Ascetic Life on Lake Seliger
The sources relate that during his first year on Stolobnoye Nilus lived in a dugout, afterward building a hut and a small chapel. He remained on the island for roughly twenty-six to twenty-seven years until his death, devoting himself to fasting, prayer, and hesychia (stillness).
A distinctive feature attributed to his asceticism is that he never lay down to sleep: by tradition he permitted himself only a light nap while leaning on a prop. Accounts of his earlier solitude describe an austere diet, with mention of his subsisting on what the wilderness provided.