Nicholas, Disciple of Elder Arsenios

Nicholas, Disciple of Elder Arsenios, was a monk of the cells of Iviron Monastery who reposed in 1840. Monk Moses the Athonite recalls him in his writing on the Athonite neo-⁠hesychast fathers. His elder, the hieromonk Arsenios the Spiritual Father (d. 1846), was Russian and lived twenty-⁠five years with rigorous asceticism in cells of Iviron Monastery and others. On Wednesday and Friday he fasted completely, on the other days he ate only once, and for many years he never ate anything with oil. At night he slept very few hours, and then sitting. He practised the prayer of the mind perfectly. His Divine Liturgies were always full of tears. He loved to speak, if he spoke, only about prayer. He preferred to give rather than take. When people honoured him, he truly suffered. His disciple Nicholas lived the same way of life and the same asceticism. The elder's disciples could not bear his great poverty. The only thing he insisted on was the keeping of the prayer rule, the unbroken remembrance of God and the invocation of His holy Name. The elder had a venerable repose. No other details are preserved of Nicholas. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.