Afanasy Vysotsky

Afanasy Vysotsky, also known as Saint Athanasius of Vysotsk the Elder, was a fourteenth-century Russian Orthodox monk and a close disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh. No reliable source records his birth year, birthplace, family, or baptismal name. He received the monastic tonsure and his spiritual formation at the Trinity Monastery of Saint Sergius. In 1374, Prince Vladimir Andreyevich, prince of Serpukhov and a cousin of Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy, asked Saint Sergius to found a monastery near Serpukhov. Sergius established a community dedicated to the Conception of the Theotokos on a high site thereafter called the Vysotsky Monastery and appointed Athanasius as its first hegumen.

Athanasius governed the new monastery according to the communal rule practiced at Trinity. He is described in later tradition as both an able administrator and a monk of considerable learning. After a period of years as abbot he departed for Constantinople, leaving the community in the hands of his disciple Athanasius, later called the Younger. The departure is generally dated to the early 1380s. In Constantinople he was received by Patriarch Nilus Kerameus and lived as a monk in the imperial capital for the remainder of his life.

During his years in Byzantium Athanasius copied Greek manuscripts of theological and ascetic works. Copies of the Ladder of Divine Ascent and other patristic texts associated with him were sent to Rus’ and to the Vysotsky Monastery, contributing to the flow of hesychast and liturgical literature into Muscovite monastic circles in the late fourteenth century. Constantinopolitan icons of the same period also reached the Serpukhov house; whether Athanasius personally arranged their dispatch is not firmly documented.

Russian Orthodox tradition holds that Athanasius died in Constantinople in 1401. He is venerated as a saint and commemorated on 12 September. He is distinguished from Saint Athanasius the Younger, the second hegumen of Vysotsky Monastery, who remained in Serpukhov and died there in the 1390s. The historical record for Athanasius the Elder is sparse, resting on monastery tradition, later hagiographical notices, and manuscript colophons; many aspects of his life cannot be reconstructed with precision.