1490–1554
A Russian monastic founder, disciple of St Daniel of Pereyaslavl, who established the monastery at Boldino and several others; known for his ascetic labors.
Our Venerable Father Gerasimus, Founder of Boldino Monastery
Gerasimus of Boldino (1490–1554) was a Russian monastic founder of the sixteenth century, remembered for the network of monasteries he established in the lands of Smolensk, Vyazma, and the Bryansk forest. Born at Pereslav-Zalessk with the secular name Gregory, he entered monastic life as a youth under Saint Daniel of Pereyaslavl and spent decades in ascetic labor before founding communities of his own.
His best-known foundation, the Holy Trinity Monastery at Boldino near Dorogobuzh, became the center of a monastic tradition shaped by the cenobitic discipline of Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk. Gerasimus reposed in 1554 and was formally canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2016.
According to his life, Gregory entered the community of Saint Daniel of Pereyaslavl while still a youth and was tonsured a monk with the name Gerasimus. He remained under Daniel's guidance for some twenty-six years at the Trinity Danilov Monastery.
Tradition relates that during these years he labored as a shoemaker, making footwear for the infirm, and that he was known as a strict ascetic before he withdrew to seek a more solitary life.
Gerasimus is credited with founding several monasteries. The chief of these was the Holy Trinity Monastery at Boldino, near Dorogobuzh in the Smolensk region, whose Trinity church was built in 1530. He also established a monastery of Saint John the Forerunner at Vyazma and a monastery of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in the Bryansk forest at the River Zhizdra.
He drew on the example of Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk in organizing his communities, adopting the practice of governance by twelve Elders, and his own Rule, or Testament, is said to resemble Joseph's 'Spiritual Deed.' Among his spiritual disciples were Anthony, later Bishop of Vologda, and Arcadius, while Peter Korostelev became igumen of the monastery at the Zhizdra.
Gerasimus was buried in the southern aisle of the Trinity Cathedral at his Boldino monastery. His relics were discovered on July 17, 2001 at a depth of more than three meters, with the identification supported by sixteenth-century ceramics, the remains of a wooden coffin, and leather shoes recovered from the burial.