He was born in Moscow, into an old merchant family. He finished the district school, then went into trade, serving as a shop clerk in Kaluga.
From his youth he longed for the spiritual life, but his mother would not let him go to a monastery. After her death, in 1885, the thirty-year-old Kaluga clerk Alexander Potapov came to the Optina Hermitage. The novice Alexander was soon given the blessing to serve as cell attendant to the holy elder Ambrose, and already then there showed itself in him a wondrous gift of love, compassion, and spiritual insight. On 23 April (5 May) 1888, in the skete church, the novice Alexander was tonsured to the ryassophore; on 3 (15) June 1895 he received the monastic mantle and the name Anatoly.
On 29 March (11 April) 1906 he was ordained hieromonk and almost at the same time, by decree of the Kaluga ecclesiastical consistory, appointed confessor of the Kazan-Ambrosian women's hermitage at Shamordino — a ministry he carried out until the very end of his life.
Anatoly had the chance to leave Optina, and he refused it outright, firmly resolved to remain in the monastery "until they drive me out." After his first arrest the elder returned to his monastery barely alive — but with a radiant smile and thanksgiving to the Lord on his lips, having condemned no one.
In 1921 the abbot of the monastery, Saint Isaacius, proposed that the elder take the schema. During the tonsure Anatoly was so weak that he could not hold his own candle, and he pronounced the schema vows in a barely audible voice. After taking the schema he grew better: he began to eat and, little by little, to rise from his bed.
On 29 July / 11 August 1922 they came to arrest the elder a second time. He did not resist, but asked them to come for him the next day, to give him time "to prepare." Seeing his great age, the guards relented. The elder spent the whole night in prayer, and in the morning his cell attendant found him on his knees — and lifeless.
The relics of Saint Anatoly of Optina were recovered on 27 June / 10 July 1998, and they rest today in the burial church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God.