Venerable (Monastic) 18th century

Nicetas of the Roslavl Forests

1695 – 1793

Also known as Niketas of Roslavl · Nikitas the Schemamonk

A pilgrim from childhood who embraced the monastic life and dwelt as an ascetic in the Roslavl forests near the White Bluff Hermitage.

Feast Day

March 29

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Commemorated as

Our Venerable Father Nicetas, Schemamonk and Desert-Dweller of the Roslavl Forests

Life

Nicetas of the Roslavl Forests was a Russian monk and hermit of the eighteenth century who spent the greater part of his life in solitary asceticism in the forests near Roslavl, in what is now the Smolensk region. He is commemorated by the Orthodox Church on March 29 and is numbered among the desert-dwellers of the Roslavl Forests, the ascetic community whose tradition fed into the later eldership of the Optina Hermitage.

By the accounts of his life he was born in 1695 in the city of Orel. From childhood he was drawn to pilgrimage to holy places, and as a young man he left his parents' home and settled near the White Bluff (Beloberezhsk) Hermitage, attending the services of the monastery. The circumstances of his monastic tonsure and the name of his spiritual instructor are not recorded.

He is reckoned among the schemamonks of the Roslavl forest community, a movement of forest solitaries who lived in the manner of the early desert fathers and carried forward the patristic revival associated with St. Paisius Velichkovsky.

Timeline 5 moments Read Hide

1695 Born in Orel Born in the city of Orel; from childhood he was drawn to pilgrimage to holy places.
1780 Builds a forest cell Built a cell on a hillock in a remote part of the forest and dug a well beside it, living on bread left by passersby.
1792 Returns to the desert Wishing to return once more to solitude, he was brought by his disciple Dositheus to the Roslavl forests with the blessing of the Beloberezhsk Hermitage.
March 29, 1793 Repose Reposed in the Roslavl forests; his body was later reported found incorrupt when examined some years afterward.
August 31, 2017 Local glorification Approved for local veneration in the Smolensk Diocese together with Theophanes of the Roslavl Forests.

Contributions & Legacy

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Forest Asceticism

In 1780 Nicetas built a cell on a hillock in a remote part of the forest and dug a well beside it. He sustained himself on the bread that passersby would leave in a basket hung by the roadside on a tree. The sources recall the severity of his life in the forest, including the relentless mosquitoes that, by the account of his life, bit him until he was covered in blood.

He is remembered as having received the gift of tears, weeping both for his own sins and for the sins of others. The synaxarion relates that during an illness in the month of March he was granted a vision of the Theotokos surrounded by angels, who blessed him.

His original cell was destroyed by fire. After this he lived for a time at the White Bluff Hermitage and served at a monastery before joining the solitaries of the Roslavl forests, where he settled on the southern edge of a place called Monks' Gorge (Monk's Ditch), near the village of Yakimovskoe (Akimovka). He is said to have dwelt among the Roslavl solitaries for more than ten years before returning to the forest.

Repose and Veneration

By tradition, in 1792 Nicetas desired to return once more to his desert solitude, and his disciple Dositheus, having received the blessing of the Beloberezhsk Hermitage, brought him to the Roslavl forests. There, after some months, he reposed on March 29, 1793.

His body is reported to have been found incorrupt when it was examined some seven years after his death, and again about fifteen years afterward. He was approved for local veneration in the Smolensk Diocese on August 31, 2017, together with his fellow Roslavl desert-dweller Theophanes.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints