Saint Daniel of Shugh Hill was born in the Moscow dominion in the sixteenth century. He performed his ascetic labors in northern Rus, where he became a monk at the Komel monastery, founded by St Cornelius of Komel in 1498.
St Daniel left the monastery and continued a solitary ascetic life in the unpopulated and forested White Lake hinterland, on a mountain named Shugh Hill. Here the holy ascetic founded his monastery in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord. St Daniel was buried at a temple in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord at the monastery that he founded. In 1764, the monastery was turned into a parish.