St Paisius Velichkovsky

Paisius was born in Poltava in Ukraine, the son of a priest, and left the Kiev academy in search of authentic monastic life, wandering through the monasteries of Ukraine and Moldavia before settling on Mount Athos. There he lived in poverty, copying and studying the neglected ascetic writings of the Fathers. A brotherhood gathered around him, and he returned with it to Moldavia, directing great communities at Dragomirna, Sekou, and finally Neamts, which grew to over a thousand monks of many nationalities. His life's labor was the translation of the Greek Philokalia and other patristic texts into Slavonic; his Dobrotolyubiye, published in 1793, together with the disciples he formed, kindled the great revival of eldership and the Jesus Prayer in nineteenth-century Russia, bearing fruit at Optina and in figures like St Seraphim's contemporaries. He reposed at Neamts in 1794.