Arsenii Moskvin (secular name – Fedir Pavlovych Moskvin)

Arsenii Moskvin (secular name – Fedir Pavlovych Moskvin) was born in 1796 in the Voronnya village, Kostroma County, in the family of a deacon. He was educated first at the Kostroma School and Seminary, and then at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, where he graduated with a master’s degree in 1823.

While still a student, on September 11, 1821, he was ordained a monk named Arsenii, and on September 5, 1823, he was ordained a hieromonk. In the same year he was appointed assistant librarian of the academy, and a year later – librarian (this position was then combined with the position of professor).

In 1826 he was ordained archimandrite and appointed abbot of the Mogilev fraternal monastery and assigned to it Buinitsky monastery. He held the position of rector in four seminaries: Mogilev (1825), Orel (1827), Ryazan (1829) and Tver (1831). In 1832 he was ordained bishop of Tambov and Shatsk; in 1841 he was transferred to the position of archbishop of Podolsk and Bratslav. On November 6, 1848, he became the archbishop of the Warsaw Diocese, at the same time the head of the Volyn Diocese and the archimandrite of the Pochaiv Holy Dormition Lavra.

Numerous movements are due to the fact that Fr. Arseniy quickly adjusted the activities of his subordinate educational institutions and dioceses. He fought for the strengthening of the position of Orthodoxy, against division and sectarianism, improved the financial situation of monasteries, and appointed educated priests to parishes. He became famous as a preacher. He wrote a large number of theological polemical works in Warsaw.

From July 1, 1860 – metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych, Holy archimandrite of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a member of the Holy Synod. He chose the Sophia Metropolitan House as his permanent residence. Metropolitan Arsenii promoted the development of Orthodox science and education, helped the materially needy and elderly members of the clergy, widows, orphans, church fraternities and their institutions. In November 1860 he established the position of caretaker of parish schools. He opened a special school department in the Consistory. He introduced the election of deacons, previously appointed by the diocesan authorities, which was the first attempt to introduce an electoral principle among the clergy. He founded charitable libraries in all districts of the diocese.

He founded a women’s diocesan school in Kyiv in 1861 in the Klovsky Palace in Pechersk, which he returned to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. He introduced a diocesan supplement for the maintenance of seminaries and schools (1867), and increased salaries at the Kyiv Theological Academy. He sought to move the Kyiv Theological Seminary to a more convenient location. He provided his own funds for the development of religious schools.

He paid special attention to the affairs of the Lavra printing house, its refit with the latest equipment. Stereotypical and galvanoplastic institutions, woodcuts, photography, chromolithography, and a school of icon painting were opened under metropolitan Arsenii.

In 1861 he agreed to bring the coffin with Taras Shevchenko’s body to the Church of the Nativity in Kyiv during his transportation to Kaniv. He was an honorary member of 19 societies and educational institutions.

The bishop died on April 28, 1876 in St. Petersburg, where he went in late 1875 to participate in the meetings of the Holy Synod. He was buried on May 9, 1876 in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, in a stone church in the name of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in the Near Caves, near metropolitan Ioannikii (Rudnev).