Macarius of Vysokoozero

The Venerable Macarius of Vysokoozero, in the world Mark Sokirin, founded in the north of Russia the hermitage that bears his name. Born in a village on the river Oyat, he was taken at fifteen into the tsar Alexis Mikhailovich's musketeers and served twenty years. Then he left everything, went to the Kirillo-⁠Belozersky monastery and was tonsured a monk with the name Macarius. For a long time he kept secret his wish to found a monastery, not knowing whether it came from God.

The place shown

On 9 June, the day of the Venerable Cyril, returning from the night vigil, he was wrapped in light and heard that his prayer had been heard and that he must go west. He saw a pillar of fire and, with the abbot's blessing, set out into the wilderness. He came to Lake Vysokoe, round, with an island in its middle, where he felt that his hermitage was. He dug a channel toward Lake Varyozero so that he could reach the villages by water; the lake's water dropped, the island became a peninsula, and the lake "crooked". He built there a church of the Renewal of the church of the Resurrection and lived some seven years alone. In 1670 other monks joined him, and in time a monastery formed.

His end and what followed

In 1673 robbers attacked the monastery, beat and robbed the brethren, and Macarius, wounded, was left almost dead. The priest Joseph Titov found him, gave him Communion and buried his body when he died, on 19 September 1683. The same priest wrote his life in the hermitage's chronicle. In the eighteenth century the monastery was attached to the Alexander-⁠Svirsky monastery and in 1764 abolished. In Soviet times the churches were closed and have not survived; a worship cross stands at the site of the church of the Renewal, and of the monastery only the remains of a wall stand.

He is commemorated on the movable day around 11 July, in the new style, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda.