Content:

The term "spirituality" is used in various senses. in the broadest, it defines the loftiest moral and intellectual qualities of man in his relation to God and to nature, to himself and to his fellow-men. In social or cultural life, spirituality in this sense finds expression in the philosophy, art, and ethic of a nation or of a civilization. Wordsworth or Keats, for example, is highly representative of English spirituality as it is expressed in the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century.

In its stricter, or narrower, connotation, spirituality is applied to the religious life in its innermost and deepest strata, the life with God and all spiritual experiences arising from this source. Prayer is the center, the core, of spirituality - and this is true not of mystical prayer alone. As a matter of fact, mysticism as the experience of union with God (a feature of many religions besides Christianity) is a rare phenomenon in religious life. It is true, of course, that the spiritual energies generated by this prayer of union do not remain sealed in the cell of the contemplative saint but diffuse themselves, sometimes fructifying very remote areas in the civilized world of his age. The spiritual influences exerted by St. Francis and St. Teresa are historical examples of this, and in our own day a non-Christian, Eastern mysticism, emanating from India, is seeping into an English literature lately emancipated from the Puritan tradition, with results not wholly salutary. Nevertheless the most powerful influence upon a people is exercised, not by the mystical, but by the common kind of prayer, by the attitude of the ordinary man towards God, in his prayer and in his moral life. Here also the saints, the heroically spiritual, are leaders; but chiefly such of them as stand on common ground with the men of their time; who can share more or less freely their spiritual experience with their fellow-men.

Spirituality, even in the specific religious sense, is not confined to prayer but embraces the whole world-outlook of the individual, particularly the ethical code which his religious experience inspires. In the art of the best epochs of civilization, religious spirituality is reflected; its rays, although gradually weakened, penetrate into the densest strata of social life, into political movements, popular customs, the wisdom of the common man, folk-lore. But, of course, in these exterior strata spirituality encounters the ponderous resistance of material forces and very often is distorted by them. Indeed there has never been a Christian civilization in the full meaning of the word - that is, not as an endeavor, but as a realization. It is different in the case of a natural, or pagan, religion. The outgrowth of physical environment and tribal custom, it reflects, in its very deficiencies, the impact of natural and social forces; and in that it is fully conformed to its environment, it exerts the more powerful influence. A pagan civilization always presents a more harmonious unity than does a Christian civilization. Christian society is ever the arena of a struggle for domination between Christian and pagan, or secular, forces. Yet this struggle has not as its end the annihilation of the natural forces opposed to Christian principles, for grace does not destroy nature, but transforms it. The Christian Church, coming to a newly converted people, does not efface the character of this people as a collective personality, but, after a period of sharp conflict with the forces of paganism, accepts all those elements which are reconcilable with Christian dogma and ethic. With baptism, or the influx of grace, a new national personality comes into being, different from all others and reflecting in all its Christian manifestations the prc-Christian culture. And of course, side by side with the national inheritance, purified and transformed by Christianity, live many survivals of rude paganism which, although endangering ethical practice, are yet capable of a mighty creative unfolding in the culture of a nation, particularly in her art. Thus, in both its Christian (conquering) and pagan (yielding) elements, the spiritual life of a nation is a clue to the understanding of her culture.

Russia imposed herself upon the attention of the West but recently through her literature, music, and art - finally through the tremendous social upheaval of the Communist Revolution. A widespread curiosity with regard to the spiritual background of this newly disclosed world has been awakened but scarcely satisfied. Russia remains a great enigma to the West. There is, for instance, no obvious link between her classical literature of the nineteenth century and the spirit of her Revolution.

Now it is plain that neither the modern literature of Russia nor her political and social tragedy can be understood without a clear vision of her past. Russia had been a medieval civilization until the time of Peter the Great (about 1700), knowing no Renaissance nor any cleavage between religious and secular culture. And until their emancipation from serfdom (1861), the Russian "people" - in contrast to the gentry and the "intelligentsia" -were medieval in their religion and in their world-outlook. Without too violent a pressure on facts, one can venture the statement that the people leaped directly out of the Middle Ages into the atheistic society of Communism. As for the intelligentsia, although living mainly by Western ideas and ideals, they had never completely lost contact with the peasantry; particularly in the nineteenth century the "people" were studied and idealized, as a basic stratum of Russian culture and a source of Russia's moral strength. All the great classical writers (especially Dostoevsky and Tolstoy) paid a generous tribute to "populism" and were dependent upon popular beliefs and traditions for their own religious and moral attitudes.

