Zosimas of Solovki

Saint Zosimas of Solovki (died 1478) was one of the founders of the Solovetsky Monastery on the islands of the White Sea, in the far north of Russia. The Church remembers him as a venerable father who established a community in one of the harshest wildernesses of the land.

The hermit and the island

His origin is not known exactly. It is said that he was born in the Novgorod land, in the village of Tolvuya (according to other versions at Shunga), on the shore of Lake Onega. After his parents died, before 1436, he chose the life of a hermit. At the mouth of the river Suma he met the monk Herman, who had earlier lived with Saint Savvatiy on Solovetsky Island. Savvatiy had died in 1435 and Herman had returned to the mainland. The two reached the island in 1436 and built themselves a log cell.

The Lives tell of the war the demons waged against him, appearing to him as snakes, lizards and scorpions. Soon disciples began to come, among them the monk Theodosius and the fisherman Mark, who took the name Macarius. They built the church of the Transfiguration. For its services they needed an antimension, which they asked of Archbishop Jonah of Novgorod. Twenty-⁠two brethren gathered around Zosimas, boiling salt and catching fish.

The abbot

At first the monastery was led by Abbot Paul, sent by the archbishop, and then by Theodosius. Only after both had left did the brethren choose Zosimas as abbot, and Archbishop Jonah confirmed him. In summer the brethren were tormented by mosquitoes, and while they were smoking them out, the church under construction burned down. Zosimas saw in this not a sign from God but a trial from the devil, and ordered the building of the church of the Dormition and the refectory to go on. The Jerusalem rule was adopted in the monastery.

In 1465 he moved the relics of Saint Savvatiy from the river Vyg to his monastery. For the community's needs he went to Novgorod, where, according to some sources, he was received by the famous Martha the Mayoress, who is said to have given the monastery a charter for the islands of Solovetsky, Anzer and Muksoma. Later it was thought that she could not have issued the document and that it is a forgery by the Solovki monks. Already in his time the monastery received large gifts from Novgorod and became one of the richest in Russia.

Veneration

He reposed on 17 April 1478. He was canonized by a church council in 1547, when a service was also composed for him. On 8 August 1566 his relics were moved into a side chapel of the cathedral dedicated to Saints Zosimas and Savvatiy. Their Life was written by Abbot Dosifei of Solovki, partly from his own memories and partly from the accounts of the monk Herman. In 1503 Metropolitan Spiridon of Kiev gave it literary form, and in this form it entered the Menaion almost unchanged. During the Solovki uprising (1657-1676), veneration of the two saints spread widely among the Old Believers.

Saint Zosimas is commemorated on 17 April and 8 August.