St Sophrony of Essex remembered 130 years after his birth

St Sophrony the Athonite was born in Moscow on 22 September 1896 and was baptised Sergei Semyonovich Sakharov.

He studied Fine Arts in Moscow, searching for an ideal of beauty that transcended the purely aesthetic.

During the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, he was arrested twice and imprisoned at the Lubyanka, but in 1921 he managed to leave the country.

After settling in Paris, he attracted the attention of the French press through several exhibitions, but felt that art did not satisfy his spiritual quest.

Mount Athos In 1925, although he had enrolled to study theology at the St Sergius Institute in Paris, he abandoned his studies and went to Mount Athos.

In 1926, he joined St Panteleimon Monastery, known as the Russikon, where he became a disciple of St Silouan the Athonite.

St Silouan reposed in the Lord on 24 September 1938. Following his spiritual father’s counsel, Fr Sophrony left St Panteleimon Monastery and withdrew into the wilderness of the Holy Mount Athos.

After spending some time at Karoulia, Fr Sophrony settled in a cave near St Paul’s Monastery.

Founding the monastery in Essex In 1947, he was compelled to leave Mount Athos. Over the next 11…