Crypt of St. Sophrony

Elder - now Saint - Sophrony Sakharov founded the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex in the 1950s. It is the oldest Orthodox monastic community in Britain. It is rare due to the fact that monks and nuns live together on its grounds, on top of that, being open to visitors. Being a living link to the Mount Athos hesychast tradition of St Silouan the Athonite, the monastery's liturgical life centres on hours of the Jesus Prayer daily. Its original chapel holds an iconostasis by celebrated icon painters Leonid Ouspensky and Father Gregory Krug, whilst the faces on some of the icons on the monastery grounds were painted by the Saint himself, given that he was a trained artist before his monastic life on Mount Athos.

When local authorities told the community that the only legal way to bury members on the grounds was to build an underground crypt, Sophrony said he would not die until it was ready. Told it would be finished on 12th July 1993, he replied he "would be ready". Sophrony died the day before, on 11th July, being buried there on 14th July. His spiritual discernment, along with the death soon after of his close disciple Mother Elizabeth - whom he had predicted would follow him - is one of the reasons why the crypt carries such weight for Orthodox pilgrims. Since his canonisation by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019, it has effectively become the tomb of a recognised saint.

What makes this crypt worth visiting is less the crypt as a physical space. Nuns who knew Sophrony personally, like Sister Thecla, still guide visitors down and recount his life firsthand: his mystical experiences as a child, his training as a painter in Moscow, his formation under St Silouan the Athonite on Mount Athos, and the move via France to the UK. It is said amongst pilgrims, that silent personal prayer at the crypt is particularly powerful and a must when visiting the monastery.