Adrian (Blinsky) (1722 - 1812), hieromonk, clergy figure

Subject / Religion. Church/Personnel
Adrian, a hieromonk (in schema named Adrian; in the world - Vasily Ioannovich Blinsky; 1722 - 1812), a zealot of godliness, the superior of the Konevets Monastery. He was born in a noble family, early became an orphan and was disinherited. Relatives put him in the army as a soldier, he served as a regiment musician in the town od Bolkhov of the Orel Gubernia. In six years Vasily Blinsky obtained the retirement and joined to Ploshchansky Hermitage of the Orel Eparchy together with Ioann, a petty bourgeois from the town of Bolkhov, later - the hieromonk Jonah, the closest follower of Adrian. In 1772 Vasily Blinsky was moved to the Moscow Monastery of St. Simon where he was professed as a monk with the name Adrian; since 1774 he became a hieromonk. In 1790 Adrian was confirmed as a builder of the Konevets Monastery, he built cells on Zmeiny (Snake) Mound for arrived to the island zealots: Venerable Zosima and Basiliscus, the hieromonk Silvester. Adrian was the founder of the scete life on Konevets Island. He founded the Kazansky scete and he probably himself developed the design of the church laid in 1794 and consecrated on 13 July 1798. He constructed nine cells inside the monastery. Under Adrian the monastery bouht some objects of worship: particles of the veil of Our Lord and the veil of the Mother of God; the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God and the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. According to the description made by Venerable Zosima, Father Adrian ""had pale, thin face and was tall and limp"". He was wearing shabby clothes and often went barefooted. He liked writing utterances of St. Fathers and added his own interpretation of them. He treated ill birds and animals. In 1800 Adrian returned to the Monastery of St. Simon to retire and in a year he took the great schema. He foretold the French invasion and died not long before it. Adrian was buried at the altar of the Dukhovsky (Holy Spirit) Church. Later a chapel was constucted over the graves of Adrian and Father Jonah (he died in 1821). The Grave was opened in 1928 and soon it was destroyed. Bertash, Aleksandr Vitalyevich
Adrian (Blinsky)
Iona, priest in monastic order
Silvestr (Petrov), priest in monastic order
Vasilisk (Gavrilov), St.
Zosima ( Z.V. Verkhovsky), St.
Topographical landmarks/Konevets, Island
Leningrad Oblast, the/Volkhov District/Volkhov Town
Ковалевский А.Ф. Иеросхимонах Алексий, подвижник Московского Симонова монастыря. М., 1903 (Душеполезное чтение. 1875. Март)
Сорок сороков / Авт.-сост. П.Г. Паламарчук. М., 1992. Т.1., С. 280-291
Берташ А.В., Арсений, иеромонах. Шесть столетий Рождество-Богородичного Коневского монастыря. Коневский монастырь; СПб., 1993., С.12-14
Konevets Munastery of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary