On July 2, 1889, the abbot of St. Panteleimon’s Monastery on Holy Mount Athos, Schema-Archimandrite Makary (Sushkin), the spiritual son and successor of Hieroschemamonk Ieronim (Solomentsov), departed into blessed eternity. One after the other they restored this monastery and its Russian monasticism. Let us turn to the life of Schema-Archimandrite Makary.
Schema-Archimandrite Makary (Sushkin) The future Athonite was born in 1820 in Tula into a well-to-do merchant family. He was given the name Mikhail. He did well at school, and at fourteen became his father’s assistant in business matters. The family lived for a time in St. Petersburg, where Mikhail led a rather secular life. Finally, his father decided to marry him off, at which the young man requested permission to first visit the holy places.
In 1851, he visited Constantinople, Palestine, Egypt, and Mt. Sinai, and in the end, he ended up on Mt. Athos. One of the consuls in Thessaloniki described the future abbot of St. Panteleimon’s thus: “Smartly dressed and simply handsome; a somewhat pale brunette, slender, thin; a beautiful nose with a slight hump; dark-browed; expressive, languid eyes; he carried himself modestly.”
Upon reaching the Holy Mountain, Mikhail visited St. Panteleimon’s Monastery, met his future spiritual mentor, Hieroschemamonk Ieronim (Solomentsov), and went to get acquainted with other monasteries. Along the way, he fell ill with a fever. He was carried on a stretcher back to St. Panteleimon’s where he begged the elder to tonsure him into monasticism. At that time, the monastery was led by Hieroschemamonk Ieronim, a great ascetic, the brethren’s spiritual father, who saw in Mikhail his successor. But his tonsure didn’t come immediately. The elders of the monastery feared the wrath of his father, because he was a very rich man and had serious connections in the powerful circles of the Russian Empire, later becoming the head of the city of Tula. However, he was eventually tonsured and Mikhail became Monk Makary. When his father learned of this development, he didn’t communicate with his son for six months. Later, Fr. Makary’s parents and brothers became the main benefactors, donors, and restorers of St. Panteleimon’s for many years.
Having been clothed in the great schema, Fr. Makary immediately rose from his sickbed and joyfully began his obediences in the kitchen, in construction, and whatever he was given to do. According to him, he “mostly went to plant grapes” at that time.
The Russian consul, philosopher, and spiritual child of Fr. Makary, Konstantin Leontiev, wrote of him:
The impressionable Fr. Makary was deeply impressed by the noble, imperturbably calm personality of the intelligent ascetic Fr. Ieronim, this “first among Russians in monastic experience.” Fr. Makary sincerely loved this “angelic man” with all the feelings of his tender soul, surrendered himself into the hands of this giant of thought and will, and became his obedient and submissive servant even before receiving the tonsure. Fr. Makary wrote to his parents that Mt. Athos seemed like Paradise to him, “especially as long as my spiritual father lives”—a spiritual father who “in no way advised him to go” back to Russia. In monasticism, as Fr. Makary wrote to his parents in 1852, Fr. Ieronim “comfort[ed]” him “amid sorrows and temptations,” “resolve[d] doubts and storms of thoughts,” “nourishe[d] him with spiritual food,” “guide[d] his correspondence with his parents,” and much more.
Indeed, having become a monk and resident of St. Panteleimon’s Monastery, Fr. Makary enthusiastically wrote to his mother:
I often find comfort in my life. What God will give further, I don’t know, but now I’m at peace. There are sorrows, temptations, storms of thoughts, but my spiritual father comforts me and resolves any perplexity. For the body there is little benefit here, but for the soul—plenty... Mother, pray for your son that the Lord may grant him chastity, humility, patience, obedience, and deliver him from vain thoughts and pride...
At the same time, using his position, he also sought to draw his parents to a more intense Church life. He advised them:
Say the Jesus Prayer and “Rejoice, Virgin Theotokos” more often, wherever you happen to be. These two prayers elevate the soul. May these prayers be with you everywhere, whether sitting, walking, or lying down. Don’t forget the poor, but give as much as you can, without grumbling. Make haste to sow while you still can, so that you may later reap. Care for your neighbor; don’t spare your wealth.
On his son’s advice, his father soon established a home for travelers in Tula.
In 1853, Fr. Makary was ordained a hierodeacon, and three years later—a hieromonk. Immediately, due to the illness of the abbot Fr. Ieronim, he was appointed second confessor of the Russian brotherhood of the monastery (there were also Greeks at the monastery). As Konstantin Leontiev wrote about him:
He serves Liturgy every day. He hears confessions from morning till evening; he’s everywhere: at Vigil, on a mule, in the mountains, on a boat in stormy weather. He sleeps three hours a day and eats the worst Lenten meals at trapeza—he, whose father and brothers are millionaires… I even often marveled, looking at him and listening to his speeches, how this nature, so tender, seemingly so ideal in every sense, and heartfelt and quick—how it could submit so wholeheartedly, deeply, sincerely and without resistance to all that formalism which is inevitable in good monasticism!
Fr. Makary spoke of his ministry as a spiritual father:
I’m one of the laziest and most negligent about my salvation, but I’ve also been entrusted with caring for the salvation of other souls, and this heavy burden lies on my unworthiness.
St. Panteleimon’s Monastery
In 1875, Fr. Makary, to the displeasure of the Greek brethren, became the abbot. He diligently labored at the building up of the monastery, continuing the work of Hieroschemamonk Ieronim. He directed all construction in the monastery, the tripling of the number of representations in Moscow, Odessa, and other cities, the New Thebaid and Krumitsa sketes, and daily communed of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Fr. Makary served the proskomidia slowly, and the Liturgy for two to three hours, unhurriedly and reverently. He generously gave alms following the example of his spiritual guide, Fr. Ieronim.
One visitor to St. Panteleimon’s Monastery testified about Fr. Makary:
Not tall in stature, thin; a large beard and long hair with streaks of gray give special softness to his kind and expressive face. Due to an eye ailment, he wears tinted glasses, and this prevents one from seeing his beautiful gray eyes. His conversation is unhurried, his voice quiet and thin, sometimes seeming to break. By the expression with which the monks’ gazes rest on the archimandrite, it can be immediately seen that he is the head here not merely in name. I gazed with curiosity at the abbot’s pleasant face, about whose tireless activity and administrative abilities I had heard so much.
Fr. Makary lived very modestly. The same visitor noted:
In everything there is simplicity carried to an extreme degree... The abbot sleeps almost on bare boards, having a hard leather pillow under his head.
Another guest of the monastery spoke about the abbot this way:
I couldn’t marvel enough at Fr. Makary’s vigor and energy. For example, he participates in serving the Vigil, which lasts all night, then serves Liturgy, after which he presides over the monastery meal. And then, at noon, in the unbearable heat, you see him wandering through the courtyard accompanied by several monks. And until evening he can be seen here and there, constantly busy and calmly, unhurriedly giving orders. It takes a lot of subtle intelligence, tact, meekness, and skill to keep the brotherhood in order, to get along with the Protaton and with all the authorities. It’s not easy to bear the abbatial staff...
At the same time, the abbot constantly received visitors. He also had mail days, which he devoted exclusively to correspondence until late evening.
Konstantin Leontiev added to this portrait:
Fr. Makary, both at the age of fifty and as an archimandrite, was very handsome, slender, and as nimble as before; the same charming, expressing eyes under thick black eyebrows; in his extremely attractive face a combination of seriousness with kindness, and at times with frank, gracious cheerfulness. His mixture of modesty and dignity was noticeable even after thirty years on the Holy Mountain. His strong, ideal nature was visible in his very appearance—in his pale, elongated face, in his thoughtful eyes, even in that strong impressionability and mobility which neither his natural firmness of character nor the terrifying severity of Athonite discipline, under the influence of which he had lived for so long, could completely destroy in him… He was a true, great ascetic, both physically and spiritually, worthy of ancient monasticism and at the same time quite modern, lively, attractive, and I’ll even say,in some cases almost a secular man in the best sense of the word—that is, elegant, cheerful, and sociable in appearance.
Schema-Archimandrite Makary also had sorrows. The repose of his beloved spiritual father, Hieroschemamonk Ieronim, was a great blow for him. He served a panikhida at his grave twice a day and liked to stay in his cell in rare moments of rest. During his abbacy, there was a large fire that destroyed a large new building, the church, and the Krumitsa skete. Fr. Makary addressed the brethren regarding this:
Brothers, love one another and accept the misfortunes that befall us with submission to the will of God, without murmuring… So, brothers, at midnight, quite unexpectedly, a fiery visitation from the right hand of the Lord came to us… Such little brotherly love and humble self-accusation was in us. Therefore, we’ve brought upon ourselves the punishment of the righteous Lord, Who again instructs us and calls us to repentance. Let us give thanks for the long-suffering and bounties of our Heavenly Father, and let us now strive to heed His paternal chastisement.
Subsequently, the monastery’s ship sank in the Bosphorus. Fr. Makary endured trials steadfastly, and as witnessed by people who knew him during his lifetime, by the end of it he had achieved dispassion: “Even if Mt. Athos itself were to crash thunderously into the sea, he wouldn’t have been troubled.”
By the end of his abbacy at St. Panteleimon’s, the monastery included more than 1,000 brethren. Fr. Makary himself led a strict life of fasting and asceticism to the end of his days, serving as an example for everyone who knew him. With such an ascetic life, he was vouchsafed an appearance of the Mother of God and the Savior. In January 1888, Fr. Makary became seriously ill. But even so, he didn’t give up serving daily Liturgies or his duties as spiritual father. On June 19, 1889, he served his last Liturgy. While reading the prayers of thanksgiving after Holy Communion, he felt great weakness. He was taken to his cell, where he soon peacefully departed to the Lord.
A few days later, his spiritual testament was found, in which the elder wrote:
I pray for each and every one of you: Now most of all I need your prayerful help. Don’t forsake or forget me with your warm prayers for me, so that the God of love may not reject your unanimous love, but may also work joy and mercy for me and reward you with His bounties for your filial love, which is pleasing in His sight.
The elder also asked the brethren to constantly receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ and to preserve peace and love:
Where there is peace and love, there is God, and where God is, there is every good thing. Peace and unanimity constitute the firm protection and well-being of every community. But with internal discord, every house and every community will fall.
With his holy life, Schema-Archimandrite Makary continued the work of his mentor, Hieroschemamonk Ieronim. As one Athonite said of these two elders:
Their merits are great before the Church and before Russia. They founded and developed a strong home of Russian monasticism and elevated and ennobled monasticism itself, such that Athonite Russian coenobitic monasticism can serve as an example for all other monasteries of this type. What great spiritual powers these two great elders were filled with! How much struggle, an unbearable, almost supernatural struggle they had to endure: one in the planting, and the other in the nurturing and strengthening of this Athonite garden of Christ—the Russian St. Panteleimon’s Monastery. In general, everything we see in the external and internal good order of the beautiful, good, pure, and holy St. Panteleimon’s Monastery is the fruit of the zealous labors of Hieroschemamonk Ieronim and Schema-Archimandrite Makary.
May the Lord God remember Schema-Archimandrite Makary in the mansions of the righteous!