Historical Background
According to monastic tradition David was born in the 1450s, though the exact date is unknown, and bore the secular name Daniil. A reputed descent from the Vyazemsky princely line is sometimes attached to him, but this noble ancestry lacks documentary evidence and remains uncertain.
He took monastic vows at the monastery of Saint Paphnutius of Borovsk, where the tonsure was performed by the community's founder, Paphnutius himself. He received the name David in memory of the Greek Saint David of Thessalonica.
Foundation of the Hermitage
Following Paphnutius's death, David departed the Borovsk monastery with a small number of companions. Sources place this departure in 1477, shortly after his master's repose.
On May 31, 1515, David and his companions settled on the right bank of the Lopasnya River, a tributary of the Oka, some distance from Serpukhov, on lands belonging to Prince Vasily Starodubsky. There they built a church dedicated to the Ascension and laid the foundations of the community that became known as the Ascension Davidov Hermitage. By tradition David also planted a grove of linden trees near the new monastery.
Monastic tradition relates that Abbot Joseph of Volokolamsk visited the site and blessed its foundation on August 25, 1515.
Relics & Shrines
David died at his hermitage on October 18, 1520. His relics are recorded as resting under the altar in the monastery's cathedral church.
In the Soviet era the monastery was closed in October 1929. After an Orthodox community was re-established in the early 1990s and monastic life resumed, his relics were rediscovered on May 24, 1997.
Miracles & Traditions
Traditional Accounts: A tradition preserved at the monastery holds that Tsar Ivan the Terrible granted the community privileges after hearing of David's deeds. Among these was the account that David planted linden trees with their roots turned upward, which nonetheless took and grew successfully.
Legacy of the Monastery
The community David founded endured through later centuries of hardship. During the Time of Troubles in 1619 the complex was devastated by Lithuanian and Cossack forces under Hetman Petro Sahaidachny; its recovery was authorized by a charter of Tsar Mikhail Romanov in 1625. The monastery flourished most in the late seventeenth century and by 1764 became a self-supporting house without state lands.
Closed in 1929, it was revived as an Orthodox community in 1992, with the first liturgy celebrated in 1995 and monastic status approved by the Holy Synod on June 1, 1995. It functions today as an active male monastery under the Podolsk Diocese in the village of Novy Byt, Moscow Oblast.
