Gerontius (Kolpakov)

Gerontiy (in the world Gerasim Isaevich Kolpakov ; 1803 , Ermolovo , Serpukhov district, Moscow province - July 18 (30), 1868 , Guslitsky Transfiguration Monastery ) - archimandrite of the Belokrinitsky monastery , one of the main figures in the establishment of the Belokrinitsky hierarchy .

Gerontiy is a peasant in the village of Ermolov, Serpukhov district, Moscow province (now Chekhov district of the Moscow region ). Born in 1803. When he was 19 years old, he went to Bessarabia to the Serkovsky Monastery . Three years later, he was tonsured a monk of this monastery. The newly tonsured monk immediately gained great confidence in the abbot of the monastery and the entire monastic fraternity. On behalf of the authorities, he repeatedly traveled to the inner provinces and to collect donations to the Serkovsky monastery. On one of these trips in 1830, he met the famous Old Believer leader, Peter Vasiliev. Gerontius and Peter Vasiliev made joint efforts to find the Old Believer bishop ^[1]

In July 1841, Gerontius, after a tumultuous history with the Lipovans, was elected rector of the Belokrinitsky monastery . On November 3, 1846, he was consecrated by the first Old Believer Metropolitan Ambrose to the rank of deacon , on November 8 he was promoted to priest, and on December 6 he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite. At the beginning of 1847, Gerontius went to Moscow to familiarize metropolitan priests in detail with the new Belokrinitsky hierarchy and to acquire church and other supplies necessary for the metropolitanate. Gerontius stayed in Moscow for several months and at the end of May of the same year he went back to Belaya Krinitsa . But on the border of the Moscow and Tula provinces he was arrested, and accompanied by gendarmes, according to the Highest Command , he was sent to St. Petersburg to investigate him. The investigation ended with the conclusion of Gerontius in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress . From here he was transferred to the Shlisselburg fortress , where after a long stay in solitary confinement he “expressed a desire” to join the Orthodox Church on the basis of the right of faith . Gerontius’s wish was fulfilled: in October 1867 he was annexed to the Orthodox Church with the former name of Gerasim received at baptism. Soon after his conversion to the bosom of the Orthodox Church, Gerasim was sent to the Guslitsky Transfiguration Monastery under the “meek” supervision of the abbot, for lasting approval in Orthodoxy and for protection from any influence of schismatics on him. He arrived in Guslitsy on April 24, 1868, and remained here until his death, which followed on July 18 of the same year, in the bathhouse, when he washed up and lay on the shelves ^[1] .