Paisius of Galich

Venerable Paisius of Galich was an archimandrite of the Russian Church, a member of the Dormition monastery of Ovinsk, which became widely known through him and was named in his honour Paisiev-⁠Galichsky. He died on 23 May 1460 (not on 6 June 1504, as some sources say), having spent 75 years from his tonsure to his death. He is commemorated on 23 May.

The monastery where he laboured was called first Saint Nicholas, then Dormition, after the churches in it, dedicated to Saint Nicholas the Hierarch and to the Dormition of the Mother of God. The latter was built, in place of the older one, which had fallen into decay, in the time of Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy, by the boyar John Ovin, to whom an image of the Mother of God appeared in a vision, called the Ovinskaya and later taken to Moscow by Grand Prince Vasily Vasilievich, after the war against his uncle, Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Galich (1433).

By the will of the latter's son, Prince Dmitry Krasny (died 1440), after the battle of the grand prince with his brother Shemyaka, Venerable Paisius, the spiritual father of Ovin's grandson, Dmitry Yartsev, went with a copy of the icon mentioned to Moscow, to ask the protection of the monastery from Grand Prince Vasily the Dark. He was met with bells and a procession by the prince himself, Metropolitan Jonah and a crowd of people; he received a letter to the governors for the defence of the monastery against attacks and returned accompanied by two Moscow archimandrites, Tryphon of the Spassky and Nikander of the Chudov monastery. After that he himself was made archimandrite, and the monastery was named, in his honour, Paisiev.

His relics rest under a slab in the church of the Dormition. His appearance is described in the Painters' Manual at 21 July: grey-⁠haired, with a beard like that of Makary of Zheltovodsk, split at the end, curly, in monastic vestments.