Pachomius Kamensky

Saint Pachomius Kamensky began his monastic labours at the Saviour Monastery on Kamenny Island, under Abbot Dionysius of Sviatogorsk, together with Saint Dionysius of Glushitsa. The two formed a spiritual friendship there. They spent many years in various obediences of the monastery and, through humility and diligence, won the love and respect of the brethren.

Burdened by honour and longing for spiritual perfection, they asked the abbot's blessing to withdraw into the wilderness for stillness, and settled on the Holy Bend, in a deserted monastery. First they built themselves a hut, then a church in honour of Saint Nicholas and, having received from Archbishop Gregory of Rostov a blessing to consecrate the church and restore the monastery, they set to work with joy.

After some years Dionysius felt drawn to a deeper wilderness and to founding a community there. Pachomius remained on the Holy Bend, adding labour to labour and giving an example to the brethren who had begun to gather around him. Here the written news ends: nothing is known of his later struggles, of the time of his repose or of his burial place. The Monastery of Saint Nicholas was later joined to the Borisoglebsk Monastery on the Sukhona, and in 1479 the Grand Princess Maria placed it under the Saviour Monastery on Kamenny. It may be that these attachments are why no account of its founder's later life has reached us.

Saint Pachomius Kamensky is commemorated on 11 July (a movable date), in the new style, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda.