Elder Basilisk of Turinsk

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Barbara
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Elder Basilisk of Turinsk

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Yesterday was this desert-dweller's repose day. A few notes to start. Elder Basilisk is known to the Orthodox world because of the biography of his student, Elder Zosima. The latter's life was written by his niece, Abbess Vera [Verkhovsky], elder daughter of Zosima's older brother Elias.

Elder Basilisk [a wonderful name] was one of the diciples of Elder Adrian in a small group of desert dwellers in the Bryansk forests. This was a well-known refuge around the turn of the 19th century for monks seeking a free monastic life as opposed to trying to win a place in the state-run monasteries. Access to the latter was highly restrictive under laws brought by Catherine II, a determined enemy of the Russian Church.

The Bryansk Forest was quite some ways south of Smolensk and slightly west. It was Elder Zosima's next older brother Elias who first had met Elder Basilisk when visiting the Bryansk desert while considering a monastic life.

About Basilisk's past, not much has been preserved. His name in the world was Basil ; he was born in about 1740 in the village of Ivanish, near Kalyazin, Tver Governate into a family of "government peasants". His parents were Gabriel and Stephania. Gabriel insisted his son marry, but Basil left his family - with his wife's agreement - to pursue the monastic path. After spending time in regular monasteries, he become a hermit in the Chuvashia forests.

One day, a wandering monk told Basil of Fr Adrian, a skilled spiritual father who lived with his disciples in the Bryansk woods. Basil immediately felt this Elder would be the right teacher to guide his spiritual development. He journeyed to Bryansk.

There, Elder Adrian tonsured Basil a monk and gave him advanced instruction on the ascetic life.

By the time that the future Elder Zosima met Fr Basilisk there, some irregularities had occurred so that the latter possessed no passport. This problem was causing anxiety for the desert-dweller. Thus the future Elder Zosima leapt to help, overcoming formidable obstacles to procure the elusive document for the exceedingly humble desert-dweller he hoped would then agree to become his Elder.

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