Alexander of Oshevensk

Monastic Rule and Governance

As abbot, Alexander established a strict cenobitic order at Oshevensk, prescribing silence during the services and the common meal, unceasing prayer in the cells, and the recitation of the Jesus Prayer or the Psalms during manual labor. Sources record his counsel to the brethren that God is love and loves the humble, and his insistence that the monks not shrink from hard work.

The community grew only gradually, for the wilderness conditions were severe; one elder who came from Belozersk could not endure them and departed. By tradition Alexander was sustained in a time of illness and discouragement by a consoling vision of Venerable Cyril of Belozersk.

Relics and Later History

His relics were later discovered incorrupt during the construction of a new church at the monastery; accounts from that time describe him as of moderate stature, with a thin face and a small beard grizzled with fair hair, the likeness preserved in his icons.

The monastery declined after his death but was restored under the abbot Maxim in the 1480s and continued into the following century. The Holy Dormition Alexandro-Oshevensky Monastery stands on the left bank of the Onega River in what is now the Kargopol district of Arkhangelsk Oblast; devastated and abandoned in the Soviet period, it has since reopened and is under reconstruction.

Traditional Accounts

A widely related tradition holds that in the seventeenth century Alexander appeared to Saint Diodorus of George Hill at a time when that monastery's provisions had run out, directing the monks to go fishing. According to the account, Diodorus received confirmation of the vision when Alexander chanted the hymn 'It is Truly Meet' with light shining about him, after which the monks went out and caught an abundance of fish.