Tikhon of Kaluga

Saint Tikhon of Kaluga, also called Tikhon of Medyn, was a Russian Orthodox hermit, monk, and wonderworker of the fifteenth century. Independent contemporary records of his life are lacking, and what is known derives chiefly from later hagiographical tradition. That tradition states that he was born in Kiev to a pious family in the first half of the fifteenth century and later made his way to the Moscow lands. There he is said to have received the monastic tonsure and to have been a disciple of Saint Paphnutius of Borovsk, abbot of the important monastery at Borovsk and a major figure in Muscovite monasticism.

Seeking a life of greater solitude, Tikhon withdrew into the forests of the Kaluga region, in the area of Medyn. He settled beside a small river and made his dwelling in the hollow of an ancient oak, practicing strict fasting, vigil, and prayer. As word of his ascetic life spread, disciples gathered around him. He established a monastic community dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God, which came to be known as Tikhonova Pustyn, or Tikhon's Hermitage. The foundation received land and protection from local princes and, in time, from the rulers of Moscow.

Tikhon died on 16 June 1492 and was buried at the monastery he had founded. Local veneration began after his death. According to Orthodox tradition his relics were later found incorrupt, and miracles of healing were attributed to his intercession. He is commemorated on 16 June in the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery suffered decline and destruction in subsequent centuries, including closure and ruin in the Soviet period, but was restored in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and remains a pilgrimage site.

Tikhon belongs to the current of forest hermits and monastery-founders who, following the example of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, opened remote woodland regions of Muscovite Rus' to monastic life in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Beyond the outline preserved in church tradition, few details of his biography can be verified from non-hagiographical sources.