Imagine: 150 years ago, Fr. Ambrose’s hut in the skete. His cell attendant, Fr. Joseph (also a future saint), enters at the sound of a bell. It’s about four in the morning. And before starting the prayer rule, Batiushka talks about a dream he had that night.
It’s a rarity. Optina elders both before and after said that you shouldn’t believe in dreams, that dreams that are truly from God may happen once, perhaps twice in a lifetime. This makes the Elder’s account all the more valuable. He, of all people, knows how to tell a dream that’s genuinely worthy of attention from the machinations of the enemy.
St. Ambrose of Optina
In the Elder’s dream, the long-departed Abbot Abraham appeared to him and lamented, as it were:
“I’ve been completely forgotten. They serve vigils for all the other elders, yet I don’t even get a polyeleos.”
That morning in 1876 is described in the St. John the Forerunner Skete Chronicle. It happened exactly eighty years after the providence of God led one man, a quiet and faithful gardener at the St. Nicholas-Peshnoshsky Monastery near Moscow, to the ruins of the disappearing Optina Monastery. And it was he, a monk-gardener, who was destined to cultivate the soil for the seeds of God that would later give rise to the spiritual fruit that is the Optina Elders.
The Offhand Remark that Started it All
Metropolitan Platon (Levshin) It was 1796. Metroplitan Platon (Levshin), while traveling around the lands of the diocese entrusted to him, ended up at the Optina Hermitage. The monastery was in decline. There was only one dilapidated church, named for the Entrance of the Theotokos, and three elderly monks, one of whom was blind. Nevertheless, Vladyka identified “this place as very convenient for a hermitage.”
He took Peshnosha Monastery as a model, located forty-five miles from the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra—at that time the center of a monastic revival along the lines laid down by St. Paisius (Velichkovsky).
The Metropolitan asked the abbot of Peshnosha, Fr. Makary, to send a capable monk who could restore Optina. The abbot could only throw up his hands—he had no such monk. And yet, the words, “Well, what if I gave you the gardener Abraham?” escaped from his lips. And with that offhand remark, the revival of the monastery began, which would soon radiate with dozens of especially revered saints.
The Metropolitan ordered that this hieromonk be immediately sent to him for a discussion. Fr. Abraham was afraid to even look up during the meeting with Vladyka. He considered himself incapable of this task, being a mere gardener. But the Metropolitan saw in him not governing experience and abilities, but an open, kind heart, which is much more important. The conversation ended with Vladyka’s blessing for Fr. Abraham to go to Optina.
The Time of the First Twelve
For two months after his arrival, Fr. Abraham took stock of the full weight of his new obedience and prayed incessantly. “I wept and prayed, prayed and wept,” he would later recall, noting that at the time there weren’t even towels in the altar.
Despondency began to overtake Fr. Abraham, so he returned to his former monastery and entreated Abbot Makary to remove this obedience from him. But he answered: “Vladyka’s word is law!” and called his cell attendant to have a cart hitched. Frs. Makary and Abraham set out together to call on the local landowners they knew.
The reinspired Fr. Abraham returned to Optina with two carts filled with necessities, church utensils, and household supplies. But more importantly, he had eight people—monks and laborers—with him. They had responded to the call of Fr. Makary during trapeza at Peshnosha Monastery:
“Fathers and brothers! Which of you would like to go with Fr. Abraham to establish the monastery that’s been entrusted to him? I not only won’t hinder you, but lovingly bless you for this blessed work!”
Thus, including the monks who were living out their final years there, Optina at that point had twelve souls. We remember them not only because the monastery was preserved, but because it was by their hands and prayers that the Lord began the work of spiritual rebirth—it was these twelve first inhabitants who became the foundation of Optina monasticism.
The Lion’s Share
St. Leo of Optina Fast forward a third of a century. Anyone who is even a little familiar with the history of Optina eldership can’t help but put forward the reasonable question: How did the charismatic spiritual guide Hieromonk Leo1 (Nagolkin), already famous throughout Russia, agree to come and settle in a little-known monastery in the wilderness? But even this episode of the Optina chronicle has glimmers of the great wisdom of God’s providence.
Thirty-two years before Elder Leo accepted the offer from Abbot Moses of Optina, he became a novice under Fr. Abraham. That is, the future founder of Optina eldership was among those whose blood, sweat, and tears were just beginning to turn the ruins into the pearl of the Orthodox faith.
He was all of twenty-nine at the time. He had just left the world and it was there, on the banks of the Zhizdra that he wanted to dedicate himself to God. However, his health didn’t permit him to stay long; but the seed of God was sown in the heart of the future elder.
A third of a century later, when any monastery would have gladly offered him a spot, he chose Optina, because there he saw the opportunity to fulfill the Lord’s will—to lay the foundation for Optina eldership.
The Evil City
Let’s go back to the start of the nineteenth century. Construction was well underway at Optina, which of course didn’t please the one who had spent so many years and so much energy trying to wipe the monastery from the face of the earth—we’re talking about the enemy of mankind, of course.
He acts primarily through those who are subject to destructive passions. Several residents of Kozelsk, seeing the flourishing of the Optina Hermitage, became envious and saw the monastery as a source of quick and easy profit. The monastery was constantly attacked, and the monks were sometimes robbed.
But the Lord doesn’t abandon His people in their troubles. A certain Lieutenant Rachmaninov from Kozelsk made and gilded an iconostasis for the Entrance of the Theotokos Church at his own expense. Metropolitan Platon, who was taking care of the monastery this whole time, vividly responded to this event:
“You see how some cause you offense, while God stirs others to bring you consolation.”
Awaking from a Dream
The monastery began to receive funds from other wealthy people. The state also granted substantial allowances from the treasury. The monks were given ponds for fishing, as well as a mill. Soon, a three-tiered bell tower and fraternal buildings appeared in Optina. The number of brothers grew. Fr. Abraham, remembering how he once received help, blessed dozens of monks to go restore other monasteries.
At the same time, the Kazan Church was being built, which was accompanied by a special sign. There was an accident during the construction. A news report today would describe it simply as: “A certain hieromonk sustained fatal injuries.” Yet in his mortal agony, he had a dream in which he found himself in the home of Elena Saburova, a landowner from the village of Frolovskoe, Kozelsk County. In this dream, he saw himself praying before the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. When he came to, Fr. Makary felt better, and made a vow to serve a moleben before that very icon should he recover. And so it came to pass.
The landowner, seeing this as a sign from above, allocated funds and presented Optina with the aforementioned icon. Abbot Abraham immediately ordered the construction of the Kazan Church on the site where Fr. Makary had nearly died.
Fr. Abraham, the abbot and reviver of the Optina Hermitage, reposed in 1817, surrounded by his loving brotherhood, which had grown to more than fifty monks. In twenty years, he had done something that only a few could do. He had no experience in construction, he didn’t have the charisma to attract benefactors, and we still don’t even know his exact date of birth or last name. But it was him whom the Lord vouchsafed to lay the holy foundation; it was him—a simple gardener with a kind heart—whom He chose to revive the Optina Hermitage, and it was by his hands that He cultivated the soil from which sprang up spiritual fruits that nourish everyone who seeks God today.
