The life of St Dalmatius of Siberia
A great fire that destroyed Tobolsk in 1643 broke something loose in him, a sudden clarity about how little any of what he had built could hold, and he walked away from family, wealth, and property, carrying with him only an icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos, and entered a monastery in the Ural Mountains.
Tonsured with the name Dalmatius, he threw himself into prayer and ascetic labor with such intensity that the brethren soon elected him their abbot, an honor he found more burden than gift; fearing it would breed pride in him, he fled with his icon to a solitary cave. Word of him spread regardless, and both Christians and pagans of that sparsely settled land began seeking him out for counsel and baptism. With a bishop's blessing he eventually built a chapel and cells for those who wished to stay near him, the small beginning of what grew into the Monastery of the Dormition. He is remembered as one of the first to carry the ascetic life into the Siberian wilderness, part of what later generations came to call the Northern Thebaid.
