The parents would not want to bring the baby boy to the church, afraid that he would disturb the service with his crying; but eventually they decided to try.

At the age of 12, he snuck out of his parents' house and joined te Pechersky Ascension Monastery, and received the monastic name of Macarius (Russian: Макарий, Makariy).

The asceticism of Macarius, together with his love of his neighbors, attracted not only Christians but also many local pagan Mordvin, Mari, Chuvash and Muslim Tatar people.

The khan, impressed by the pious life of the nonagenarian abbot, released him and a few other Christian prisoners, and allowed him to bury the killed.

He decided to leave a safe distance between themselves and the Khanate, and went to the forests of the Unzha River, a few hundred kilometers north of the Nizhny.

After the two famous cloisters he founded, he is called Macarius of Yellow Water Lake and Unzha, the Miracle Worker.

The locals often reported being miraculously healed of various diseases after visiting his grave; his help was said to have repelled a Tatar invasion, and later, during the Time of Troubles, to protect the region against the Polish troops.

When Feodor Romanov, the father of Russia's new tsar, Michael, was enthroned as Patriarch Philaret of Moscow in 1619, he sent a commission to the Unzha to investigate the miracles.

After several years of disagreements as to whether the relics were genuine, and some minor miracles that convinced disbelievers that they were, they were put to rest in a reliquary in Unzhensky Makaryev Monastery.

In 1929, Soviet authorities closed the monastery, and most of the relics ended up in the local history museum at Yuryevets, Ivanovo Oblast, where they were kept in storage until 1990, when they returned to Kostroma Eparchy (diocese).

The priests had reverently kept the relics in their homes for many years, until they felt secure that the Russian Church is reborn and is restoring Macarius' monasteries.

[4] On the occasion of Macarius' feast in 2007, the head was permanently transferred from Nizhny Novgorod to Makaryev Zheltovodsky Monastery (Convent).

Religious processions were organized in the cities visited, to carry Macarius' head from the Volga docksides to local churches for appropriate celebrations.