Varsonofy Plikhankov

Venerable Barsanuphius (Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov, by passport) was a schema-⁠archimandrite, priest, preacher, spiritual writer and elder of Optina, a former colonel before his tonsure. He was born in Samara in 1845 and died in 1913 at Kolomna, in Moscow province. He was glorified among the venerable fathers in 2000 and belongs to the Synaxis of the Fourteen Venerable Elders of the Optina Hermitage and to the Synaxis of the Saints of Samara. His commemoration is on 1 April.

He was born into the family of the merchant Ivan Plikhankov, of Orenburg Cossack stock. He finished the military gymnasium at Polotsk, then the military school at Orenburg. He made a military career and rose to colonel. Unexpectedly for his comrades, he asked to be retired. According to his life, in 1881 he fell ill with pneumonia. He asked his orderly to read him the Gospel, and a "wonderful vision" followed which enlightened him spiritually. He saw the heavens opened and trembled all over with great fear and light. After recovering, in 1891, he went to the Optina Hermitage, where soon he struggled. He was accepted into the brotherhood of the Forerunner Skete and for three years went every day for spiritual talks with the Optina elders Anatoly and Joseph. He was tonsured rassophore, in December 1900, because of illness, was tonsured into the mantle with the name Barsanuphius, then ordained hierodeacon and hieromonk. He was appointed assistant elder and confessor of the Shamordino women's hermitage.

In 1904, at the start of the Russo-⁠Japanese war, he was sent to the front as priest at the hospital named after Venerable Seraphim of Sarov. In 1907 he was raised to hegumen and appointed head of the skete. In 1910, when he was elder, Leo Tolstoy came to Optina but did not resolve to visit the skete. Learning of it, the venerable one himself went to Astapovo station to the dying writer, to prepare him for death and give him the chance to reconcile with the Church in his last moments, but he was not allowed to reach Tolstoy. He was tonsured into the great schema. In 1912, by decision of the Synod, he was appointed abbot of the Old Golutvin monastery, with the rank of archimandrite. In this monastery, which had fallen into decay at the beginning of the twentieth century, Barsanuphius attracted benefactors who helped repair the churches, cells and guesthouse, and the monastery became one of the spiritual centres of the Moscow region. He died in 1913 and was buried at Optina.