St. Sophrony

St. Sophrony was born Sergei Sakharov on 22 September 1896 in Moscow. A gifted painter in his youth, he emigrated after the Russian Revolution and pursued art in Paris, passing for a time through an attraction to Eastern mysticism before returning wholeheartedly to Christ. In 1925 he went to Mount Athos and became a monk, where he became the disciple and spiritual son of the humble St. Silouan, whose teaching he absorbed and later made known to the world.

After years as a hermit on Athos and a period in France, he settled in England, where in 1959 he founded the Monastery of St. John the Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights in Essex, a community drawing both men and women. There he taught, wrote, and guided many, and his books, especially his account of St. Silouan and his own work On Prayer, became treasured texts of modern Orthodox spirituality. He died on 11 July 1993, and was canonized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019.