Theodosius of Siya

Holy Venerable Theodosius of Siya, abbot, was born "around 1612 in Kholmogory." In the world he bore the name Theodore. His father, Ignatius Lebedev, was a craftsman, a silversmith (jeweller); according to Archimandrite Nikodim, the Venerable Theodosius came "from the clerical estate." The mother of the future ascetic was named Theodosia. His parents hoped their son would inherit his father's trade, but Theodore showed no inclination for it. His favourite occupation was reading divine books.

When Theodore was eighteen, against his parents' will, he went to the Siya monastery. There he led a strict ascetic life and in 1644 became abbot of the monastery. Theodosius laboured much to order well the communal life. In the years of his abbacy the building of the monastery's stone churches was completed: the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the Annunciation church and the gate church of Saint Sergius. He was "a man of very pious life, a zealot for holiness, a strict ascetic, a wise ruler of the monastery. He laboured much for the good order of the region, and in his time monastic life in the monastery stood at the height of moral perfection." All his free time he devoted to books: copying them, gathering them.

In 1650, at the commission of Metropolitan Nikon of Novgorod, Abbot Theodosius examined the relics of the Venerable Euthymius of Archangel. At the Siya monastery the Venerable Theodosius had enemies too. In 1652, when Metropolitan Nikon (later Patriarch of All Russia), going to Solovki for the relics of Saint Philip, passed through the Siya monastery, some of the brothers "slandered him before the metropolitan." The Venerable Theodosius was exiled to the Kozheozero monastery. But when he was in exile there, "his authority was so great that there too he was soon made abbot." After five years the Venerable Theodosius became abbot at Siya again. After the founding in 1682 of the archbishopric of Archangel and Kholmogory, the Venerable Theodosius "for six years was the right hand of Archbishop Athanasius." In his fate the Gospel command was fulfilled: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).

The Venerable Theodosius created at the Siya monastery "a distinctive school of book copying." He gave special importance to the decoration of books and used "two-⁠colour impressions from artistic frames engraved on wood." Among the books gathered and copied by him were lives of saints, the works of Maximus the Confessor, the Catechism, the "Enlightener" of Joseph of Volokolamsk. Alongside books of spiritual content were also historical ones: the "History of the Jewish War" of Josephus Flavius, the "Roman Deeds," the Book of Degrees, the "New Chronicler." He died at the age of seventy-⁠nine, on 29 October 1687, and was buried in the monastery crypt beside the Venerable Isaiah and Nicanor of Ruchyevo, near the burial place of the Venerable Anthony of Siya. After his death the Holy Trinity monastery at Siya preserved his favourite books: twenty-⁠five handwritten and twenty-⁠eight printed.

Theodosius is commemorated on 11 November (new style), that is 29 October by the old calendar. His name is not included in the present Menologion of the Russian Church.