The national religion of Russia, known as Eastern Orthodox, or Greek Orthodox, continues the uninterrupted tradition of the ancient Eastern and the Byzantine Church, the "Mother Church" of Russia. Since the middle of the eleventh century (1054), the Christian East has been separated from the Western, Roman Catholic Church by schism. The characteristics of the Eastern Church in its liturgical and canonical life, even in its dogmatic thought, have long been studied by specialists in theology; but the core of Eastern Christianity, its spiritual life, has just begun to be the object of scholarly investigation. Even in Russia there are extant few special studies on this rich and engrossing matter.

In the present book there is offered to the reader, not a study, but a selection from original sources, of Russian spirituality, the first attempt at such an anthology in any language. The material is taken from the lives of saints, ascetical and mystical treatises, and spiritual autobiographies (a very rare species of literature in Russia), embracing the centuries from the eleventh to the twentieth. All the authors selected have belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church and occupy, with one exception (Avvakum), an authoritative place in the sphere of spiritual guidance. The editor has tried to prevent any personal preference from influencing his choice; the emphasis had already been placed by tradition and by present-day Russian ecclesiastical opinion.

From what is said above, it can be inferred that the material, authoritative as it is, has its limitations. The reader will not find: (1) Russian folk-lore in which Christian piety is mingled with pagan survivals; (2) the literature of the Russian sects so numerous in the last two centuries; (3) the works of secular poets and novelists reflecting modern Russian spirituality of very complex origins. For the inclusion of these three groups of sources would broaden the scope of the book to the detriment of unity and purpose. The third group - that of fiction -is moreover already partly accessible to the English and American reader in translations.

Political events, sometimes of a catastrophic nature, divide the history of Russia into clear-cut periods; and the bearing of these divisions extends even into the spiritual domain. The first historical shape of Russia, that of the Kievan period (the ninth to the thirteenth centuries), was the loose confederation of principalities under the prince of Kiev on the Dnieper River. Converted to Christianity by her prince, St. Vladimir (988), Russia received her Church hierarchy from Constantinople, and her whole religious and cultural life was molded on the Byzantine pattern. In spite of this primordial condition, Kievan Russia was in close communication with the "Latin" West, and her social and political life had more in common with Western feudalism than with the Byzantine monarchical state.

The Tartar, or Mongolian, conquest (circa 1240) destroyed this flourishing culture, and for centuries thereafter the bulk of the Russian population, the northeastern, or "Great," Russians, were cut off from their southwestern brothers, the Ukranians and White Russians, who were included in the Polish and Lithuanian states. Under the Mongol yoke Great Russia preserved her religious and cultural heritage, although eventually in a rather impoverished condition. Detached from the West (though not impenetrable to Western influences), Russia was continually in touch with Byzantium and moreover exposed to the new and dangerous influences emanating from the East. Until well into the fifteenth century, Russia was a quasi-feudal conglomeration of small principalities, with even some great democratic free cities, such as Novgorod and Pscov, and her cultural atmosphere was still independent, in spite of the political oppression and financial extortion of the Tartars.

The principality of Moscow, with the support of the Church, and to some extent of the Tartars, gradually succeeded in destroying the feudal system and uniting all Russian lands and free cities under the absolute power of the Great Prince of Moscow (circa 1500). He threw off the domination of the Tartars (1480), crowned himself (1547) Tsar ("Caesar"), after the Byzantine pattern, and began the conquest of the vast territories held by the Mongolians. The rulers of the Muscovite State thus succeeded both the Mongols and the Byzantine Emperors, since the Eastern Empire had fallen to the Turks. This government was totalitarian, and very severe and exacting in its claims upon its subjects. The peasants, who for the most part had been free in the Middle Ages, were now turned into serfs, and all classes of the population were forced into the service of the state.

The fact that the cultural and technical backwardness of Muscovy was a serious handicap to her political relations with the West moved Peter the Great (d. 1725) to carry out his great reforms, which actually amounted to a cultural revolution. He Westernized Russia forcibly, relentlessly, at least so far as the life and thought of her upper classes was concerned. In the period of the Empire (Peter was the first Russian ruler called "Emperor"), Russian political power reached its height and Russian culture its full flowering - literary, artistic, scientific. This culture was Western European in its form and ideas; yet, in the most striking and profound of its artistic creations, the spirit of the thousand-year-old past breaks through and manifests itself, a past still living in the masses of the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, and the clergy, who were the guardians of the national tradition. In the pattern of Russian culture during the last two centuries there have been two motifs: one, the European-modern, abreast of the times; the other, ancient Muscovite, deriving from the seventeenth century, with a residue of a past still more remote. The fact that these motifs have been able, to some extent, to blend has preserved the original genius of the high Russian culture.

