Paisius Balabanov

Paisius Balabanov was a Russian schemaarchimandrite, born in 1832 in the Orenburg region, in a family of devout Cossacks, who fell into the Khlyst sect, repented on Athos and died in 1907. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Named Vasily Filippovich in the world, he learned from his mother the Jesus Prayer and Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos. In youth he was carried away by worldly pleasures and lost the grace of baptism, and the devil drew him into the teaching of the Khlyst sect. In 1866 he reached Athos and entered St Panteleimon, where three years later he was tonsured into the mantle with the name Vasa. He worked first in the kitchen, then at the Constantinople metochion, where from 1876, after tonsure into the schema with the name Paisius, he was abbot. In 1866 a demon had told him in a dream that he would not give him peace even on Athos, and so it happened: the man, so useful to the monastery, had a bent for preaching and mission, and this led him into temptation and away from his confessor. He spent his last years first at Sarov hermitage, then at the Pechersky monastery in Nizhny Novgorod, where he had ten years of solitude and humility to weep over his sins and mistakes. He reposed in 1907.