Early Life and Search for Spiritual Guidance
Peter Velichkovsky was born in Poltava on December 21, 1722, into the family of a cathedral priest. His father John died while he was young, and his mother Irene brought up the children in piety. He entered the Kiev Theological Academy in 1735, but academic study did not satisfy his longing for the monastic and contemplative life.
Around the age of seventeen he began seeking out monastic communities, and he was tonsured a rassophore monk with the name Platon. According to the accounts of his life, he was first introduced to hesychastic prayer at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, and then traveled to Romanian sketes such as Trastieni and Kyrkoul, encountering the elder Basil of Poiana Marului, who taught him the Prayer of the Heart.
Mount Athos
In 1746, at about twenty-four, he made his way to Mount Athos, arriving near the feast of Saint Athanasios at the Great Lavra. He settled in solitude in a cell called Kaparis near the Pantokrator Monastery, living in extreme poverty and prayer.
In 1750 Saint Basil of Poiana Marului tonsured him to the lesser schema with the name Paisius. As disciples accumulated over the following years, the community asked for his ordination, and in 1754 he was ordained a priest and given charge of the Skete of the Prophet Elias. He remained on Athos for seventeen years, devoting himself to copying Greek patristic books and translating them into Slavonic — labor that would bear fruit in his later translation work.
Monastic Communities in Moldavia
In 1763 Paisius moved from Athos to Dragomirna Monastery near Sochava in Moldavia, bringing sixty-four disciples; the community grew to about 350 monks. After Bucovina was annexed by Austria, and amid the disruptions of war and plague, the brotherhood relocated to Secu Monastery in 1775.
On August 14, 1779, the community settled at Neam't Monastery, where Paisius spent the last fifteen years of his life. There he gathered roughly a thousand monks, instructed them in the unceasing Prayer of the Heart, and introduced the Typikon of Mount Athos. In 1790 Archbishop Ambrose raised him to the rank of Archimandrite during the Divine Liturgy.
Translation of the Philokalia
Paisius's central scholarly achievement was a Church Slavonic translation of selected texts of the Philokalia, titled Dobrotolublye, published in Moscow in 1793. It was the first Philokalia translation to be read widely by the public rather than remaining confined to monasteries.
He was at first reluctant to publish for a lay readership, concerned that laypeople would lack the supervision of the startsy and the support of liturgical life that the texts presuppose; the Metropolitan of Saint Petersburg eventually persuaded him to proceed. His edition presented selected portions rather than the complete collection, serving as a curated introduction to the hesychast spiritual teaching. The translation later gained still wider currency through its association with The Way of a Pilgrim.
Legacy
The spiritual revival that Paisius set in motion shaped the Orthodox world of the nineteenth century. His disciples carried the tradition of eldership (starchestvo) and the Slavonic Philokalia outward, and his influence is associated with the startsy of the Optina Monastery and with Saint Seraphim of Sarov.
His influence reached even to North America: Saint Herman of Alaska possessed a Slavonic Philokalia printed in 1794, a witness to how far the renewal he fostered traveled.
Relics & Shrines
The relics of Saint Paisios were uncovered at Neam't Monastery in 1846, 1853, 1861, and 1872, and on each occasion were found to be incorrupt.
He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1982 under Patriarch Pimen I, and his feast is kept on November 15.
