d. 1532
A disciple of Saint Alexander of Svir who founded a monastery on the Oredezha River near Lake Ladoga; reposed in 1532.
Our Venerable Father Macarius of Oredezh
Macarius of Oredezh was a sixteenth-century Russian monastic, remembered as a disciple of Saint Alexander of Svir, the noted ascetic of the Olonets and Lake Ladoga region. Drawn to the solitary life, Macarius is said to have left the Svir monastery with his teacher's blessing and to have settled on the Oredezh River, in the historic Novgorodian lands northwest of Novgorod, where a community gradually formed around him.
The hermitage he founded, dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos, lay near Lake Ladoga in territory now within the Saint Petersburg eparchy. He reposed in 1532 and is commemorated on August 9, and is also numbered among the assemblies of saints of Karelia and of Novgorod and Saint Petersburg.
(Podoben: “Come, let us worship the Word...”) With the streams of your tears, you cultivated the barrenness of the desert,
and by your sighings from the depths, your labors bore fruit a hundredfold,
and you became a luminary of the world, radiant with miracles,
O Makarios our Father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
(Podoben: “Seeking the things on high...”) Having divinely armed yourself with purity of soul
and firmly grasping unceasing prayer as a spear, you slew the hordes of demons.
Therefore, we beseech you, O Father Makarios:
“Always intercede for those who honor you.”
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
Beyond his August 9 commemoration, Macarius is honored among the Synaxis of the Karelian Saints, kept on the Saturday falling between October 31 and November 6, and among the Synaxis of the Novgorod and Saint Petersburg Saints, observed on the third Sunday after Pentecost.
The place of his ascetic labors on the Oredezh lies in a region of the former Novgorodian north that now falls within the Saint Petersburg eparchy.
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