St. Theodore of Sanaxar

Ivan Ushakov was born in 1718 on his family's estate near Rybinsk in the Yaroslavl region; the admiral Fyodor Ushakov was his nephew. In 1748 he became a monk at the Alexander Nevsky monastery in St Petersburg, taking the name Theodore, in the presence of Empress Elizabeth. In 1757 he moved to the Sarov hermitage, and in 1764 he became head of the Sanaxar monastery near Temnikov, which he restored. He died there on 19 February 1791, aged 73; his gravestone called him the restorer of Sanaxar and a monk of forty-five years. He was glorified locally in 1999 and for the whole Russian Church in 2004.