Sergius of Radonezh

Biography

A master of Russian monastic life and protector of Russia, he was born into a noble family in Rostov around the year 1314. At the age of twenty, he began the eremitical life in a forest near Radonezh, not far from Moscow.

Many followers soon joined him, and in 1354 he began community monastic life with them. Thus arose the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, a point of reference for monasticism in northern Russia. Saint John Paul II commented on him in the Angelus of October 4, 1992, when he noted an analogy with Saint Francis of Assisi.