Cassian of Komel
Our Venerable Father Cassian, Abbot of Komel
Venerable · d. 1537, at the Komel monastery near Vologda
Commemorated 16 May — Commemoration with Laurence of Komel
Cassian of Komel (†1537) was a disciple of Cornelius of Komel and, for a time, abbot of his master's monastery of the Presentation in the Komel forest near Vologda. When Cornelius, old and weary of the honours pressed on him, withdrew to Lake Sura, the brethren chose Cassian to govern in his place, and he did so with the elder's approval and in the elder's spirit, holding the community to prayer, inward attention and the renunciation of worldly cares. When Cornelius returned, Cassian laid down the office without a murmur and took his place again among the obedient. He is commemorated on May 16 with his fellow-disciple Laurence of Komel.
The Komel brotherhood
The forest of Komel, south of Vologda, was one of the great nurseries of Russian monasticism in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Cornelius of Komel (†1537, commemorated May 19) founded there the monastery of the Presentation of the Mother of God and wrote for it a rule — one of the earliest original Russian monastic rules — and from his brotherhood came a long line of founders and abbots who carried his discipline into the northern forests.
Cassian belonged to the closest circle of these disciples. Nothing is transmitted of his origins, his family or the year of his tonsure; the record begins with his abbacy. When Cornelius, weighed down by age and by the attention his monastery had begun to attract, left it and withdrew to Lake Sura to live in quiet, the brethren would not be left without a head, and with the elder's blessing they elected Cassian.
Abbot, and the laying down of office
What is remembered of his government is its fidelity. He introduced nothing of his own: he taught the monks, in the phrase the Russian tradition preserves, to spend their time in prayer and the fear of God, to attend to the inner work of the heart, and to drive out the thoughts of the world. He held the house in Cornelius's discipline until Cornelius himself came back to it.
Then Cassian did the thing for which he is chiefly honoured. On his teacher's return he resigned the abbacy at once, of his own will, and asked only to be in obedience to the holy elder as before. He reposed in 1537, the same year as Cornelius.
Feast and commemoration
May 16 (church date; Old Calendar civil May 29), together with Laurence of Komel. Both are local saints of the Vologda land, kept in Russian and OCA usage and not in Greek or Antiochian calendars; they are commemorated also with the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda. Their master Cornelius is kept three days later, on May 19.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
In thee, O Father, the image of God was preserved unimpaired, for taking up the Cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou hast taught us to despise the flesh, which passeth away, and to care for the soul, which is immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Cassian, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Iconography
Cassian is shown in the Vologda manner as a monastic elder: grey-bearded, in the dark mantle and cowl, hands folded or holding a scroll, and in the composite icons of the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda he stands in the ranks near Cornelius of Komel, with Laurence beside him. No pre-1900 image of him has been located for this collection, and he is very rarely painted alone.
Disputed questions
The record is thin, and the two Komel disciples commemorated on this day are easily run together in the calendars. Cassian was abbot before Cornelius's return from Lake Sura; Laurence was chosen abbot in 1538, after Cornelius's death, and governed for a decade. Neither is to be confused with Innocent of Komel (March 19), a disciple not of Cornelius but of Nilus of Sora, who had his hermitage in the same forest.