A starets is an elder, and the word describes a relationship rather than a rank. Someone seeks out a monk of long experience, opens his thoughts to him without reserve, and follows his direction; that is the whole of the institution. Nobody ordains an elder, no synod appoints one, and there is no vestment, jurisdiction or title that comes with it. Timothy Ware's description of Orthodox practice is precise on the point: eldership is a charismatic ministry, recognised by those who receive it and by nobody else, and it can be exercised by a monk of no rank at all while a bishop possesses none of it.
That is what makes the starets a genuinely different institution from the saint of Latin Christianity rather than a translation of the same thing, and it is worth stating plainly because the two are routinely equated. Canonisation is posthumous, juridical and universal in its effect. Eldership is exercised by the living, is conferred by nobody, and reaches only the people who actually come. The two can meet, since an elder may be glorified as a saint after death, and several have been. Most are not.
The Orthodox churches do recognise saints, by a synodal act usually called glorification, and the word carries the sense that the church is acknowledging a status God has already given rather than conferring one. There is no equivalent of the Roman congregation, no fixed number of miracles, and no single authority competent for the whole communion, so recognition happens church by church.