Nikolai

Nikolai was a Russian archimandrite, born in 1879, abbot of the Skete of St Elias on Athos from 1952, the last Russian abbot of that skete. He reposed on 17 April 1973. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

It is not known where in Russia he was born or how he lived before monasticism. He reached Athos around 1900 and entered the Skete of St Elias, where he was tonsured and ordained hieromonk. Little is known of his activity in the skete; after the death of the abbot Ioann, in 1952, he was elected abbot and had to lead the skete in a time of complete decline. Of himself and of the abbots of the other two Russian settlements, Ilian (Sorokin) and Mikhail (Dmitriev), he used to say: Ilian, Mikhail and I; we are all kin and all different.