Savva Ostapenko

Schema-⁠hegumen Savva Ostapenko (in the world Nikolai Mikhailovich, 1898-1980) was a monk of the Pskov Caves Monastery and a spiritual writer, venerated by the faithful as an elder, without synodal canonization.

He was born on 11 (25) November 1898 in the stanitsa of Novominskaya, in the Kuban region, into a devout family of eight children. At six he was sent to the parish school, served in church and sang in the choir. After an illness caught when he fell and nearly drowned in a hole in the ice, the desire to become a priest awoke in him. In 1914 he was called up, and from 1917 served in the Red Army; after the civil war he graduated from a military technical school. He worked as an engineer and, having graduated from the Moscow Construction Institute in 1932, was a construction engineer until 1945.

In 1946, at forty-⁠eight, he passed the examinations of the seminary at the Trinity Lavra. The abbot of the Lavra, Archimandrite John Razumov, petitioned the patriarch for his tonsure, and he was tonsured a monk with the name Savva, in honour of Saint Sabbas of Storozhi near Zvenigorod. At the Lavra he bore the obedience of steward. He then moved to the Dormition Monastery at Pskov (the Pskov Caves), where he received the great schema. Bishop Veniamin, his sponsor in the monastic life, left him four precepts: to read the writings of the Holy Fathers much, to write to no one, not even relatives, letters about the affairs of life, to be the last among the servants of the Church, without ambition for awards and ranks, and to bear his cross with a good heart.

He reposed in the Lord on 14 (27) July 1980 and was buried in the caves of the monastery, before a great multitude. After his death his spiritual writings were printed, among them the books "Spiritual Pearls," "Tears of Repentance" and "Paths of Salvation," along with collections of sermons and instructions.