Venerable Makarios of Pisma and Kostroma

On January 10, the Feast Day of Saint Paul of Obnora (or Komel), the Church also commemorates one of his friends and companions: Saint Makarios of Pisma. There is no information about when the two hermits became acquainted. According to ancient tradition, Saint Paul met Saint Makarios when he was visiting various monasteries before he settled in the Komel forest on the Obnora River, that is, before 1414.

Tradition says that Saint Makarios was born in the village of Danilovo, located on the left bank of the Pisma River, twelve versts from the hermitage, where the noble Pismensky family revered Saint Makarios as one of its relatives. Saint Makarios received his first monastic training from Saint Sergius at Holy Trinity Monastery, and from there he returned to his homeland and settled in a dense forest near the Pisma River, since he loved solitude. This place has retained the name of the old Makariev Hermitage. Disciples began to gather around him, and there were many others who wished to live near him, Saint Makarios founded a small monastery a mile away from his secluded cell, and built a wooden church in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Later, the righteous one was buried near this church.

While establishing his own monastery, Saint Paul did not forget about his friend; and for his part, Saint Makarios did not regard the hermitage he had founded in the Pisma wilderness as separate from Saint Paul's Monastery. Like-minded in their understanding of human life, and the benefits of solitude and silence, both hermits grew closer together; thus the monasteries they founded were perhaps the beginning of monastic life in the region. But the communities of these spiritual friends had different fates: Obnora Monastery grew crowded, but Pisma Monastery remained a small hermitage. However, the bond between them was never broken.

The charters of Tsars Ivan the Terrible (1566) and Michael (1625) describe the Makariev Hermitage by the Shachebal mill as belonging to the Saint Paul of Obnora Monastery.

In an inventory of the Saint Paul of Obnora Monastery dating from 1683, an icon of Saint Makarios and Saint Paul is mentioned, thus the ascetic's local veneration had already begun at that time. Concerning the Monastery itself it is stated in the inventory: "Saint Paul's Monastery is the same as the Monastery of Makariev Hermitage in the Kostroma district, by the Shachebalsky mill on the Pisma River, and in the church of the Transfiguration of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ is a chapel dedicated to Saint Paul, the wonderworker of Obnora, with a domed roof. In the same chapel the tomb of Saint Makarios is covered with a black cloth, over the middle of which a cross is suspended."

The following miracle occurred at the grave of Saint Makarios. At the end of the XVIII century, the church burnt down, and a wooden structure was set up over the Saint's grave; and in the place where this wooden structure was located, not only did they fail to notice the burning wood and coals, but the ashes as well; and the whole area was covered with an extraordinary dew. After the fire, a curious person wanted to open the tomb to see what was there, and he was punished with blindness for his temerity.

At present, the Saint's relics rest beneath the floor. On the tomb is an icon of Saint Makarios, and his staff lies on top of the cloth. A prayer to the Saint, dating from 1750, has been preserved as well.