Athanasius of Serpukhov was a Russian monastic of the fourteenth century, a disciple of St. Sergius of Radonezh and the first igumen (abbot) of the Vysotsky Monastery near Serpukhov. According to tradition he was born with the name Andrew in Obonezh Pyatina, in the Novgorod lands, the son of a priest named Auxentius and his wife Maria, and was inclined from his youth toward prayer and renunciation of the world. He is commemorated on September 12.
Drawn to the monastic life, he traveled from the Novgorod region to St. Sergius of Radonezh at the Trinity Monastery at Makovets and became his disciple. In 1374, at the request of Prince Vladimir Andreevich of Serpukhov, St. Sergius came to Serpukhov and founded a monastery dedicated to the Conception of the Most Holy Theotokos on the high bank of the River Nara; because of its elevated site it came to be called Vysotsky, meaning 'of the heights.' Sergius blessed Athanasius to organize the new community and appointed him its first igumen.
In his later years Athanasius traveled to Constantinople in the company of Metropolitan Cyprian and settled at the Studion monastery, the monastery of the Holy Forerunner and Baptist John. There he is said to have spent about twenty years engaged in scholarly and translation work, rendering books from Greek into Slavonic and copying church books, which he sent back to Rus'. He died in Constantinople in old age, traditionally in the year 1401.
The tradition surrounding Serpukhov distinguishes two saints of this name commemorated on the same day: Athanasius the Elder, the founder described above, who reposed about 1401, and Athanasius the Younger, his disciple and successor at the Vysotsky Monastery, who reposed in 1395. The Cloud of Witnesses anchor row identifies its saint by the founder's profile, while preserving the name 'Athanasius the Younger' among his alternate names.