Yet the cultural breach between the upper classes and the people was so wide, and the social pressure upon the latter so heavy (despite the emancipation of the serfs in 1861), that the tensions arising from World War I were too great for the unsteady Empire, and the War ended for Russia in a revolutionary breakdown. The Revolution inaugurated a new period of Russian history (the fifth, according to our scheme), which, however, is not within the scope of this study: the Bolshevist Revolution, by its very intention, meant the destruction of every kind of spirituality (not only Christian), and although spiritual life did not die out in Russia, it has been unable to find any literary expression up to the present day.

The spirituality of the Russian Church, from the beginning to the present, has been shaped mainly by the Byzantine, or Greek, tradition. There have been, however, variations in the degree of the influence and in the elements of Greek piety chosen as the pattern in different periods of Russian life. Newly converted Russia received from the Bulgarian Slavs an enormous treasury of translated Greek sermons, lives of saints, and Patericons (i.e., collections of legends which had their source in Egytian, Syrian, and Palestinian monasticism). For a millennium John Climacus was the prevailing authority on the spiritual life. The Palestinian group of saints (Sts. Sabbas, Euthymius, and others) were the main teachers of Russian ascetics in ancient times.

In the Kievan period, the most remarkable fact is the absence of a mystical tradition in the translated, as well as the original, Russian literature. The severe asceticism of the penitential ("metanoic") Syrian type is represented in the Kievan Cave Patericon, a collection of the biographies of the outstanding fathers of the most famous Rassian monastery. Yet simultaneously with the imitation of the Greek and Oriental patterns, newly converted Russia discloses in the persons of her first canonized saints, Boris and Gleb, a quite original view of the Christian way of salvation. This spiritual tendency we call "kenotic," understanding by the term the imitation of Christ in His kenosis, His self-humiliation and His voluntary, sacrificial death. When their elder brother sought to wrest their principalities from them, these two young princes chose the course of nonresistance, preferring to be murdered by him rather than to enter into fratricidal combat. In the monastic life St. Theodosius brings the virtue of humility to extreme social consequences which suggest, somewhat, the practices of St. Francis of **Assisi. The most remarkable phenomenon of early Russian spirituality is the immediate impact of the Gospels upon the minds of the first Russian saints. Thus the rediscovery of the Christ of the Gospels, of the Christ in His human nature behind the Byzantine Pantocrator (the "omnipotent" or the "Divine Monarch"), which was a great feat of the twelfth century in the West, was anticipated by about a century in the spiritual life of Russia. Doubtless the use of the Slavonic language in the Bible and in the celebration of the Mass contributed to the originality of the Russian religious genius, but whatever its cause, kenoticism, in the sense of charitable humility as well as of non-resistance, or voluntary suffering, remains forever the most precious and typical, even though not always the dominant, motif of Russian Christianity.

The Russian Middle Ages, or the Mongolian period (the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries), adopted the Kievan religious tradition but enriched it by one essential feature: the mystical life which found its way into Russia from the Greek monasteries of Mount Athos in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A contemplative type of monasticism was engendered in Russia, and specific exercises were practised to create a "spiritual prayer." The Greek form of mystical prayer was grafted onto the Russian kenotic and caritative type of monastic life. The only literary spokesman of numerous silent Hesychasts in the forests of Northern Russia was St. Nilus Sorsky (fifteenth century), but the origins of this movement are traced to St. Sergius (fourteenth century), the head and the restorer of Russian monasticism after the long period of its decay which followed the terrors of the Monogolian conquest. But Sergius, if a mystic, had likewise a social and national mission; one modern writer goes so far as to call him one of the "builders of Russia."

In contradiction to what is commonly supposed concerning the Christian East, ancient Russian Christianity was always marked by strong social tendencies. But soon after the time of Sergius is the beginning of a fatal separation: St. Sergius stands at the crossroads; from his teachings, Russian monasticism took two divergent directions-the mystical and the social. The mystics of the northern forests cultivated absolute poverty, silence, and spiritual prayer, preserving a great moral independence of secular powers, which they even held it their obligation to teach and reprove. This kind of spirituality undoubtedly inspired the highest manifestations of the Russian art in icon painting, which reached its peak in the fifteenth century: this was the golden age of Russian saints and artists.

The other line of Sergius' disciples, culminating in St. Joseph Volotsky, struck a different note: they were active, practical, social; good farmers and administrators, social leaders in the surrounding countryside, political advisers of the Muscovite princes in the building of a unified, autocratic state. Their religious life was founded upon the fear of God and the meticulous observance of ritual, mitigated by their esthetic appreciation of liturgical worship.

