Jacob Pospelov

Venerable Iakov Pospelov (in the world Vasily Ivanovich, 1818-1896) was archimandrite of the Dormition Monastery of Kirillo-⁠Belozersk in the Vologda region. He is venerated as a local saint; he is commemorated on 22 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tula.

Childhood and studies

He was born in 1818 in the village of Kadnoye, Yefremov district, Tula province, into the large family of the parish priest Ioann Mikhailovich Pospelov; one of his brothers, Andrei, became bishop of Murom, vicar of the Vladimir diocese. Between 1834 and 1838 he studied at the Tula seminary; poor, he had no money for books and copied all the courses by hand, and in vacations walked home. He finished the seminary with success and in 1838 entered the Moscow Theological Academy, where he received instruction from Archimandrite Philaret Gumilevsky, Hieromonk Philotheus Uspensky and others. There he became passionate about Russian history and learned archive work.

In the last year of the academy, on 6 April 1842, he was tonsured a monk by Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow; on 12 April he was ordained deacon, and on 29 June priest. From 1842 he taught biblical history at the Oryol seminary, and from 1845 was inspector of the Kharkov seminary. For his teaching he received several distinctions and, on 30 July 1849, the rank of archimandrite; in 1850 he was named dean of the monasteries of the Kharkov diocese. Archbishop Philaret recommended him as "a man of strict monastic life, very diligent and reliable." In 1852 he was named rector of the church of the Russian embassy in Rome; on leaving he asked the Synod for leave to wear monastic dress always. He required others to keep the rules of the Church, and the conflicts that followed led him to ask for release. On his return he visited Bari, at the relics of Saint Nicholas, and described the journey in a book; in 1855 he received the Order of Saint Anne, second class.

Abbot at Novoezersk and Kirillov

From 1855 he lived for a time at the Novospassky Monastery in Moscow, then was named abbot at Zelenets. From 19 March 1857 he was abbot of the Resurrection Monastery of Kirillo-⁠Novoezersk, on Red Island. There he founded an infirmary for ten monks and for pilgrims, introduced order, forbade wine fairs near the monastery and made enemies. From 10 January 1866 he was abbot of the Kirillo-⁠Belozersky Monastery. Before the 500th jubilee of the old monastery he directed repair work, restored the iconostases, put the archive and library in order, and above all wished to bring back into the monastery the spirit of true monasticism. In the first days of Great Lent and Holy Week the monastery's gates were closed to laity, and he ate only one prosphora a day. For years he sought the removal from the monastery grounds of the theological school and the district prison, which had been there since the eighteenth century; for the new school building he gave bricks and a large sum of money. He kept a diary in which he noted the brothers' infractions and at night visited the monks' cells, as the old abbots did.

Charity and repose

He cared for the monasteries of his deanery and thought that the spiritual revival of Russian monasteries required that their inner life be arranged by the rules of Saint Cyril of Belozersk and Saint Nilus of Sora. He cared for the education of the people round about and for almsgiving: in 1880 he was elected honorary guardian of the Kirillov school, supported several pupils with his own money, and books were given freely to pilgrims at the monastery. On 12 January 1893 the parish school was opened at the monastery; he bought textbooks and writing materials from his own funds, gave the pupils bread and, on feasts, buns, and then a free dining hall was set up in the town, for which he spent about 300 rubles of his savings. He lived without property: sometimes, after giving the last kopeck, he had no money to buy tea and borrowed it from his cell attendant. After his death there remained only a klobuk, two cassocks and a fur coat. He was also a church writer and interested in Russian history: in 1875 he published for the first time the Life of Saint Cyril of Belozersk and, in 1880, "Extracts from the Books and Files of the Archive of the Kirillo-⁠Belozersky Monastery."

He fell asleep on 16 January 1896 in the town of Kirillov, Novgorod province. His name was entered among the locally venerated saints of the Tula diocese, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tula, with commemoration on 22 September.