Justin of Rossikon

Justin of Rossikon was a Russian schemamonk, born in 1785 at Kineshma, Kostroma province, who died at St Panteleimon Monastery. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Married with children in youth, he was pious and gentle, esteemed for his elder-⁠like prudence. In 1825, at Taganrog, during field work, he and some thirty other labourers saw a fiery branching tree descending from the sky and rising several times. Justin interpreted it as a sign of the death of Emperor Alexander I; the emperor died soon after at Taganrog. A brother writes of him: tall, strongly built, with abundant white hair and beard and a clean, pleasant face; he esteemed him for his simplicity and often visited him. Before his death he fell ill and his strength gradually failed.