Origins and revival
The date of Optina’s foundation is uncertain. The monastery’s official history preserves a tradition of a repentant robber called Opta but distinguishes that story from secure documentation. A record from 1629 describes a monastery restored after destruction. The history also records suppression in 1724, restoration in 1726, and renewed decline later in the century. Metropolitan Platon’s intervention in 1796 helped begin a revival.[1]
The skete and the renewal of eldership
A skete is a smaller monastic community associated with a larger monastery. Optina’s skete of Saint John the Forerunner was founded in 1821. Archimandrite Leonid Kavelin’s nineteenth-century history records the roles of Bishop Philaret, Father Moses, the first brethren, and local benefactors in establishing it. The skete gave a settled home to a form of life shaped by prayer, obedience, and spiritual guidance.[2]
In Optina’s history, an elder was a spiritual guide, not simply the oldest monk or the holder of an administrative office. The monastery traces this renewed tradition through the disciples of Paisius Velichkovsky. Counsel gradually reached laypeople through visits and letters as well as the monks living in the community.[1]
Elders represented in this library
Several different elders appear in the books below. Their correspondence and talks should be read as distinct bodies of teaching, with their own recipients and circumstances.
- Saint Macarius
Macarius helped direct Optina’s work of publishing ascetical writings. His correspondence offers another route into the monastery’s teaching.[3]
- Saint Ambrose
Ambrose’s life connects Optina with personal correspondence and the women’s community at Shamordino. His letters addressed people living in the world as well as monastic concerns.
- Saint Barsanuphius
The collection Talks with Spiritual Children introduces teaching in the form of talks, alongside the letter collections of Macarius and Ambrose.
Books and the wider cultural world
Under Macarius, Optina became a center for publishing ascetical works of the Fathers. Educated monks worked with lay collaborators, including Ivan and Natalia Kireevsky. The monastery’s historical account connects this publishing activity with its wider place in Russian cultural life. Writers including Gogol and Dostoevsky visited; their interest helped carry awareness of Optina beyond the usual readership of monastic books.[3]
The books preserve more than memorable sayings. A published letter retains something of a relationship between counselor and recipient; a recollection records how a witness understood an encounter. These forms call for different kinds of reading. A memoir should be identified as testimony, while a letter’s advice should be understood in its own circumstances.
The Philokalia and Russian Dobrotolubie guide supplies a wider history of spiritual collections in Greek, Slavonic, and Russian. The asceticism and repentance guide explains recurring subjects such as discernment and the passions before readers encounter them in an elder’s counsel.
Suppression and restoration
After the Revolution, the monastery lost its legal standing and property rights in 1918. The following years brought searches, arrests, and the disruption of communal life. This history is part of the setting of the later Optina witnesses, not merely a break between two periods of flourishing.[3]
The return of the monastery to the Russian Church was authorized in 1987, and liturgical life resumed in 1988 amid extensive restoration. The monastery’s account describes the practical work of recovering buildings and re-establishing the community.[4]
The renewed community suffered the killing of Hieromonk Vasily and the monks Trofim and Ferapont at Pascha in 1993. The official history separately records the local glorification of thirteen Optina saints in 1996 and the establishment of church-wide veneration in 2000. These events should not be confused with Ambrose’s earlier glorification in 1988.[5]
Reading the Optina elders in English
- Ambrose: Letters to Spiritual Children in the World
- Macarius: Letters to Christians in the World
- Macarius: Letters on Humility, Self-Reproach, and the Endurance of Sorrows
- Barsanuphius: Talks with Spiritual Children
Begin with letters if you prefer a response to a particular person; try talks if you want to follow spoken instruction. The Optina elders reading guide compares these editions and suggests an approach to reading them.
The monastery today
Optina remains a living religious community. Its historical figures are the focus of this library page; for current services, pilgrimage arrangements, and information from the community, consult the monastery’s official website.