St. Anthony of Kiev

St. Anthony of Kiev was born about 983 at Lyubech near Chernigov in the land of the Rus'. Drawn to the monastic life, he journeyed to Mount Athos, the holy mountain of Greek monasticism, where he was tonsured a monk and steeped in its ascetic traditions, before being sent back by his elders to plant that life in his homeland, so recently converted to Christ.

Returning to Kiev, he settled about 1051 in a cave dug into the hillside above the Dnieper River, where he lived in prayer and severe austerity. Disciples gathered around him, enlarging the caves, and from this beginning grew the great Kiev Caves Monastery, the Pechersk Lavra, the cradle and mother house of monasticism among the Eastern Slavs. Anthony gave the community its ascetic spirit, while his disciple St. Theodosius shaped its common rule. Preferring solitude, Anthony withdrew again to his cave, where he died in 1073. Honored as the father of Russian monasticism, his memory is kept on 10 July.