Venerable (Monastic) 15th century

Venerable Savva Abbot of Moscow

Also known as Savva of the Savior Monastery

A monk who succeeded St Andronikos as abbot of the Savior monastery in Moscow, continuing his teacher's work.

Feast Day

June 13

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Commemorated as

Our Venerable Father Savva, Abbot of the Savior–Andronikov Monastery in Moscow

Life

Saint Savva of Moscow was a monk of the Savior–Andronikov Monastery in Moscow who succeeded its founding abbot, Saint Andronikos, as igumen (abbot). He belonged to the monastic milieu shaped by Saint Sergius of Radonezh, whose disciple Andronikos had established the cenobitic community on the Yauza River in Moscow under the patronage of Metropolitan Alexis. In becoming abbot, Savva continued the disciplined common life that his teacher had instituted.

Sources record little of Savva's early life, and the surviving accounts of him are brief, concentrating on his place in the succession of the Andronikov community rather than on independent events. He is commemorated on June 13, the same day as Saint Andronikos, reflecting the close association of the two abbots in the memory of the Russian Church.

Contributions & Legacy

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Monastic Setting

The Savior–Andronikov Monastery was founded by Metropolitan Alexis of Moscow, who, according to tradition, vowed to build a monastery after surviving a storm at sea while returning from Constantinople. He entrusted the foundation to Andronikos, a disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, who served as its first abbot. The monastery, situated on the Yauza River and dedicated to the image of Christ the Savior, was completed in the early 1360s.

Within this community moved several figures noted in the sources for their iconography, among them Andrei Rublev, who is associated with the monastery and was buried there. Savva is named among the disciples of Andronikos and inherited the leadership of a community already marked by strict fasting, meekness, and humility, virtues the sources attribute to its founder.

Succession and Abbacy

In his old age Andronikos handed over the administration of the monastery to his disciple Savva and withdrew to prepare for the end of his life, following the example of his own elder, Saint Sergius. Savva thus became abbot of the Andronikov community and continued the work his teacher had begun.

The sources differ on the precise dates of this transition and of Savva's tenure: some place his assumption of the abbacy in 1395, the year they give for Andronikos's repose, while other accounts give 1404 as the year of Andronikos's death; one tradition records that Savva himself reposed in 1410. The brevity and divergence of these accounts mean that the chronology of his abbacy is not fixed with certainty.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints