Zosima of Vorbozoma

Venerable Zosimas of Vorbozom was a disciple of Venerable Cornelius of Komel and reposed around the year 1550. He founded the Monastery of the Annunciation on an island of Lake Vorbozom, near Belozersk. He is honoured by the Russian Church among the venerable fathers, with commemoration on 4 April and 7 November, by the old calendar (17 April and 20 November by the new). On 26 December 2025 the Holy Synod of the Russian Church approved the text of his service.

As a disciple of Venerable Cornelius of Komel, he sought solitude and settled on an island of Lake Vorbozom, twenty-⁠two versts south of Belozersk, where disciples gathered to him. There he founded the Monastery of the Annunciation. Nothing has been found written about his birth, upbringing or tonsure, as a manuscript, "Memorial of our Venerable Father Zosimas, Wonderworker of Orbozom", states.

The basic source about him is a charter of Prince Michael Andreevich of Vereya-⁠Belozersk (1432 to 1486), included in the charter of Tsar Ivan IV Vasilievich of 12 February 1566. It says that the prince ordered that forest be marked out in Vorbozom, near the village of Pidbino, for the hermitage of the Most Pure Annunciation, for the elder Izosima, with boundaries from the village of Michael to the alder marsh and the Murochina marsh. In 1501 the abbot of the monastery was already Jonah.

A teaching and an epistle written by Venerable Zosimas to his spiritual daughter, Anastasia, have been preserved. He reposed, according to researchers, around 1550. He was buried near the church of the Annunciation of the monastery, on the north side, in the chapel of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker. His holy relics lie beneath a slab.