Synesius Ivanov

Venerable Synesius Ivanov was schema-⁠archimandrite of the Ascension monastery in Irkutsk, born in 1689 and dead in 1787. He is venerated in the Russian Church among the venerable saints. His commemoration is on 10 May and on 10 June, in the Synaxis of the saints of Siberia, by the old calendar.

He was born in 1689 in the town of Priluki of the Priluki regiment, and his name in the world is not known. It is supposed that he studied at the seminary opened in 1738 in the diocese of Pereyaslav and Boryspil and that he received monastic tonsure at the Krasnogorsk monastery. He was a friend and countryman of Hierarch Sophronius Kristalevsky. When Sophronius was vicar at the Alexander Nevsky monastery, Synesius was invited to Saint Petersburg and appointed builder of the New Sergius hermitage, attached to that monastery.

In 1753 Sophronius was ordained bishop of Irkutsk and Nerchinsk, and on 23 April 1754 he appointed Synesius hegumen of the Ascension monastery in Irkutsk, and later raised him to the rank of archimandrite. In Irkutsk Synesius was Sophronius' helper in the affairs of the diocese. He was a member of the consistory, and even orders written in the name of Bishop Sophronius but signed by Archimandrite Synesius have survived.

Before his death he received the great schema and reposed on 10 May 1787. He was buried by the altar of the monastery's main church. After his death he was glorified by miracles, and a chapel was built over the grave, in which his relics were placed. The chapel was destroyed together with the other monastery buildings, and where the relics lie is not known.