Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk

Tikhon of Zadonsk (secular name Timofey Savelyevich Sokolov, Russian: Тимофей Савельевич Соколов; 1724–1783) was an 18th-century Russian Orthodox bishop and spiritual writer whom the Eastern Orthodox Church glorified (canonized) as a saint in 1861. St. Tikhon was born in Novgorod, Russia, and grew up in extreme poverty. After spending much of his childhood working at peasant labour, he entered the Novgorod Seminary on a grant and was a brilliant student: he went on to teach Greek, Rhetoric and Philosophy at the seminary. He became a monk in 1758, and in 1763 was appointed Bishop of Voronezh, where he became revered for his energetic commitment to the spiritual education and wellbeing of both the laity and the clergy of his diocese. Due to ill health, he retired to the monastery at Zadonsk in 1769, where he lived until his death in 1783. At Zadonsk he wrote a number of luminous books and treatises, and became a much-loved spiritual advisor and man of God. The life and works of Tikhon inspired Dostoevsky, who reflected them in the character of Bishop Tikhon in the novel Demons (1871–1872) and in the characters of Alyosha Karamazov and of the Elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). Tikhon was born Timofey Kirillov in 1724 in the village of Korotsko, in the Novgorod region of Russia. When still an infant, he was given a new family name, Sokolov, by the head of the Novgorod Theological Seminary. Tikhon lived with his mother in extreme poverty, and was required to do peasant labour for long hours as a child. At the age of thirteen he was sent to a clergy school, and paid his way by working with the vegetable gardeners. At sixteen, he entered Novgorod Seminary under a state grant and excelled at his studies. In 1754, he became a teacher at the seminary, first in Greek, and later in Rhetoric and Philosophy. He took monastic vows with the name Tikhon in 1758.