Diodoros of Yuriegorsk, known also as the Abbot of George Hill, was a Russian monk and monastic founder of the early seventeenth century who labored in the far north of Muscovy. He was born in the village of Turchasovo on the Onega River, situated half-way between Archangelsk and Kargopol, to parents named Hierotheos and Maria, who gave him the name Diomedes at birth. His ascetic vocation drew him as a youth to the great monastic centers of the Russian north.
At the age of fifteen he went on pilgrimage to the Solovki Monastery on the White Sea and remained there as a novice. When he was nineteen he was tonsured by Igoumen Anthony, who gave him the monastic name Damian, and he placed himself under the spiritual direction of the Hieromonk Joseph of Great Novgorod. Drawn to solitude, he repeatedly withdrew from the cenobitic community to deserted islands, on one occasion remaining for forty days without bringing any food or provisions. He afterward spent seven years at Lake Vodla together with his disciple Prokhoros.
Resolving to establish a monastery in honor of the Life-giving Trinity at George Hill, some sixteen and a half miles from Olonets, he traveled to Moscow to secure the necessary support. There he received a charter from Tsar Michael, who reigned from 1613 to 1645, and funds from the Tsar's mother, the nun and eldress Martha. Metropolitan Cyprian of Novgorod furnished him with an antimension for the altar, money, and supplies, together with a document exempting the new monastery from taxes and a priest to serve the Divine Liturgy in its church. Under his guidance the George Hill, or Yuriegorsk, community took shape as a center of Trinity monasticism in the Olonets region.
He departed this life on November 27, 1633, dying in Kargopol while traveling there on monastery business, and was buried in that town. Two years later his body, found incorrupt, was transferred to the Holy Trinity Monastery and buried by the south wall of the cathedral church; his relics are said to rest in a hidden place within his former monastery. Although his repose falls on November 27, his principal commemoration is kept on November 20, because the day of his death coincides with the Feast of the Icon of the Mother of God 'Of the Sign.'
