The life of St Cyprian of Ustiug
When the people of the newly founded town of Ustiug asked him to build a monastery near their community, he surveyed the site himself and settled on a spot by shallow lakes near the Ostrozh falls, where he began raising a simple cell. By 1212 that cell had grown into a monastery dedicated to the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, with a further church built in honor of the Archangel Michael, and the townspeople, impressed by what they saw of his life, brought him what he needed to keep building and, in growing numbers, came to join him in it. Chosen by the community to be its superior and to shepherd the flock gathering around him, Cyprian nonetheless refused, out of humility, to be ordained to the priesthood, remaining instead a lay elder over a community that looked to him for guidance regardless. He reposed at six in the evening on September 29, 1276, and was buried in the monastery his own decision to settle by those shallow lakes had first begun.
