Venerable Silvester Obnorsky

St. Sylvester of Obnora was a 14th-century Russian hermit-monk, a disciple of St. Sergius of Radonezh. After taking monastic vows at the Trinity Monastery, he received his teacher's blessing to pursue solitary asceticism and withdrew into the dense forests along the Obnora River, a tributary of the Kostroma. He erected a cross on the riverbank and lived there in prayer and labor. Over time, local peasants and then would-be monastics gathered around him, and he did not forbid them from settling nearby. With the blessing of Metropolitan Alexius of Moscow, the Church of the Resurrection was built, becoming the foundation of the future Resurrection Monastery on the Obnora. St. Sylvester was a contemporary and near-neighbor, in the same Obnora forests, of St. Sergius of Nurma — another disciple of the Radonezh wonderworker who labored nearby — but the two are distinct individuals. He should also not be confused with Pope Sylvester I of Rome. St. Sylvester reposed on 25 April/8 May 1379. His ancient vita has not survived — the manuscript was lost in a late-18th-century fire; surviving 17th-century records preserve only his date of death, the monastery's founding, and posthumous miracles.