The office of Hieromonk—a monk who is also an ordained priest—developed organically in the early centuries of the Church. It is not a later invention or an innovation, but a natural consequence of monastic and ecclesiastical life intersecting. The term itself derives from Greek: ἱερομόναχος (hieromónachos), from hieros (sacred) and monachos (monk). It refers to a monk who, having maintained the monastic discipline, is also elevated to the priesthood, often to serve the sacramental needs of his monastic brotherhood or surrounding laity.
The origins trace back to the Egyptian desert in the third and fourth centuries. The earliest monastics—such as St Anthony the Great and St Pachomius—were not priests. In fact, early monasticism was suspicious of clerical ambition. Yet as monastic communities grew, there was a practical need for priests within monasteries, especially in cenobitic communities.
St Pachomius himself, the founder of cenobitic monasticism, refused ordination, but eventually accepted priests into his monasteries for liturgical service. By the time of St Basil the Great (4th century), the ordination of monks to the priesthood became more normalized. Basil, a bishop and a great monastic organizer, emphasized the integration of monastic and liturgical life.
From that point forward, it became common in the East for monks to be ordained to the priesthood to serve within the monastery. They did not cease to be monks. The priesthood was a function added to their monastic calling, not a replacement of it. The hieromonk was understood to be a monk first and always. His priesthood was subordinated to the rigors and discipline of monastic obedience.
By the 6th and 7th centuries, in Byzantium and the East generally, hieromonks often served rural communities and were sometimes the only clergy available to conduct the Liturgy or hear confessions. They were not to seek honor or ecclesiastical advancement. Canon 10 of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II, 787) affirms the dignity of hieromonks and sets boundaries to ensure that monks who were priests do not violate monastic discipline.
In the West, the idea of a monk-priest also existed, especially in Benedictine monasteries. However, in both East and West, hieromonks were considered bound by the stricter discipline of monastic life. A priest outside the monastery might be a presbyter, but a hieromonk was a presbyter under monastic obedience.
Among the Old Believers, the hieromonk has played a critical role, particularly after the schism of the 17th century. After Patriarch Nikon’s reforms and the persecution of the faithful who resisted, the Old Believers were left often without bishops and had to preserve the priesthood under extraordinary conditions. The Beglopopovtsy branch (those who accepted runaway or fugitive priests) preserved the role of hieromonks, while the Bespopovtsy (priestless) rejected all clergy. Some of the fleeing priests were monks, and some monastic communities clandestinely ordained others, preserving the succession. After the schism, many Old Believer communities could no longer depend on access to bishops for ordinations. Therefore, priests who had been ordained in the old rite prior to Nikon’s apostasy were treasured. Hieromonks—monks who were priests—were even more highly valued because they were often stricter in personal piety, having lived under the harsh disciplines of true Orthodox monasticism.
Without bishops, Old Believer hieromonks could not validly consecrate new bishops, but they could celebrate the full cycle of sacraments: Divine Liturgy, Baptism, Confession, Marriage, and Anointing of the Sick. Their priesthood was seen as critical to the survival of the Church’s visible life. A hieromonk among Old Believers is expected to be a strict spiritual father. He does not “pastor” in the modernist, sentimental sense. He guides souls to repentance with firmness. He teaches strict observance of the pre-Nikonian rites, including the proper way to make the Sign of the Cross (with two fingers), the correct old liturgical rubrics, and the precise Orthodox fasts and feasts.
He is not to compromise. He is to resist innovation, worldliness, and the temptation to be “relevant”. He keeps the people tied to the old piety. Because the world around them became increasingly apostate—first through Nikon’s reforms, later through secularism and atheism—the hieromonk is a wall against compromise. He resists the heretical changes to the Creed, the false calendar, the corrupt texts of modernized liturgies. He stands as the living witness to the fact that the Church of Christ does not change to fit the times.
The hieromonk serves the Divine Liturgy, the Hours, the Vespers, and the full daily cycle according to the pre-Nikonian order. In Old Believer tradition, these services are conducted with extreme care, exactness, and without abbreviation unless necessary for survival. He also guards the sacred books.
The hieromonk embodies the uninterrupted fidelity to Orthodox truth. In the times when no bishop was available, the presence of a faithful hieromonk was seen as a sign that God had not abandoned His people.
Some Old Believer communities, particularly the Beglopopovtsy, went to great lengths to seek out and protect hieromonks who had preserved the old rites. In some cases, they smuggled them across borders, hid them from tsarist police, and risked martyrdom rather than lose the priesthood among them.
In Old Believer tradition, a hieromonk must never forget his monastic vows. He is not treated as a parish priest with worldly ambitions. He is expected to live by monastic discipline even if serving a parish in exile. Marriage is forbidden after monastic tonsure, and he must renounce all ownership of property and honor. The Old Believer hieromonk is a soldier of Christ, never a servant of this fallen world.
Famous Old Believer Hieromonks
Hieromonk Avvakum Petrov (1620–1682)
The most famous and fiery defender of the Old Faith. Although later titled Protopriest (Protopop), Avvakum first lived the monastic life and embraced its severity. He was one of the loudest voices against Patriarch Nikon’s heresies. Avvakum’s writings, especially his Life (Житие), are bold, unsparing, and completely without compromise. He suffered brutal imprisonment, exile to Siberia, beatings, and eventually martyrdom by being burned alive.
He wrote: “I shall not abandon the ancient piety even if I am sawn in half.”
Avvakum is the very spirit of Old Believer resistance: uncompromising, fiery, bound in the ancient Orthodox spirit, not the Latinised cowardice of the reformists.
Hieromonk Lazar of Murom (17th century)
Hieromonk Lazar fled from persecution and continued the old rite secretly among small communities. He maintained strict liturgical observance in hidden sketes (monastic cells) along the Oka and Volga Rivers. Lazar refused to sign any documents of allegiance to the Nikonians and lived his life as a hunted man for the sake of Orthodoxy.
His resilience helped small rural communities of Old Believers survive during the harshest periods of state persecution.
Hieromonk Nikodim of Pustozersk (17th century)
A companion of Avvakum, Hieromonk Nikodim suffered exile and torture in the far north of Russia. Imprisoned in underground pits in Pustozersk, he endured subzero temperatures and starvation for decades rather than accept the Nikonian reforms.
He, along with Avvakum, was burned alive in 1682, chanting psalms and blessing their executioners even as the flames consumed them.
As the Scriptures say: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)
In sum, the office of hieromonk dates from the earliest centuries of the Church, developed naturally out of necessity, and was affirmed by councils and saints. It remains an essential office in the Orthodox Church—especially among the faithful who keep the old ways without compromise. The hieromonk, if true to his calling, is not a careerist cleric but a servant of the altar who renounces the world both in soul and body.
— Br. Michael