Venerable Anthony the Roman, Abbot and Wonderworker of Novgorod

Anthony the Roman founded the Nativity monastery in Novgorod, the Antoniev monastery, and died there in 1147. His Life, written in the 16th century, says he was born in Rome c. 1067, gave away his inheritance, and became a monk; it tells that he prayed for a year on a seaside rock until the rock broke off and carried him in three days to the Volkhov, where he arrived in September 1106. The Novgorod chronicles confirm the facts of his work: the stone church of the Nativity, begun in 1117 and consecrated in 1119, and his appointment as abbot in 1131. He was canonized in 1597.