c. 1390 – June 19, 1462
A Novgorod boyar and civic leader of the Vaga region who in later life forsook the world for the monastic habit and founded a monastery on his own lands.
Our Venerable Father Barlaam of Shenkursk
Venerable Barlaam of Shenkursk, known in the world as Vasily Stepanovich Svoezemtsev, was a fifteenth-century Novgorod boyar and civic leader of the Vaga region who in later life forsook the world for the monastic habit and founded a monastery on his own lands.
Born around 1390 into a prominent Novgorod boyar family, he served as a civic leader before founding a monastery in 1426 in the Vaga region of the Russian north. He was tonsured a monk only late in life, in 1456, taking the name Barlaam, and lived monastically for about six years until his death in 1462. He is commemorated on June 19.
Barlaam was born Vasily Stepanovich Svoezemtsev around 1390 into the family of a Novgorod boyar, his father being Stepan Vasilyevich. At baptism he received the name Vasily. He represented the prominent Svoezemtsev boyar family in civic affairs and, according to the synaxarion, served as mayor of Novgorod until 1445.
He was married and had children; sources record two sons, Ivan and Semyon, though alternate accounts suggest he had daughters and a larger number of sons.
In 1426 Vasily Stepanovich founded the monastery in the Vaga region that would bear his monastic name, the Varlaamiev Vazhsky Monastery, situated on his own lands. The site later became associated with the town of Pinezhsky.
In 1456, at about sixty-six years of age, he was tonsured a monk and given the name Barlaam (Varlaam Vazhsky) by the first hegumen of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian. He built a church at the monastery dedicated to John the Theologian and lived in the monastic life for about six years.
Saint Barlaam died on June 19, 1462, and was buried beside the church of John the Theologian that he had built.
The saint's epithet 'Vazhsky' derives from the Vaga, a left tributary and the largest tributary of the Northern Dvina, flowing through the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions of northern Russia. The town of Shenkursk lies on the right bank of the Vaga.
The region was historically associated with Novgorodian colonization and trade routes into the Russian north, the setting in which Barlaam's family held lands and in which his monastery was established.