Life and Asceticism
According to the synaxarion, Arcadius was a native of the city of Vyazma, raised by pious parents who instilled in him prayer and obedience while he was still a child. As a young man he adopted the ascetic life of a fool-for-Christ, renouncing settled comfort, living on alms, and resting wherever he happened to be.
The fool-for-Christ vocation carried particular spiritual perils, and tradition relates that Saint Ephraim the Wonderworker of Novotorsk helped the young ascetic to walk it safely. The relationship deepened into one of spiritual fatherhood: when Arcadius entered the monastery, he received the monastic tonsure and took upon himself the discipline of complete obedience to Ephraim.
His monastic life was marked by attentiveness to the divine services. The sources record that he never missed the Liturgy and was consistently the first to appear for Matins. After Ephraim's repose, Arcadius continued in his ascetic labors until his own death.
Saint Ephraim and the Boris and Gleb Monastery
Arcadius's spiritual father, Saint Ephraim, was by tradition a native of Hungary who came to Rus' with his brothers Moses and George. His brother George perished in 1015 at the River Alta alongside the holy Prince Boris, while his brother Moses became a monk at the Kiev Caves monastery.
Ephraim withdrew to the River Tvertsa to live a solitary monastic life and, in 1038, established the Boris and Gleb monastery at Novy Torg (Torzhok, in the region called Novotorsk). The brethren chose him as abbot, and near the monastery the community built a wanderer's home where the poor and travelers could stay without charge.
It was at this monastery that Arcadius became Ephraim's disciple, took monastic vows, and joined the community's life. Ephraim is commemorated on January 28; his own relics were uncovered in 1572, the same year Arcadius's relics were first discovered.
Relics & Shrines
The relics of Saint Arcadius, glorified by miracles of healing, were uncovered on June 11, 1572. On July 11, 1677, they were transferred and placed in a stone crypt at the Boris and Gleb cathedral in Novotorsk.
On August 14, 1798, the holy relics were placed in a stone coffin which, until 1572, had served as the resting place of his elder, Saint Ephraim. This act linked the two saints in their shrine as they had been linked in life.
