The Synaxis of the Righteous and God-bearing Fathers of Optina.
On this day we also celebrate the Synaxis of the Righteous Fathers of Optina Hermitage in Russia, who struggled valiantly in the monastic life in prayer, humility, obedience, and love, and whom God deemed worthy of the lofty gifts of discernment, prophecy, clairvoyance, and eldership, that is, the grace to guide souls on the unerring path of salvation. They are Leo (who reposed in 1841), Macarius (1860), Moses (1862), Anthony (1865), Hilarion (1873), Ambrose (1891), Anatolius (1894), Isaacius (1894), Joseph (1911), Barsanuphius (1913), Anatolius (1922), Nectarius (1928), Nicon (1931), and Isaacius (1936).
The date chosen for this Synaxis is the date of the repose of Saint Ambrose, the greatest of the saintly Elders of the illustrious monastery of Optina that flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. He was born Alexander Grenkov on November 23, 1812, in the province of Tambov, grandson of a priest. He was sent to seminary, and during his last year there became so seriously sick that he made a vow to become a monk if he recovered. He did recover, but delayed the fulfillment of his vow for some time, tarrying as a tutor to a neighboring landowner and proving very popular in his little social circle. But his conscience reproved him; he began to pray fervently; and one day as he walked along the Voronezh river the coursing of its floods seemed to say to him, “Praise God! Retain God!”
He entered Optina on October 8, 1839, becoming the disciple of the Elder Leo and then, after his repose in 1841, of the Elder Macarius. His piety, monastic sobriety, and absolute obedience to his spiritual father were noted by all, and in 1845 he was ordained hieromonk. Shortly after this, he was stricken with such a serious disease that he was forced to be relieved of all duties. In his bearing of this cross without complaint, his spiritual stature increased remarkably. The Elder Macarius began training him to be his assistant as a guide of souls in the early 1850s, and at his death in 1860 Ambrose became his successor, and a great spiritual father both for Optina monastery and for countless faithful throughout Russia.
He spent some forty years as a God-inspired father-confessor gifted with an astonishing clairvoyance that saw into the souls of his spiritual children and knew how to heal their hidden wounds, while always himself burdened with continual sickness that frequently left him bed-ridden. Always infirm himself, he also had the gift to heal the bodily infirmities of the suffering. His very presence changed those who came to him, as is illustrated by this incident when an indignant mother came to rescue her daughter from “that terrible monastic world”:
She came to Batiushka [diminutive for “Father”] with bitterness and reproaches. The staretz [elder] offered her a chair. After a few minutes of conversation had passed, the agitated mother involuntarily, not understanding what was happening to herself, got up from her chair and fell on her knees before the staretz. The conversation continued. Soon with the nun-daughter was united the mother, also a nun. [Dunlop, p. 57]
He often used his gift of healing in unconventional ways, even with humor:
The crowd in my presence shoved one newly-arrived lady. She lost her balance, fell, hit a cupboard and seriously injured herself. When they brought her to the staretz he began to strike her energetically on the back with his cane. She later recounted that she even got offended at the staretz for this. But upon leaving Batiushka’s she already felt no pain from the injury. Only then did she understand that the staretz had healed her.
There came to the staretz a monk with a terrible toothache. Passing by him, the staretz struck him with his fist as strongly as he could in the teeth and asked gaily, “That was deft, wasn’t it?” “Deft,” answered the monk in the midst of general laughter, “bit it is rather painful.” But upon leaving the staretz he felt that the pain had left him and afterwards it did not return. [Dunlop, p. 91]
Besides the enormous burden of being a father-confessor to so many while never having his own health, Ambrose founded Shamordino Convent for women of no worldly means or support so that they would not be deprived of the monastic life. It was on a visit to this convent to direct and console the sisters that the Elder Ambrose reposed on October 10, 1891, after passing through the last intense sufferings of his life-long maladies. He was taken back to Optina to be buried, and was succeeded by his own disciple, the Elder Joseph.
John Dunlop’s Staretz Amvrosy: Model for Dostoevsky’s Staretz Zossima (Nordland, 1972), quoted above, gives a superb account of the Elder Ambrose’s life, clairvoyance, daily sufferings, and immense spiritual stature. Though not a very long work, it makes an excellent selection from the original sources and weaves them together in a compunctionate narrative of this great Saint and great man.
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