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==Life==
The future Patriarch Nikon was born Nikita Minin on [[May 7]], 1605 into a peasant family in the village Valmanovo, near Nizhny Novgorod. His father, a farmer, was named Mina. Nikita’s childhood was troubled and at one time he ran away from home to escape an inhumane stepmother. He was educated in a [[monastery]] and married before being [[ordainordination|ordained]]ed a [[priest]]. Through the efforts of Moscow merchants, impressed by Fr. Nikita’s Nikita's eloquence, he was transferred to a large Moscow [[parish]]. But, after losing his three small children during ten years of married life, he decided to enter a [[monastic]] life. Persuading his wife to become a nun, he entered the Solovetsky monastery on the White Sea, receiving the name Nikon upon taking his monastic vows.
Entering the monastery, he established himself as a [[hermit]] on the nearby Anzersky island that was a dependency of Solovetsky. He later joined the Kozhuzersky monastery, in the Novogorod [[diocese]], after breaking with the Solovetsky [[monk]]s over allegations of misuse of alms. In 1643, [[Hieromonk]] Nikon was named hegumen. In his duties as hegumen he often visited Moscow, where in 1646 he met the pious Tsar Alexis. Impressed by Nikon, Alexis, who had become tsar in 1645, soon included Nikon among his close advisors.