Venerable-Martyr Athanasius of Brest

Early Life and Monastic Path

Athanasius was born in 1597 to a Lithuanian nobleman in Brest, within the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. His education encompassed ancient and modern languages, the writings of the Church Fathers, and works of Western philosophers, and he supported himself for a period as a private tutor before turning to the monastic life.

In 1627 he entered the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius. He later moved to the monastery at Kupyatitsk near Minsk in 1637, where he was ordained a priest. According to the tradition, while seeking a benefactor for his monastery he prayed before the Kupyatitsk Icon of the Mother of God, and the account relates that he was directed to seek aid from the tsar in Moscow.

Abbot and Defender of Orthodoxy

In 1640 Athanasius was appointed hegumen of the Monastery of Saint Simeon the Stylite in Brest. At that time the Orthodox of the city were under heavy pressure from the authorities, the Uniates, and the Jesuits to accept the Union of Brest, and from his position he openly advocated against Roman proselytism and the Union.

He carried his appeals beyond the monastery, traveling to Warsaw in 1641 and 1643 and reaching King Wladyslaw IV, who favored toleration, though his effort to secure a decree of religious tolerance was unsuccessful. In 1643 he testified before the Polish parliament in defense of Orthodoxy. He expressed his opposition through speeches, published grievances, and writings, and a diary attributed to him has been preserved.

His stand brought repeated arrest. By various accounts he was imprisoned three times during these years; he was arrested in 1643, when he was declared insane, and again in 1644, being released after about a year.

Martyrdom and Relics

In 1648 Athanasius was arrested again, this time on accusations of supporting the Cossack uprising in Ukraine led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky. When no proof was found, he was charged instead with blaspheming against the Catholic Church and the Union. On September 5, 1648, he was taken from the castle by Polish soldiers into the forests outside Brest, where, by the tradition, he was cruelly tortured and made to watch his own grave being dug. After he refused a final demand to renounce Orthodoxy, the soldier ordered to carry out the execution is said to have knelt and asked his forgiveness before shooting him.

On May 1, 1649, about eight months after his death, a boy revealed the place of his burial to the monks of the Simeonov monastery. Because the burial ground was controlled by the Jesuits, the monks recovered his incorrupt body secretly at night and brought it to their monastery, formally reburying him on May 8, 1649. During a monastery fire on November 8, 1815, the copper reliquary holding the relics melted, but a portion survived undamaged and was later placed for public veneration; by 1823 Archbishop Anatolius blessed their placement in a wooden vessel.