Ignatius Brianchaninov

Born Dimitri Alexandrovich Brianchaninov to a noble family, he graduated brilliantly from the military engineering school in St Petersburg but renounced a promising career, over the objections of his family and the emperor himself, to become a monk. As archimandrite he was appointed to restore the St Sergius Hermitage near the capital, which he governed for more than twenty years. In 1857 he was consecrated Bishop of Stavropol and the Caucasus, but ill health led him to retire after four years to the Nikolo-Babaevsky monastery on the Volga, where he devoted himself to writing. His works, including The Arena and his treatises on the Jesus Prayer, distill the teaching of the ancient Fathers for modern readers and remain foundational texts of Orthodox spirituality. He reposed in 1867 and was glorified by the Russian Church in 1988.