Nicephorus of Svir

Venerable Nicephorus of Svir was a monk and disciple of Saint Alexander of Svir. Around the middle of the sixteenth century he founded the hermitage of the Saviour, 54 versts from the town of Olonets, known as the Zadne-⁠Nikiforovskaya hermitage.

The hermitage was laid waste by the Lithuanians in the early seventeenth century and then restored. In 1723 it was attached to the Syandema hermitage, in 1764 it became a parish church, and in 1800 it was joined to the Svir Monastery. Near the hermitage, in a cave in the hill, rest the relics of Nicephorus and of Gennadius, his companion, in a chapel raised in honour of the founder. In the same hermitage lie the relics of other disciples of Alexander of Svir: Ignatius, Leonid, Dionysius, Theodore, Serapion, Cornelius and Athanasius. No reliable information about their lives and struggles survives.