Pavel of Taganrog
Encyclopedia
The Blessed starets
Starets
A starets is an elder of a Russian Orthodox monastery who functions as venerated adviser and teacher. Elders or spiritual fathers are charismatic spiritual leaders whose wisdom stems from God as obtained from ascetic experience...

 Saint Pavel of Taganrog (Pavel Taganrogskiy) dramatically influenced the belief in God and spiritual outlook of inhabitants of Taganrog
Taganrog
Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...

, Don Land, South of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 and Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. A plain layman, who lived in Taganrog in the 19th century, he conciliated love and worship of Russian Orthodox Christians, who flowed to him for a piece of advice and spiritual support.

Pavel Pavlovich Stoykov was born on November 21 (November 8th OS
Old Style and New Style dates
Old Style and New Style are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January even though documents written at the time use a different start of year ; or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian...

), 1792 in Malorossia guberniya
Little Russia
Little Russia , sometimes Little or Lesser Rus’ , is a historical political and geographical term in the Russian language referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine before the 20th century. It is similar to the Polish term Małopolska of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...

 of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 (now Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

) in a rich noble family. His parents – collegiate registrar Pavel and Paraskeva – were devoutly religious people, they infused in the heart of their son belief in God and piety. Since his youth Pavel had felt a flaming love for holy places and pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...

. He related about himself: “All my desire was to pray to God, my intention was to go on pilgrimage to rescue my soul, because surrounding life was full of secular vanity and impeded my holy wish”. His father would never let him become a clergyman; he wanted to provide his son with a higher education. Instead of this, the 16-year-old young man followed the voice of his heart, secretly left the home of his parents and went on pilgrimages to monasteries for a year and finally received a severe punishment from his father.

When Pavel was 25 years old, his father decided to divide the property between him and his elder brother Ivan. With a comfortable inheritance, the young ascetic dispensed it in Christ's name, the father gave his blessing and young Pavel left home forever. He wandered a lot to holy places, including to Kiev Pechersk Lavra
Kiev Pechersk Lavra
Kiev Pechersk Lavra or Kyiv Pechersk Lavra , also known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, is a historic Orthodox Christian monastery which gave its name to one of the city districts where it is located in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine....

 and Pochaiv Lavra Lavras that he visited several times; he liked to go to the north of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, visited Solovetskiy
Solovetsky Monastery
Solovetsky Monastery was the greatest citadel of Christianity in the Russian North before being turned into a special Soviet prison and labor camp , which served as a prototype for the GULag system. Situated on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, the monastery braved many changes of fortune...

, Verkolskiy, Kojeozerskiy cloisters and many others.

After 10 years of pilgrimage, Blessed Pavel settled in Taganrog
Taganrog
Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...

 in the years 1825–1830. Taganrog became the Saint’s second home city, where he lived a simple life with no regard for his noble birth. Blessed Pavel spent the first years of his life in Taganrog renting different flats. Later, he moved into a house on Depaldo Street (now "Pereulok Turgenevskiy"), not far from the Saint Nicholas Church. Thanks to the dean of Taganrog county, archpriest
Archpriest
An archpriest is a priest with supervisory duties over a number of parishes. The term is most often used in Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholic Churches, although it may be used in the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church instead of dean or vicar forane.In the 16th and 17th centuries, during...

 Alexander Klyunkov, this house still exists and is known among people as the “keliya of starets
Starets
A starets is an elder of a Russian Orthodox monastery who functions as venerated adviser and teacher. Elders or spiritual fathers are charismatic spiritual leaders whose wisdom stems from God as obtained from ascetic experience...

 Pavel”.

Pavel devoted all of his life to serving God. Although Pavel was not in orders, essentially he led an ascetic monastic life in a bustling town; he kept constantly a severe fast and gave himself to incessant prayers. He ate a little. In his old age he drank only one cup of kvass
Kvass
Kvass, kvas, quass or gira, gėra is a fermented beverage made from black...

 with a soaked rusk a day. He slept also a little, commonly on the bare bench without a pillow. He put on plain peasant clothes and spoke simple Low-Russian language
Little Russia
Little Russia , sometimes Little or Lesser Rus’ , is a historical political and geographical term in the Russian language referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine before the 20th century. It is similar to the Polish term Małopolska of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...

. He told nobody about his noble birth. During all his life he went to pray to the church every day, at night he made all-night prayerful vigils. Insensibly he accustomed his novices to this way of life. While there was the strength Blessed Paul often traveled to holy places, including journeys of 3000 verst
Verst
A verst or werst is an obsolete Russian unit of length. It is defined as being 500 sazhen long, which makes a verst equal to 1.0668 kilometres ....

s on foot to Solovki
Solovki
The Solovki prison camp was located on the Solovetsky Islands, in the White Sea). It was the "mother of the GULAG" according to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn...

 more than once. But by old age he could go no longer, he dispatched to monasteries his novices and believers, who came to him.

Blessed Pavel was a preceptor full of love. All of his life, he received everyone in his keliya, liked to present people with gifts, to treat them, gave counsels on how to live and to rescue their own souls. For the righteous life God endowed Paul with gifts of astuteness and prevision, with gifts to work miracle
Miracle
A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...

s and to heal people. Pavel became very famous during his lifetime. In the five final years of his life, Blessed Pavel never went out of his house, ate and slept little at all. The Blessed Pavel died on 23rd (10th) of March 1879 at the time of the Great Fast (Lent) at the age of 78.

On 20th of June 1999 the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

 canonized
Canonization
Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...

 Blessed Pavel. Many people saw and remember a unique aureole in the sky over the Saint Nicholas Church in Taganrog on the day of Blessed Pavel’s canonization. Today many people come from all corners of Russia to the shrine with his holy relics, which are kept at the Saint Nicholas Church (1778) in Taganrog
Taganrog
Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...

. The chapel at the old cemetery is never empty; the lamps in front of holy icons in his keliya never die down. Thanks to Saint Pavel's prayers, believers receive from God healing, consolation and divine help.

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