The prince-monk Anicetas (Sergei Aleksandrovich Shirinsky-Shikhmatov): a journey from poet to saint

The author studies the key biographical details of Prince Sergei AlexandrovichShirinsky-Shikhmatov, a well known archaizing poet of the beginning of the 19thcentury, who, at the end of the 1820's, broke with the ranks of the elite of the “goldenage” of Russian culture and became Hieromonk Anicetas - one of the key figures inthe revival of Russian monasticism in Greece. The author devotes particular atten-tion to the canonical vita of St. Mitrophanes of Voronezh, composed by HieromonkAnicetas.