Nikon of Optina

Saint Nikon of Optina (in the world Nikolai Mitrofanovich Belyaev, 1888 to 1931), the Venerable Confessor, was a hieromonk and the last spiritual elder of the Optina Monastery. He lived to see the closing and plundering of the community he had loved from youth, bore arrests, camp and exile, and died at forty-⁠three in the north of Russia, ill with tuberculosis. The Russian Church canonized him in 2000, together with the other twelve elders of Optina.

Family and calling

Nikolai was born in Moscow on 26 September (8 October) 1888, into a pious merchant family. His father, Mitrofan Nikolaevich, was the fourteenth and last child in his house. His mother, Vera Lavrentievna, daughter of a churchwarden of the church of Saints Constantine and Helen in the Kremlin, was ten years younger than her husband and had married at thirty-⁠one. They were wed at the church of the Great Ascension by the Nikitsky Gate and had eight children, Nikolai being the fourth.

At five he fell gravely ill and was near death, but recovered. The Optina elder Barsanuphius later told him it was an arrangement of God: his mother had prayed, Saint Nicholas had prayed for him, and the Lord, knowing he would enter a monastery, gave him life. His mother noticed Nikolai's unusual patience compared to his brothers. In 1902 his grandparents died, and in 1904 his father. At that time he was studying at the Moscow gymnasium and serving in the church of "Joy of All Who Sorrow".

After gymnasium he entered the faculty of physics and mathematics of Moscow University, but studied little. He recounted that he attended just over six months. Under the pretext of going to the university he left home in the morning and stayed there until nine, then went to the Liturgy at Kazan Cathedral, stopping first at the Iveron icon. His aspiration was shared by his brother Ivan (1890 to 1969). Both wished to become monks and, casting lots, decided to go to Optina. On 11 February 1907 they told their mother of the decision and on 24 February reached the monastery. The abbot, Archimandrite Xenophon, did not want to accept them into the brotherhood, to test their resolve, and told them to remain in the world a while. At the end of December they arrived for good and entered the Skete of Saint John the Forerunner.

At Optina

At the end of February 1908 Nikolai was named assistant librarian, but from October his chief obedience became that of secretary to Elder Barsanuphius, head of the skete. From January 1908 he began keeping a diary. In April 1910 he was tonsured a rassophore, and on 24 May 1915 into the mantle, with the name Nikon, after the holy martyr commemorated on 28 September. On 10 April 1916 he was ordained hierodeacon, and on 3 November 1917 hieromonk.

Between Nikon and Barsanuphius the pattern of ancient eldership was kept: the disciple opened his thoughts at once and fulfilled the elder's will in everything. The elder passed on all his experience and knowledge, as to one worthy to receive and keep it. Their association lasted until the spring of 1912, when Barsanuphius was named abbot of the Old Golutvin monastery in the Moscow diocese.

The closing of the monastery and arrests

After the monastery was closed in 1918, Nikon worked zealously to preserve it. In 1919 Optina was turned into a breeding farm and soon into a museum, with a tannery and woodworking workshops opened in the monastery buildings, where about thirty monks and novices worked. In May 1919 Nikon was temporarily named head of the museum. He was arrested for the first time on 17 September 1919. From the prison at Kozelsk he wrote to his mother that he had been arrested only because he was a monk and had worked for the monastery. In March 1920 another group of clergy, monks and laity connected with Optina was arrested, among them Nikon.

On 9 March 1920 the head of the skete, Schema-⁠hegumen Theodosius (Pomortsev), died, on 30 July 1922 Hieroschemamonk Anatoly (Potapov), and in 1923 Elder Nectarius was arrested, who entrusted his spiritual children to Hieromonk Nikon. In the summer of 1923 the monastery was closed for good. Its abbot, Isaacius, after serving the last Liturgy in the Kazan church, blessed Nikon to hear the confessions of the multitude that kept coming to Optina. So Venerable Nikon became the last elder of Optina.

Exile and death

Forced to move in 1924 to Kozelsk, he served at the Dormition church, received the people and fulfilled his duty as pastor. In June 1927 he was arrested again and spent three years in the Kemperpunkt camp. On 23 May 1930 a special board of the OGPU, without a new investigation, sentenced him to three years of exile in the Northern Region. He was sent to Pinega, in the Arkhangelsk region, and settled in the village of Voepala, a few kilometres from the town.

On Lazarus Saturday, 22 March 1931, the Optina monk Peter (Drachev), also in exile, who lived in the neighbouring village of Kozlovka, visited Father Nikon, who was sick with tuberculosis, and took him to his own home. On 8 July 1931, aged forty-⁠three, Nikon fell asleep in the Lord. He was buried in the cemetery of the village of Valdokurye, near Pinega. In the 1930s the grave was desecrated, so his spiritual children reburied him, and few knew where his relics lay.

Glorification

The saint was numbered among the locally venerated saints on 26 July 1996. At the Bishops' Council of 13 to 16 August 2000 he was canonized for veneration throughout the Church, together with the other twelve elders of Optina. He is commemorated on 25 June (8 July by the new calendar), the day of his repose, and in the Synaxis of the Optina Elders on 11 (24) October.