Timothy, Formerly Tikhon of Valaam

Timothy, Formerly Tikhon of Valaam, was a Russian schemamonk, born in 1795 and reposed on 13 August 1848 in St Panteleimon Monastery on Athos. For years he lived under a vow of silence. He is venerated by the faithful; the monastery calls him venerable, but no official canonization is known.

Named Timothy Nikolaevich Shvetsov in the world, he was born in Ustyug, in the family of a poor ferryman. On 22 October 1822 he was accepted as a novice at Valaam and on 4 April 1835 was tonsured with the name Tikhon. So as not to be distracted from the Jesus Prayer, he vowed silence for fifteen years, letting the brethren think he had been struck by apoplexy. A pilgrim who saw him in 1830 describes him as an exhausted monk barely able to stand. In 1839 the new abbot, who did not understand his labour, sent him to the metochion in St Petersburg, where the fame of the mute monk spread through the city. On 28 August 1841 he set out on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and then to Athos, where in 1843 he entered the Russian St Panteleimon Monastery and received the schema with the name Timothy.

He struggled in the cell of St George, near the Xenophontos skete. He was never seen lying down: from evening he stood in prayer for about twelve hours. The confessor Hieronymus (Solomentsov) urged him to speak with everyone and teach how to gain the prayer of the mind. Later he moved into the monastery and shut himself in a cell, coming out only on Saturdays for the Holy Mysteries; he slept in an armchair with the Psalter above his head. He taught that without the prayer of the mind we cannot overcome the passions, cleanse the heart or be united with God. A disciple wrote that he stood on his feet all the time, made 300 prostrations to the ground and 1300 bows each day and ate only the plainest food. He reposed after receiving Communion daily for almost a month.