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Ignatius of Lomsk

Our Venerable Father Ignatius of Lomsk, of Yaroslavl

Venerable · d. 1591, at the Lomsk hermitage

Commemorated 23 May — Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, 28 December — Repose at the Lomsk (Spassky) hermitage

Ignatius of Lomsk (†1591) was a Russian ascetic of the Vologda–Yaroslavl wilderness who, after monastic struggle in two of the great northern monasteries, withdrew into the forests to live in silence and founded a hermitage on the Lom river, from which he is named. Of his origins nothing is transmitted; the tradition places him first at the Priluki monastery near Vologda and then at the monastery of Saint Cyril of White Lake, before he sought the deeper solitude of the wilds. He reposed at his hermitage on December 28, 1591, and is numbered among the saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl.

Nothing certain is preserved of Ignatius's birthplace, family, or early years — the sources open with him already a monk. The tradition holds that he first took up the ascetic life at the Spaso-Prilutsky (Priluki) monastery near Vologda, the great house of Dimitri of Priluki, and afterward passed to the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery — the monastery of Saint Cyril of White Lake — where he continued his monastic labours. Seeking a stricter solitude than the coenobium could give, he withdrew into the forests of the region and settled in the wilderness by the Lom river, where he founded the Spassky (Saviour) hermitage that gave him his surname "of Lomsk"; the tradition connects him with a second desert-dwelling as well, on the Darovitsa. There he lived out his years in prayer and stillness, gathering, as such hermits did, a few disciples drawn by his sanctity, and there he reposed on December 28, 1591. His memory was kept locally at his hermitage, and he came to be numbered among the company of the saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, in whose synaxis (May 23) he is commemorated.

The record of Ignatius is that of a great many of the northern Russian wilderness-dwellers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: an honest and short notice, without the miracle-cycles of the more famous founders, witnessing to a life of hidden ascetic prayer whose fruit was a hermitage in the forest and a name kept by the local church. No fuller Life is transmitted, and none is invented here.

  • Not to be confused with the several other saints named Ignatius — the hieromartyr Ignatius of Antioch, Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, or Ignatius the Archimandrite of the Kiev Caves (kept December 20). "Of Lomsk" and "of Yaroslavl" belong to this Russian hermit alone.

Feast and commemoration

December 28 (church date; Old Calendar civil January 10), the day of his repose, a Russian commemoration kept in the calendars of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church in America within the afterfeast of the Nativity. He is commemorated again on May 23 (Old Calendar civil June 5) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, the regional company to which he belongs. His veneration is local to the Russian north; he does not appear in the Greek calendars.

In that regional company he stands beside the other Russian Ignatius of the Rostov land, Ignatius of Rostov (May 28, †1288), the wonderworking bishop of the see itself — with whom, sharing both a name and the May 23 synaxis, he is easily confused. This Ignatius was a hermit of the Lomsk wilderness, not a hierarch.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable)

By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren wilderness fruitful, and by thy deep sighing thou didst bring forth fruit a hundredfold in labours; and thou becamest a luminary, shining by thy wonders upon the world, O Ignatius our father. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Original translation from the Slavonic

Iconography

Ignatius would be depicted in the settled type of the Russian wilderness-monastic: an elder in the monastic mantiya and koukoulion or with head uncovered, a long grey beard, holding a scroll or with hand raised in blessing, sometimes against the background of his forest hermitage on the Lom. No pre-modern image has been identified for storage here; the entry is noted for a wanted icon.

Sources

  1. Russian hagiographic tradition of the northern saints (the Lives of the Russian Saints, December) — the monastic career at Priluki and Kirillo- Belozersky, the founding of the Spassky hermitage on the Lom, and the repose in 1591.
  2. Encyclopedia of Orthodox Sanctity and the Menologion of the Russian Church, December 28 and May 23 (Synaxis of the Rostov–Yaroslavl saints).
  3. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, December 28 (consulted live) — the tonsure at the monastery of Saint Cyril of White Lake after beginning at Priluki.