Stephen of Makhrishch

Venerable Stephen of Makhrishch was a Russian monk, born and raised in Kyiv, a disciple at the Caves Lavra, who then moved to Moscow and, around 1358, founded the Makhrishch monastery, near the Lavra of Saint Sergius. He fell asleep in 1406, in deep old age. He is remembered on 14 July (27 July on the new calendar).

Leaving Kyiv

He was born and raised in Kyiv and tonsured at the Caves monastery, where he spent some years in obedience and prayer. According to his life, oppression by the papists forced him, together with other monks of the Caves, to seek shelter in Moscow, where Grand Prince Ivan II received him kindly. A Russian source remarks, however, that this is an anachronism, since the union of Krewo and the privileges of the Catholics appeared only in 1385. In reality, Stephen, a supporter of the Patriarch of Constantinople and of the unity of the Russian Church, fled from the authority of a metropolitan of Kyiv set up by the Bulgarian patriarch with the help of Lithuanian princes, who were displeased that the lawful metropolitans of Kyiv had moved first to Vladimir and then to Moscow.

Makhrishch and Avnega

Remaining faithful to the lawful metropolitan of Kyiv, Stephen made himself a cell in the appanage of the prince of Moscow, in a lonely place on the bank of the river Makhrishcha, thirty-⁠five versts from the monastery of Saint Sergius. Wishing to keep silence, he at first refused those who came to him, but then gave way to their requests and in 1358 founded a monastery. A pious man living near the Makhra gave the monastery his estate with its sown fields, entered monastic life with the name Gregory and was Stephen's best-⁠loved disciple.

The neighbouring landowners did not look kindly on this: they knew how highly Grand Prince Dmitry honoured Stephen and feared that their lands would pass into the monastery's hands. Four of them, the Yurtsovsky brothers, started a persecution against the abbot and threatened to kill him if he did not leave the Makhra. Stephen withdrew with Gregory to the north and, sixty versts from Vologda, on the river Avnega, founded in 1370 a hermit monastery with a church of the Holy Trinity. Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich sent gifts to this monastery and called Stephen back to Makhrishch.

His repose and relics

Having reached deep old age, Stephen received the schema and fell asleep in the Lord in 1406. His relics were found incorrupt in 1550, when the stone church of the Holy Trinity was built, but they were left beneath the floor in the new church. He was canonized in 1560 or 1561.

His life was written by Abbot Joasaph, later bishop of Vologda, at the command of Metropolitan Macarius, using short notes by the hundred-⁠year-⁠old monk Serapion. Joasaph also composed the account of his miracles and his service. In the early seventeenth century the Makhrishch monastery, ravaged by the Poles, was attached to the Lavra of Saint Sergius.