Church first commemorates St. Paisios's spiritual father, Tikhon of Athos

St. Tikhon of Athos, spiritual father of St. Paisios of the Holy Mountain. Photo: eeod.gr

On September 23, 2026, the Orthodox Church for the first time performed a prayer commemoration of St. Tikhon (Golenkov), who labored on Athos and became the spiritual father of Paisios of the Holy Mountain.

This is the first feast day of the saint after his name was entered into the church calendar by the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, as reported by the UOJ in Greece.

The future saint was born in Russia, in the village of Novaya Mikhailovka, in 1884, and reposed on Athos in 1968. His first monastic dwelling was the cell of Burazderi, where he spent five years, after which the elder moved to Karoulia, as he could not find solitude there due to the multitude of pilgrims, and spent fifteen years there in austere asceticism.

Later he settled in the Stavronikita Сell of the Holy Cross in the Ыkete of Kapsala on the Holy Mountain, where he cared for an elderly monk. After the elder's death, Venerable Tikhon remained in the cell alone, intensified his prayer rule, and many people began coming to him for counsel and consolation. Responding to this need, he was ordained to the holy priesthood to also administer the sacrament of confession.

His novice, later St. Paisios of the Holy Mountain, subsequently recounted that Father Tikhon experienced the Divine Liturgy as a true opening of the heavens and often lost all sense of time in deep spiritual rapture during the service. This testimony was included in a book about the Athonite elder published in 1972 by the Monastery of St. David of Euboea.

The decision to include Hieromonk Tikhon in the church hagiologion was made unanimously by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, alongside the glorification of the 19th-century ascetic Monk George (Haji-George). In the Greek media, the canonization of Father Tikhon is described as one of the most significant in recent years, as it completes the spiritual "puzzle" of an entire generation of Athonite fathers who had a defining influence on contemporary Orthodoxy.

As the UOJ reported, a series about St. Joseph the Hesychast is being filmed on Athos.

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