Nilus of Stolobny

Origins and monastic beginnings

Nilus was born into a peasant family in a village of the Novgorod diocese; the year of his birth is not recorded. In 1505 he entered the monastery of St Savva of Krypetsk near Pskov, where he was tonsured and passed some ten years in the common ascetic life of the brotherhood. Seeking a stricter solitude than the coenobium allowed, he withdrew to the wilderness along the little River Seremlya (Sereml), in the region of Ostashkov, where for thirteen years he lived as a hermit, waging — in the vivid language of his Life — an unremitting war against the demons, who appeared to him in the forms of reptiles and wild beasts.

The island of Stolobny

As his reputation for holiness spread, the people of the surrounding country began to come to him for counsel, and the solitude he had sought was broken. Praying to be shown a place of true stillness, he heard (the Life relates) a voice bidding him go to Lake Seliger, to the island of Stolobny, where he would find salvation. Learning the island's whereabouts from visitors, he went and was overwhelmed by its beauty — a wooded islet in the middle of the great lake. On a low hill he dug himself a cave for the first winter and afterwards built a small hut, and there he remained for twenty-six years until his death.

To the ordinary austerities of fasting and unceasing prayer Nilus added a singular discipline that became inseparable from his memory: he never lay down to sleep. He allowed himself only a light doze, supported upright by leaning against two wooden pegs or crutch-hooks fixed into the wall of his cell, so that even his rest was a labour. He refused all gifts brought by those whose conscience was impure, and lived by the work of his own hands.

Trials and miracles

The Life records that his holiness provoked the malice of the enemy, expressed through hostile neighbours. Once an arsonist set fire to the forest of the island to drive him out, but the flames miraculously died as they reached his hill. Another time robbers broke into his hut, demanding his treasure; Nilus told them his treasure lay in the corner — where an icon of the Mother of God stood — but when they searched there for money they were struck blind, and only recovered their sight after repenting with tears. Many other wonders were ascribed to him.

Repose

Foreseeing his end, Nilus prepared his own grave. At his death an abbot from a nearby monastery came to the island and gave him the Holy Mysteries; after a last prayer, censing the icons and his cell, Nilus surrendered his soul to God on 7 December 1554.

The Nilov Hermitage and the cultus

Some years after his death a hermit named Herman, together with a wandering pilgrim, settled on Stolobny and, about 1594, founded a monastery over the saint's grave — the Nilov Hermitage (Nilova Pustyn), which grew into one of the largest and most visited monasteries in Russia, its great cathedral rising from the island in the lake. His relics were uncovered incorrupt in 1667 and enshrined; this translation is commemorated on May 27, and his repose on December 7. Devotion to him spread far beyond the region: small carved and painted wooden figures of the saint, shown seated and bowed with his head resting on his hand or supported by his hooks, were made and venerated in enormous numbers across the Russian north, one of the few sculptural forms in Orthodox devotion. His relics, removed in the Soviet period, were later restored to the reopened monastery.