Anthony of Dymsk
Our Venerable Father Anthony, Abbot of Dymsk
Venerable · b. c. 1157, at Novgorod — d. June 24, 1224, at the Dymsky monastery near Tikhvin
Commemorated 17 January — Commemoration with his patron Anthony the Great, 24 June — Repose at the Dymsky monastery
Anthony of Dymsk (c. 1157–1224) was a monastic founder of the Novgorod land, a disciple of Barlaam of Khutyn who, shunning the abbacy his dying elder had laid upon him, withdrew to the shore of Lake Dymskoe near Tikhvin and there founded the monastery that bears his name. The tradition remembers him for an ascetic feat unique among the Russian saints: standing to pray, through long nights, upon a stone that rose barely above the surface of the lake, so that he is honoured as a "stylite upon the waters"; and for the iron cap he wore beneath his hood, from which, laid upon the head of the sick, many afterward received healing. He reposed on June 24, 1224, and his relics were found incorrupt in 1330. He is kept on June 24, the day of his repose, and — as the spiritual son and namesake of Anthony the Great — on January 17.
Origins and tonsure under Barlaam of Khutyn
Anthony was born about the year 1157 at Novgorod (some later accounts give a later birth), of pious parents. Hearing one day in church the Lord's word, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24), he took it to heart and resolved to leave the world. He came to the monastery of the Saviour on the Khutyn hill, near Novgorod, and was tonsured there by its founder, Barlaam of Khutyn, whose obedient disciple he became. The tradition holds that Anthony was sent by his elder on an errand to Constantinople and the Christian East, and returned, after some years, to find Barlaam near his end.
The flight from the abbacy and the founding at Lake Dymskoe
When Barlaam was dying, he appointed Anthony igumen of Khutyn in his place. But Anthony, fleeing the honour and the burden of rule, presently left the monastery and went in search of solitude. He came to the shore of Lake Dymskoe (Dyma), in the wilderness on the outskirts of what would become Tikhvin, and there settled, raising a cell and a church and gathering a brotherhood — the monastery afterward called the Antoniev-Dymsky house, of which he was the founder and abbot, and which he guided until his death.
Ascetic struggle: the stone in the lake and the iron cap
Two features of his discipline the tradition has never forgotten. In the middle of Lake Dymskoe, the account says, Anthony found a great stone whose crown barely broke the surface of the water, sinking and reappearing with the rise and fall of the lake; and to this stone he would row by night in a small boat, and stand upon it for long hours at prayer, alone before God upon the water — a feat for which he is remembered as the one saint of the Russian Church who practised a kind of stylitism upon the waters. Beneath his monastic hood he is said to have worn an iron cap as an instrument of ascetic labour; and after his death this iron cap, laid upon the heads of the sick who came to his tomb, became a channel of healing, so that the sick "received healing from laying their head on his iron hat."
Repose and relics
Anthony reposed at his monastery on June 24, 1224. In the year 1330 his relics were uncovered incorrupt, and from that time were glorified by many miracles; his memory spread through the Novgorod land, and his monastery on the Dyma endured as a place of pilgrimage. He is numbered among the wonderworkers of Novgorod, and is commemorated in their synaxis.
Feast and commemoration
Anthony is commemorated on June 24 (church date; Old Calendar civil July 7), the day of his repose, and again on January 17 (church date; Old Calendar civil January 30), the feast of Anthony the Great, whose name he bore and whose ascetic ideal he followed — the Russian namesake honoured in his patron's shadow, as several of the calendars set them together. He is also kept among the Saints of Novgorod, whose synaxis falls on the third Sunday after Pentecost. His veneration is Russian; he is not among the saints of the general Byzantine Menaion.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8
With the streams of thy tears thou didst till the barren desert, and by thy sighing from the depths thou didst make thy labours bear fruit a hundredfold; and thou becamest a luminary, shining upon the whole world with miracles, O Anthony our venerable father. Intercede with Christ our God, that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Anthony of Dymsk is depicted as an aged monk in the schema, with a long grey beard, holding a scroll and blessing, or shown standing at prayer upon the stone in the midst of his lake — the attribute that distinguishes him from every other Russian ascetic; sometimes the iron cap appears, and behind him the wooden church and walls of his Dymsky monastery. No pre-1900 panel icon of the saint has yet been identified in a form storable for this collection; the entry accordingly carries a description only.