Sergius of Radonezh withdraws into the Russian forest

1345

A young Muscovite nobleman retreated into the birch forests north of Moscow to live as a hermit. Disciples gathered, and the hermitage became the Trinity Monastery, the spiritual heart of Russian Orthodoxy. Sergius would bless Dmitri Donskoy before Kulikovo and become Russia's most beloved saint - a monk who shaped an empire.