These two groups found grounds of conflict at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when their adherents disagreed violently on the two great problems of the time: the question of the legitimacy of monastic landowning (the mystics stood, of course, for absolute poverty), and that of the policy to be adopted in dealing with a new group of heretics, the Judaizers (the mystics were opposed to capital punishment and in general to any severe persecution). The Josephites won the battle, thanks to their close connection with the princes of Moscow. And they made the most of their victory: the outstanding disciples of St. Nilus were themselves condemned as heretics, and thereupon the whole mystical movement disappears from the surface manifestations in Russian history for about two centuries.

The age of the Muscovite tsardom (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), so favorable to the growth of Russia's political power, was very unfruitful with regard to the spiritual life. Josephitism degenerated into static ritualism with the gradual suppression of the caritative elements in Russian traditional piety. But in spite of the general barbarization of morality during this period, it is impossible to deny the strengthening of social discipline, the training of the will in public service, which shaped the "Great Russian" character as it is known through modern Russian literature and history.

The spiritual energies latent during this age were unleashed in the great explosion known as the Raskol (schism) in the Russian Church, which resulted from liturgical reforms introduced by the patriarch Nicon (1652-58). The conservative national party, the remote descendents of St. Joseph, having identified religion with ritual, preferred to die rather than to accept the new, corrected service books, and finally they separated themselves from the state Church, becoming the first of a long series of sectarian movements characteristic of modern developments in Russian religion. The original Old Ritualists, or Old Believers, stood entirely upon traditional ecclesiastical grounds, and since they represented the strongest moral force in Muscovite society, it seems justifiable to select for our consideration the leading figure of the movement, the priest Avvakum, a writer of genius, as the exponent of Muscovite spirituality.

During the period of the Empire (the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries), with the abrupt Westernizing of Russia, the Church lost its hold upon the influential strata of aristocratic society and the intelligentsia. The masses of the people, as has already been noted, lived in a Muscovite civilization, as a whole faithful to the established state church but with strong sectarian minorities. The Church itself was not a direct inheritor of the Muscovite tradition. It entered the schools of Western Theology, Catholic and Protestant, and tried to find its own, Orthodox way among these Western "extremes." Together with theological thought, some of the currents of Western spirituality penetrated into Russia; these were for the most part Protestant - such as the pietism of the eighteenth century or the mysticism of the early nineteenth. This latter was helpful in overcoming the rationalism of the Enlightenment and in introducing a fervent emotional note into the rather dry moral preaching of the Church. Yet, in spite of this and many other Western influences, the strongest current of Orthodox spirituality remained faithful to the Eastern tradition. At this time, however, it was the tradition of Christian Greece, ancient and medieval, which dominated, and not that of ancient Russia. The break with Muscovy was so complete, even in ecclesiastical education, that it was never completely healed, although the second half of the nineteenth and the present century have been marked by the gradual revival of "holy Russia."

One of the most prominent features of Peter's reform was an almost complete elimination of the Church from all fields of social and political life. In drastic alteration of conditions from those of ancient Russia, the Church was forced to give up every attempt at Christianizing, or even influencing, social life. The only role left to it (and, as a matter of fact, required of it) was that of apologist for the established order. Accepting this part, willingly or unwillingly, the Church was forced to concentrate its moral action upon the individual. And it made a virtue of necessity, regarding this religious individualism as a blessing, the special vocation of Orthodoxy. In this prejudice it was supported by many foreigners, who were in the habit of opposing the Eastern Mary to the Western Martha.

Under these conditions, ancient Russia could not be a secure guide in spiritual practice, and monastic Greece superseded her Russian daughter and pupil to a degree unprecedented in the history of the Church. This impact of Greece was received through two media: the contemporary monasticism of Mount Athos, where the Russians had - and still have - their own communities, and ancient ascetical literature, which was now collected into a large anthology called the Philocalia. The influence of this book (particularly after the publication of the second, nibre comprehensive, edition prepared by the Russian bishop Theophanes) grew from generation to generation. It was at its height at the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary period. The Optina cloister, a center for the influential startzy, was the chief guardian and promoter of the Greek ascetical and mystical tradition. The mystical, or spiritual, form of prayer was revived, and Nilus Sorsky found a posthumous disciple in the person of Paпsius Velichkovsky, to whose influence the monastic revival after the general decay of the eighteenth century is due. Spiritual prayer was popularized and became the practice even of a certain proportion of laymen - a fact to which the famous Way of a Pilgrim bears eloquent witness.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the evangelical and humanitarian tendencies which largely dominated Russian secular literature tempered the ascetical spirituality of the Church. The Slavophiles, a liberal national party in the Church, tried to create (or, rather, to resuscitate) a spirituality based on social ethic. But the breach between the ascetical-mystical and the evangelical elements within the Church widened, and each tendency found political expression in the period immediately preceding the Revolution. The evangelicals stood for ecclesiastical reforms and allied themselves with the liberal political groups of the nation; the mystics supported the absolutism of the tsar as a remnant of Byzantine tradition. The reformers and liberals did not succeed in developing a type of spirituality of their own deep enough to counterbalance the reactionary, or "black," inflnence of monasticism, and this dualism played a fatal part in the disintegration of the moral forces of pre-Revolutionary Russian society.

