14th century (reposed 1379)
A monk in the tradition of St Sergius of Radonezh who withdrew into the wilderness of the Obnora River, where he gathered a brotherhood; a contemporary of St Alexis of Moscow.
Our Venerable Father Sylvester, Abbot of Obnora
Sylvester of Obnora was a fourteenth-century Russian monastic ascetic, remembered as a disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh and a contemporary of Saint Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow. Drawn from his youth to solitude, he received his teacher's blessing and withdrew into the forest wilderness on the bank of the Obnora River, in the land of Yaroslavl about twenty kilometers from the town of Lyubim, where he lived as a hermit in fasting and prayer.
As others gathered around his cell, Sylvester founded a coenobitic community and, with the blessing and an antimension granted by Metropolitan Alexis, built a wooden church consecrated to the Resurrection of Christ. He served as the monastery's first abbot until his repose on April 25, 1379, and is commemorated on that date.
By your struggles you have contested, and you brought your soul as a pure and unblemished sacrifice to God,
after your repose you are diligent for us before God in prayer;
therefore, turning to you with faith, we cry out:
“Rejoice, O Venerable Father Sylvester.”
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
As a good disciple of the blessed Sergius, you emulated his faith and godliness,
receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit and, for the Lord's sake,
you made great efforts for the salvation and consolation of the faithful.
Do not forsake us who come to you with faith,
O Venerable Father Sylvester.
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
Sources record that Sylvester dug wells in the wilderness with his own hands and set apart a grove around the monastery within which no trees were to be felled. The tradition is associated with an account that in 1645 a hieromonk named Job, a builder at the Resurrection Monastery, disregarded this prohibition and began to cut timber in the grove; by tradition he was struck blind in punishment and afterward recovered his sight at the saint's coffin.
Sylvester was buried to the right of the wooden Resurrection church, and his burial place was venerated as a source of healings. His relics were regarded as incorrupt and, by the nineteenth century, were enshrined in a bronze, silver-plated tomb. Accounts relate that the relics were lost during the upheavals of the 1920s and have since been returned to the church.
The same Obnora River region is associated with other monastic saints, among them Venerable Paul of Obnora and Sergius of Nurom, who were later glorified for their ascetic labors in that wilderness.
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