Veniamin Malyshev

Veniamin Malyshev was a schemamonk of the Russian kellia on Mount Athos, venerated by the faithful without synodal canonization. He was born in 1865 into a peasant family of the Orlov district, Vyatka province. In 1884, aged nineteen, he went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Athos, and seeing the high monastic life there he stayed at the Monastery of St Panteleimon. He was tonsured a rasophore on 12 April 1886 with the name Veniamin, and served in the refectory and at the monastery's house in Karyes.

In 1887 he left for Russia, to the Tikhon Hermitage, but in 1890 he returned to Athos and settled in a hermit's hut at Kaliagra. There he lived for more than forty years in complete seclusion and received the schema, keeping his name. Father Phlegont (Lebedev) calls him in his diary the famous hermit of Kaliagra. A hieromonk of Vladimirovka describes him as a strict ascetic, a man of the Jesus Prayer, with an unusual peace of soul, who comforted and healed the sorrows of those who came to him.

His spiritual children included the hegumen of the Prophet Elijah Skete, Father John (Getmanenko), and the confessor of the Russian monastery, Father Agathodor (Budanov). He opposed the teaching of the name-⁠glorifiers, but he asked his disciples not to enter into theological disputes and not to set themselves against those who had gone astray.

From 28 September 1932, gravely ill with dropsy, he lay in the hospital of the Russian monastery. There he had a long talk with Saint Silouan and was deeply moved by it. He reposed on 2 March 1933 and was buried in the brotherhood cemetery.