The following selections have been translated for inclusion in this anthology by Helen Iswolsky: St. Theodosius, St. Nilus Sorsky, The Life of Archpriest Avvakum by Himself, St. Tychon, Father Yelchaninov.

The translation of The Way of a Pilgrim has been done by Nina A. Toumanova.

We wish to thank the following publishers for their kindness in permitting us to include these selections:

The Macmillan Company, New York and The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London: "The Life, Acts and Miracles of Our Revered and Holy Father Abbot Sergius," by Epipbanius: from St. Sergius, Builder of Russia, translated by Nicholas Zernov.

The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London: "St. Seraphim of Sarov" and "The Conversation of St. Seraphim with Nicholas Motovilov": from St. Seraphim of Sarov, translated, with an introduction, by A. F. Dobbie-Bateman .

Cassell & Co., Ltd., London: "My Life in Christ," by John Sergieff: from My Life in Christ, translated by E. E. Goulaeff .

"Satan has obtained our radiant Russia from God, so that she may become crimson with the blood of martyrs."

Theodosius was the first monastic saint canonized by the Russian Church. Soon after his death (1074) the task of recording his life story was undertaken by the famous chronicler Nestor, a monk of his Kievan Caves cloister. Although Nestor had at his disposal, as a pattern for his literary work, numerous Greek lives of saints, from which he quoted abundantly, he drew still more upon the testimony of the great abbot's acquaintances and companions. Thus his work has always been held in high esteem by Russian historians for its trustworthiness and its richness in factual detail.

The reader will find the events of Theodosius' life clearly related by Nestor, and his chronicle has been our one source of information. Here we have only to emphasize the predominant features of his spirituality. These characteristics become evident in the earliest part of the story of his childhood, for which Nestor had no literary model. The ideal of the literal imitation of Christ in His poverty and humiliation on earth is an apprehension of religious genius which was to mold permanently the mentality of the Russian people. The social aspect of this "kenotic" ideal is of first importance: the love of an "uncouth garb" and the manual labor in the fields with the serfs both represent an abandonment of class privilege which encountered the long and bitter opposition of the saint's mother. The intimate spiritual association of Theodosius with the person of Christ in His life on earth and in the Sacrament is revealed in Theodosius' attempted journey to the Holy Land, "where our Lord had walked in the flesh," and in his predilection for the task of baking the altar-bread: the boy rejoiced in the thought of being a collaborator in "creating the flesh" of Christ, Who "became poor and humbled Himself" for our salvation.

The monastic life of Theodosius is patterned upon that of the Palestinian ascetics - Sts. Sabbas and Euthymius and St. Theodosius, after whom he is named. However severe or even unnatural Theodosius' asceticism may appear to our age, it was a mitigated, or humanized, form of mortification if gauged by the classical standards of monastic Egypt or Syria. His was a combination of community life and seclusion, of manual labor, prayer, and the exterior work of educational activities among the laity. His bodily asceticism consisted mainly in fasting and abstention from sleep. Only in the narrative of his early youth is mention made of the chains which he wore under his shirt, after the Syrian example followed in Russia. Rather exceptional, also, is the most painful of his acts of mortification: the exposure of his body to the bites of mosquitoes as a measure against temptation. In general, acute pain in mortification is avoided; no self-flagellations occur in the practice of the Christian East; the aim of mortification is rather the "drying up" of the body, the weakening of the passions.

Although Theodosius was the disciple of a senior monk, St. Anthony, his own spirituality is a departure from that of his teacher. Anthony, who had been initiated into the monastic life on Mount Athos, seems to have engaged in the more severe forms of ascetic practice and to have committed himself to absolute solitude, spending all his days in a dark cave. Theodosius found this manner of life "oppressive and narrow." His ideal was rather that of community life and service to the world. He earnestly tried to introduce and put into practice in his monastery, the Greek rule of the Studion (in Constantinople), which became the classical type in the monastic institutions of medieval Russia. The spirit of this rule, and even the form, resemble in many details the rule of St. Benedict.

