Meletios of Ryazan

Saint Meletios of Ryazan, born Michael Kozmich Yakimov, was a missionary in Siberia and bishop of Ryazan, who died on 14 January 1900. For nearly thirty-⁠five years he preached the Gospel in eastern Siberia among the Buryats, Tungus and Yakuts, and he was called the "Apostle to the Yakuts."

Early life

He was born on 29 October 1835 in the Vyatka diocese, the son of a village priest. His father died when Michael was one year old, and his mother raised the children in great poverty. Though in poor health, he finished his schooling and, as one of the best students in the seminary, went on to the Academy. His soul was drawn to solitude. After seminary he asked to enter a monastery; he was received but not tonsured, and worked in preaching and the library, then as a teacher of church history and church singing. In 1858 he entered the Kazan Academy, and on 1 February 1859 he was tonsured with the name Meletius, after Saint Meletius of Antioch. Soon afterward he was ordained deacon.

The Siberian mission

By a synodal decree he was sent to the Posolsk Monastery near Lake Baikal, in the Irkutsk diocese, arriving on 23 June 1862 and setting to work at once among the Buryats. Many were baptized, churches were built, and villages were founded for the newly baptized, most of them nomadic. In December 1862 he was ordained priest. In 1873 Archbishop Benjamin of Irkutsk placed him at the head of the Irkutsk mission, and in 1874 he was raised to archimandrite of the Nilov Hermitage in the Sayan Mountains. He then went to Kazan to learn the methods of translating Christian books into native languages, under Professor Nikolai Ilminsky. With the Buryat Jacob Chistokhin he translated into Buryat, and the first book in that language was printed at Kazan, a teaching for the newly baptized.

In the five years he led the mission, 11,000 natives were baptized. As vicar bishop of Irkutsk (1888 to 1896) he oversaw the territory east of Baikal, centered on Chita, where he founded the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius and of Saint Innocent of Irkutsk and opened church schools. Some 4000 people passed from shamanism and Lamaism to Christianity.

Yakutsk and Ryazan

On 5 July 1889 he was appointed bishop of Yakutsk. With no roads, he toured a different part of his vast diocese each year, built churches with the help of donors and founded schools. By the end of 1889 the diocese had 77 churches and 118 chapels. In 1892 he founded the Church Brotherhood of Christ the Savior. He was also the first to curb leprosy among his flock, and for his support of the English nurse Miss Marsden he received a letter of thanks from the Archbishop of Canterbury. His farewell was exceptionally warm.

On 14 October 1896 he was named bishop of Ryazan and Zaraysk, arriving in February 1897. He was a good preacher and a gentle shepherd toward the weakness of others, strict with himself. In Ryazan, where there were many Old Ritualists and Muslims, he revived the mission to the Muslims and published sermons, missionary notes and historical articles.

He died on 14 January 1900 and was buried in the cathedral of the Ryazan Kremlin. His relics were found on 18 June 1998 in the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael in the same Kremlin, almost a century after his death, and on 18 September 1998 they were transferred to the Trinity Monastery in Ryazan. He is counted among the saints of Siberia and is commemorated on 14 January (new style; 27 January on the old calendar).