Dionysius of Glushitsa was a fifteenth-century Russian monastic founder and iconographer who labored in the forests of the Vologda region, the northern wilderness sometimes called the Russian Thebaid. A native of Vologda, he is remembered as an ascetic in the tradition of the great founders of the Russian north, who left settled life for the deep woods, gathered disciples, and built a network of monasteries along the rivers of the region. He is commemorated on June 1.
By tradition, Dionysius received the monastic tonsure at the Spaso-Kamenny (Spasso-Kameni) Island Monastery on Lake Kubensky, where his spiritual father, also named Dionysius, professed him and gave him his own name. After some years at Spaso-Kamenny he withdrew with his disciple Pachomius to a more solitary place, and in 1393, seeking still greater seclusion, he went deeper into the Vologda forest. Resting one evening by the Glushitsa River, he is said to have heard the ringing of bells, which he took as a sign to found a monastery on that spot; from this place he came to be known as Dionysius of Glushitsa.
Dionysius founded several monastic communities, the chief of them on the Glushitsa River, and a secondary settlement at Sosnovets, where he built a church dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. He is credited with establishing the first women's monastery in the Russian north to follow an Athonite Typikon. He was also an accomplished iconographer who painted icons for his own churches by his own hand, among them a wonderworking icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God. He was tireless in almsgiving and in care for the poor and the sick, distributing relief liberally in times of famine.
Dionysius designated his disciple Amphilochius as his successor. His final illness began on May 29, 1437; early on the morning of June 1 he received the Holy Mysteries and reposed, by tradition at the age of seventy-four. According to his wishes he was buried at Sosnovets. Several of his disciples became founders of monasteries in their own right, extending his work across the northern forests.