The greatest danger to the social order that Theodosius sought to create in organizing his cloister was the form which his own holiness assumed. For in becoming the leader of his community he did not betray his ideal of kenotic humility, but clung to his coarse clothing and rejected all outward signs of authority. He never punished erring brethren, but would weep over an incorrigible runaway and, again and again, receive with joy a returning prodigal who could not be relied upon to remain. His harshness was directed, not towards sinners, but only towards the material goods which would tempt the brethren to vitiate their holy poverty by care for the morrow. Thus, on occasion, he destroyed precious food in order to strike at the root of worldly prudence. Discipline was never up to the mark in the Cave cloister, and the homilies of St. Theodosius give evidence of his grievous disappointment.

But the kenotic humility of the abbot was no obstacle to his influence outside the cloister walls. On the contrary, his mildness and charity gained for him the devotion of princes and boyars, and he used his authority in spiritual matters for promoting the cause of justice and charity. A true kenotic, in imitation of Christ, humbles himself before the lowly, not before the powerful. Theodosius could be terrible in his denunciation of the crimes of the rich, and to this valuable social implication of the kenotic virtues ancient Russia was faithful for centuries. This, above all, distinguishes the old Russia from both Byzantine civilization and that of modern Russia.

The great historical importance of St. Theodosius is in the fact that he provided a pattern and an ideal for all monastic life in ancient Russia. His life was a source for all subsequent Russian hagiography, and many features of his personal behavior, including his "uncouth garb," were imitated for centuries. In a certain sense, all Russian monasticism, in spite of the various and divergent tendencies in her spirituality, belongs to the wide family of St. Theodosius' disciples and their heirs.

But far exceeding the limits of the monastic life, the kenotic ideal of St. Theodosius imprinted itself upon the mentality of the whole Russian nation. In the nineteenth century it is easily discoverable in all the literature which portrays Russian folklife, and in Russian folk-lore itself. But, what is still more surprising, the great literary classics of that time also belong to this religious type. This is obvious in the cases of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but the influence is none the less present in the works of most of the non-religious writers, even in those of the atheistic radicals, the "narodniks" (populists). Indeed the bulk of the revolutionary intelligentsia, especially during the 1870's, in their "simple life" their coarse clothing, and their positive search for identification with the underprivileged, were unconscious imitators of St. Theodosius. But it was a kenoticism detached from God, in direct contradiction to the charitable humility which is the essence of St. Theodosius' teaching - and thus purely negative. This kenoticism, completely divorced from the spirit of supernatural love, is at the root both of Russian atheism and of Tolstoy's radical negation of culture.

All this would seem to imply that kenoticism may justly be considered the dominant motif in Russian spirituality - one might almost venture to say, the specific Russian approach to Christianity. Yet this statement is correct only in a limited sense. For, actually, kenoticism was never the exclusive, nor even the quantitatively predominant, feature of Russian religion. It has always been moderated, diluted and supplemented by other currents: ritualistic, liturgical, mystical or culturally creative, some of them deriving from foreign sources - from Byzantium or, in modern times, from the Christian West.

I thank you, my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, for holding me worthy to chronicle the achievements of your saints. For I first recorded the life, the slaying, and the miracles of the saints and blessed passion-bearers Boris and Gleb ¹ , and I am now about to undertake another writing. It is a task too great for my powers, I am not fit for it, since I am neither wise nor learned, but I have in ray mind the words "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove from hence thither and it shall remove." Reflecting on these words I, sinful Nestor, have girded myself with faith and hope in order to relate the life of blessed Theodosius, the former abbot of the Caves Monastery dedicated to the Holy Mother of God. ²

Brothers, when I realized that no one had yet recorded the life of this saint, I was greatly distressed, and I asked in prayer for God's help in setting down in their proper order all the facts concerning our father and God-bearer, Theodosius, so that the monks who come after us, reading this chronicle and seeing the virtues of this man, might glorify God in His saint. May they be confirmed in their religious vocation by the knowledge that so holy a man has lived in this land. For these words of God may well be applied to him: "Many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven"; and, again: "Many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first." Indeed, this saint of the latter day has shown himself greater than the ancient Fathers. As it was said in the Patericon that there would be laxness in the last generation, it is surprising that in this last generation Theodosius should be made known by Christ as a great laborer for His sake and a true pastor to his monks. For from boyhood he was distinguished for the purity and goodness of his life, and especially for the faith and understanding with which he was endowed.

Brothers, listen attentively, for this story is of great benefit to all who hear it. I implore you, my beloved, do not condemn me for my ignorance if, because I am so filled with love for the saint, I have attempted to tell everything concerning him. For, in addition to this, I feared that Our Lord's words with regard to the "wicked and slothful servant" might be applied to me. But apart from these considerations, it is not right to conceal God's miracles, especially in view of what He said to His disciples: "That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light; and that which you bear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops."

