St Sophrony the Athonite was born in Moscow on 22 September 1896 and was baptised Sergei Semyonovich Sakharov.
He studied Fine Arts in Moscow, searching for an ideal of beauty that transcended the purely aesthetic.
During the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, he was arrested twice and imprisoned at the Lubyanka, but in 1921 he managed to leave the country.
After settling in Paris, he attracted the attention of the French press through several exhibitions, but felt that art did not satisfy his spiritual quest.
Mount Athos
In 1925, although he had enrolled to study theology at the St Sergius Institute in Paris, he abandoned his studies and went to Mount Athos.
In 1926, he joined St Panteleimon Monastery, known as the Russikon, where he became a disciple of St Silouan the Athonite.
St Silouan reposed in the Lord on 24 September 1938. Following his spiritual father’s counsel, Fr Sophrony left St Panteleimon Monastery and withdrew into the wilderness of the Holy Mount Athos.
After spending some time at Karoulia, Fr Sophrony settled in a cave near St Paul’s Monastery.
Founding the monastery in Essex
In 1947, he was compelled to leave Mount Athos. Over the next 11 years, Elder Sophrony gathered several disciples around him who wanted to embrace the monastic life.
In 1959, with the blessing of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh, Elder Sophrony founded the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex, whose community comprised both monks and nuns.
In 1965, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy of Russia, the monastery in Essex came under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which later granted it stavropegial status.
Elder Sophrony Sakharov reposed in the Lord on 11 July 1993, at almost 97.
The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate canonised Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov, the abbot and founder of the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex, during its working session on 27 November 2019.
