Kassian Korepanov

Kassian Korepanov was a schema-⁠hegumen of the Russian kellia on Mount Athos, venerated by the faithful without synodal canonization. He was born in 1867 into a townsman's family in Birsk, Ufa province; his mother's name was Evdokia. He was married and had a daughter, who later became a nun. After his wife's death he resolved to become a monk and left for Athos.

He was received at the Russian monastery on 24 February 1903 and tonsured a rasophore on 18 February 1904. He worked as a scribe in the chancery. In 1904-1905 he did military service and fought through the whole Russo-⁠Japanese War. On his return he was tonsured into the schema on 9 March 1906 and went back to the chancery. From 1908, with the blessing of his confessor, Father Agathodor (Budanov), he took up the labour of silence and settled in a lonely hut at New Thebaid. From 1924 he moved to Karoulia, where the hermits' life was very hard, and from 1927 he returned to the monastery and lived in a separate hut, called the Kellion in the Cypresses, outside the walls, under the hermits' rule.

On 5 June 1933 the council of elders of the monastery sent him to Serbia to collect alms. He laboured much there, and his high spiritual life became known beyond Athos. He sent spiritual accounts, under pseudonyms, to journals abroad, among them the newspaper Pravoslavnaya Karpatskaya Rus.