It is therefore my intention to write for the benefit and edification of my readers. May they glorify God and be rewarded by Him. But first of all I turn to God with a prayer: "My Lord Omnipotent, giver of grace, Father of our Master Jesus Christ, come to my aid. Illumine my heart for the understanding of Thy commandments and open my mouth for the proclaiming of Thy miracles and the praise of Thy saint. May Thy name be sanctified, for Thou art the only helper of those who hope in Thee. Amen."

There is a town called Vasilev, lying at a distance of fifty versts ³ from Kiev. In this town lived our saint's parents, who were enlightened Christians of exemplary piety, and here it was that blessed Theodosius was born to them. On the eighth day after his birth, according to the custom, they brought the child to God's priest in order that a name should be given him. The priest, perceiving with spiritual insight that the newborn child would devote himself to God's service from infancy, gave him the name Theodosius. ⁴ Then, after forty days, he baptized the child. Theodosius grew up under the tutelage of his parents. God's grace was with him, and he had the light of the Holy Ghost from his first years.

By the decree of the Prince, ⁵ the saint's parents soon transferred their residence to another town called Kursk - but it would be more exact to say that this was done according to the will of God, so that this town also might be enlightened by the presence of the good youth. Thus Theodosius rose for us in the East like a morning star, attracting many other stars in expectation of the Sun of Justice, Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that he might say: "Here I am, my Lord, and here are the children whom I have nourished with Thy spiritual food. Here, my Lord, are my disciples. I have brought them to Thee, having taught them to despise all earthly things and to love Thee alone, my Lord God. Here, Master, is the flock which Thou hast enlightened, whose shepherd Thou hast chosen me to be. I have led them to graze in Thy pastures. I have brought them to Thee, having kept them pure and innocent." And God will answer, "Good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things." And He will say to the disciples: "Come, good flock; come, divinely enlightened sheep of the good shepherd; you who have hungered and labored for my sake shall now receive the kingdom prepared for you since the beginning of the world."

Therefore, brothers, let us also be zealous imitators of the life of St. Theodosius and the disciples he sent to God before him, for then we too shall be worthy to hear the voice of the Master saying, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

And now let us turn once more to the story of the holy youth. As he matured in body and spirit, he was drawn by the love of God to go to church daily, devoting all his attention to the sacred books. Unlike most boys, he kept aloof from children at play and was unwilling to join in their games. He wore coarse and patched garments, and when his parents tried to make him put on fresh clothing and play with other children, he would not obey, for he wanted to be identified with the poor. Moreover he begged his parents to entrust him to a teacher, so that he might be instructed in the reading of the sacred books, and they consented to this. The boy acquired knowledge rapidly, so that everyone was astonished at his wisdom and the quickness with which he learned. And how can we measure the virtues of obedience and humility which he practised, not only towards his teachers, but also towards all with whom he shared his studies?

When blessed Theodosius was about thirteen years old, his father died. From that time on, he applied himself even more zealously to his undertakings. That is, he now went into the fields with his serfs, where he did the humblest work. To prevent this, his mother used to keep him indoors. She also tried to prevail upon him to put on good clothes and go out to play with boys of his own age, for she said that if he were so poorly dressed, he would expose himself and his family to disgrace. But he would not obey her, and often she beat him in her vexation. She was robust of body, and if you could not see her, but could only hear her voice, you might well have mistaken her for a man.

The devout youth, meanwhile, was meditating and searching for the means of salvation. When he heard of the Holy Land, where Our Lord had walked in the flesh, he longed to make a pilgrimage to this place. He prayed to God, saying, "My Lord Jesus, listen to my prayer, and grant that I may go to the Holy Land." After he had prayed in this manner for a long time, some pilgrims came to the city. The holy youth rejoiced when he saw them. He went out to meet them and welcomed them affectionately, asking them whence they had come and whither they were going. And when they told him that they had come from the Holy Land and that, God permitting, they intended to return there, he begged to be taken with them. They promised to take him, and Theodosius returned home rejoicing. When the pilgrims had decided to set out on their journey, they informed the boy of their intention, and rising in the night, he left his home secretly, taking nothing with him except the poor clothes he had on. It was in this manner that he set out to join the pilgrims.

But God, in his mercy, would not permit the one whom He had predestined in his mother's womb to be the shepherd of the divinely enlightened sheep to leave this land; for, when the shepherd had departed, the pastures that God had blessed would lie desolate, overgrown with thorns and haunted by wolves which would scatter the flock. After three days the mother learned that he had gone with the pilgrims, and taking her other son (who was younger than Theodosius) with her, she set out to overtake him. After a long pursuit, they caught up with him. Carried away by fury, she seized him by the hair, flung him to the ground, and trampled on him. Then, having rebuked the pilgrims, she returned home, leading the saint bound like a criminal. So greatly incensed was she, that when they had entered the house she beat her son until she was exhausted. Then she flung him into a room, shackled him, and locked the door. The holy youth suffered all this joyfully, giving thanks to God in prayer.

