Venerable Alexander of Svir

Venerable Alexander of Svir was born in 1448 into a pious peasant family in the Obonezhskaya pyatina near the Svir River. From his youth he loved solitary prayer and, secretly leaving his parents' home, was tonsured on Valaam. He later withdrew to a deserted place by the Svir River, where he labored in complete solitude, enduring severe deprivations. After twenty-five years as a hermit, during night prayer the Most Holy Trinity appeared to him in ineffable light in the form of three men and commanded him to build a church and establish a monastery. This appearance made Venerable Alexander the only person after the Old Testament righteous Abraham to be granted so clear a theophany of the Holy Trinity. That same year a wooden church was built, and in 1526 a stone Church of the Life-Giving Trinity. The Holy Trinity Alexander-Svirsky Monastery he founded became one of the spiritual centers of the Russian North. The venerable one reposed in 1533; his relics were found incorrupt in 1641.