Eikon

Athanasius of Murom

Our Venerable Father Athanasius, Abbot of Murom

Venerable · d. 15th century

Commemorated 8 March — Commemoration of the abbot of Murom

Athanasius (fifteenth century) was an abbot of the Murom (Muromsky) Monastery on Lake Onega — the house founded in the previous century by the Greek elder Lazarus of Murom — where he laboured in the monastic life and governed the brotherhood. Little is recorded of him beyond his office and his sanctity; he is remembered in the Russian Church together with the founder Lazarus on March 8, the two venerables of Murom kept on one day.

The record of Athanasius is of the briefest. He belonged to the Murom Monastery on the eastern shore of Lake Onega, in the Olonets country of the Russian North, some generations after its founding by the venerable Lazarus, and was its abbot (igumen) in the fifteenth century. The tradition remembers him as a worthy successor in the founder's ascetic labour, one of the venerable fathers who carried on the monastic life of the northern wilderness that Lazarus had opened. He reposed at his monastery and was venerated there, his memory joined to that of the founder on the founder's own feast-day. No connected life survives; the calendar keeps the name, the house, and the monastic dignity, and the honest record is short.

Feast and commemoration

Athanasius is kept on March 8 (church date; New Calendar civil March 8; Old Calendar civil March 21), as a local commemoration of the Russian Church and of the Orthodox Church in America, together with Lazarus of Murom. The date commonly falls within Great Lent, on whose weekdays no fixed Epistle and Gospel are appointed.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 8

In thee, O Father, was the divine image kept secure; for taking up the Cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, which passeth away, and to care rather for the soul, a thing immortal; wherefore thy spirit, O venerable Athanasius, rejoiceth with the Angels.

Original translation from the Slavonic

Iconography

Athanasius is depicted as a venerable monk of the Russian North — an elder in the monastic mantiya and schema, holding a scroll or a cross — after the settled type of a northern ascetic, and appears with the founder Lazarus in the imagery of the Murom monastery. No securely identified public-domain image of him alone has been found; an icon is wanting.

Sources

  1. The tradition of the Muromsky Monastery on Lake Onega — Athanasius as abbot of the house in the fifteenth century, successor in the labour of its founder Lazarus.
  2. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, March 8 (consulted live) — the venerable Athanasius of Murom, igumen, mid-fifteenth century, who laboured at the monastery of Saint Lazarus of Murom.
  3. The Old-Calendar reckoning for March 21 (azbyka.ru, consulted live) — Athanasius of Murom (Muromsky), Olonets, fifteenth century.