived in retirement in his native monastery, nor when he passed from temporal life to eternal. After death he was buried beneath the porch of the Transfiguration cathedral, in the place prepared by himself, at the feet of his teacher, Saint Philip. To Hegumen Jacob it fell to head two of the greatest monasteries of Russia, Solovki and the Ipatiev at Kostroma, in the last decades of the sixteenth century and the first years of the seventeenth, in the age of disorders, of the Time of Troubles, of ever-⁠changing royal power, when many gave way to despondency and fear and to the temptation of betrayal for fear of persecution. Yet even in so hard and anxious a time Venerable Jacob knew how to build and to raise, and this work, material and spiritual, was the work of his life. Great are his services to the Russian Church, to the Russian state and to his native Solovki monastery. Hegumen Jacob was a worthy follower of the holy founders of Solovki, Venerable Zosima, Savvatius and Herman, and of Saint Philip, and is glorified by the Orthodox Church among the numerous host of the saints of Solovki.

He is commemorated on 5 February, in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Kostroma Metropolis, on 11 July, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod, and on 22 August, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Solovki (new style, the second being a movable day).