Saint Pakhomios of Keno Lake

Saint Pakhomios is commemorated on the Saturday after Theophany. He was the disciple and fellow ascetic of Saint Alexander of Oshevensk (April 20). Father Pakhomios left his instructor's Monastery shortly after the latter's repose. A strict faster and man of prayer, Pakhomios spent many years in solitude. Over time, the local residents began coming to the place of his ascetical exploits (podvigs), and some asked the Elder for his advice and his blessing.

Gradually, many monks settled near the Elder's cell. There a temple was built in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which became the focus of the Savior-Transfiguration Keno Monastery. This occurred no later than the beginning of the XVI century, or possibly at the end of the XV century. Saint Pakhomios established a hospital for infirm monks. The brethren themselves, along with their Igoumen, worked on the land: they sowed, harvested wheat, caught fish, and cleared the forest for fields.

In 1508, Saint Anthony of Siya (December 7), who was once a disciple of Saint Pakhomios, was tonsured at Keno Monastery. Saint Pakhomios would not entrust Saint Anthony to one of the other monks, but he himself took him under his wing and was his guide in asceticism and in the spiritual life. Saint Anthony possessed every virtue and resisted every temptation, purifying his mind and soul from the passions, and freeing himself from worldly attachments. When the time came for Saint Anthony to leave the Monastery and live in solitude, Saint Pakhomios blessed him to follow that path saying, “May the Lord bless you, my child. May the Lord’s will be done.”

Saint Pakhomios was a great ascetic and a clairvoyant Elder, a good and faithful servant who, at an advanced age, reposed in 1515 at the Monastery he had founded.

Soon afterward, miracles began to take place at the Saint's tomb. In 1800, the Transfiguration Church, and everything in it was destroyed in a fire. Only three planks over the Saint's grave remained untouched by the fire.