Our Holy Father Antony of the Kiev Caves.

Commemorated July 10 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

The renewer and father of monasticism in Russia, he was born in a little place called Lubetch, near Chernigov. He left his home while still a boy and went to the Holy Mountain, where he became a monk and lived in asceticism at Esphigmenou. In response to a vision, the abbot sent him to Russia, to found the monastic life there. He chose a cave near Kiev. When a group of men desiring the monastic life settled round him, he installed Theodosius as their abbot and himself remained in his cave in silence. By the grace of God, the monastery grew and became the mother of Russian monasticism. Antony endured much evil from men and from demons, but he overcame all by his meekness. He had a great gift of discernment, and was able to heal the sick. He went to the Lord in 1073 at the age of ninety, leaving his spiritual nursery, which would, through the ages, yield good fruit for the Orthodox peoples of Russia.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK