The Enchanted Wanderer: Ocharovannyy Strannik

The protagonist, Ivan Flyagin, a bogatyr-type of a character has been promised to God by his mother but refused to join the monastery as a young man, ignoring all the signs, allegedly pointing him the way. The rest of his life he sees as a punishment for this, and after all becomes a monk, driven though not by spiritual motives, but rather by poverty and having nowhere else to go.