After two days his mother returned, unfastened him, and placed food before him. But her anger was still unsatisfied, so she put chains on his feet and ordered him to go about the house in them, and she watched him, so that he might not run away from her again. He wore these chains for some time, but at last his mother relented. She began to beg him not to run away again, saying that she loved him more than all her other children and could not live without him. And when he had promised that he would not leave her, she removed the chains from his feet, telling him that he might now do as he pleased.

Blessed Theodosius returned to his former practice and visited the church daily. When he saw that often Mass could not be celebrated because there was no altar hread, ⁶ he was greatly distressed and resolved humbly that he would devote himself to this work. And he kept his resolution. He began to bake altar bread and sell it; some of the money thus earned, he gave to the poor, and some he kept in order to buy more wheat, which he would grind with his own hands. And in this manner his work of baking the loaves continued. Now this was according to God's will, so that the church might be provided with pure altar bread made by the hands of a chaste and innocent youth. He carried on the work for two years or more.

Boys of his own age, inspired by the enemy, ridiculed him for performing such a task. But the saint suffered all this joyfully and without complaint.

Now the enemy, who hates all that is good, seeing the humility of the God-enlightened youth triumphing over him, knew no peace; in the attempt to divert the boy from his task, he persuaded the mother that she must prevent Theodosius from pursuing his activities. The mother, who could not bear to have her son the object of ridicule, said to him gently, I beg of you, my son, give up this work. You are bringing disgrace upon your family; indeed it is not right for a young man to be engaged in such work." Good Theodosius replied humbly: "Listen to me. Our Lord Jesus Christ became poor and humbled Himself, offering Himself as an example, so that we should humble ourselves in His name. He suffered insults, was spat upon and beaten, for our salvation; how just it is, then, that we should suffer in order to gain Christ. As to my work, listen to me. When Jesus Christ sat with His disciples at the Last Supper, He took bread, and having blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying,'Take ye, and eat. This is My body.' If Our Lord called bread His body, should I nor rejoice that God lets me share in the making of His body?"

When she heard this, his mother marvelled at the boy's wisdom, and from that day forth she let him alone.

He was so humble of heart and so submissive towards everyone, that the governor of the city, observing the boy's virtues, was greatly attracted to him and engaged him to serve in his own house. He gave him fine clothes to wear, and for a few days the saint wore them, looking as if he were heavily burdened; then he divested himself and, giving the new clothing to beggars, went about in the old. On seeing this, the governor gave him other garments finer than the first. These likewise Theodosius gave away. And this happened several times. The governor then held the boy in even greater esteem, marvelling at his humility. After that blessed Theodosius went to a blacksmith and ordered iron chains with which he girded his loins, and went about wearing them. The tightly bound chains bit into his flesh, but he was at peace, as if he suffered no bodily pain. ⁷

After some time Theodosius heard the words of the holy Gospel "He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me." And again "Come to Me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you." And so, filled with devotion and with the love of Our Lord, the God-inspired youth cast about for the best way of escaping from his mother and finding a place where he might enter the religious life.

Now it was the will of God that his mother should go to the country at this time for a long visit. The saint rejoiced, prayed, and stole out of his home, taking with him nothing but the clothes he had on and enough food to sustain him. He went in the direction of Kiev, for he had heard that there were many monasteries in that city. Since he did not know the way, he asked God to send him fellow-travellers to guide him. It was the will of God that a company of merchants should be travelling along that road with their wagons heavily laden. Learning that they too were going to Kiev, the saint thanked God and followed them at a distance, unobserved. When they halted for the night, the saint also paused for rest. Still they did not notice him; God alone watched over him. After travelling in this manner for three weeks he reached the city of Kiev, where he went from one monastery to another begging the monks to admit him. ⁸ But, seeing before them a simple youth, poorly dressed, they were unwilling to accept him. This happened in accordance with the divine will, in order that Theodosius might finally be conducted to the place to which God had called him from his very childhood.

Hearing that blessed Anthony was living in a cave outside Kiev, Theodosius went eagerly to the hermit's dwelling. ⁹ When he saw Anthony, he wept and fell on his knees before him, begging for permission to remain in that place. The great Anthony replied, "My child, look about, and you shall see that this cave is dark and narrow. You are young and, I should think, unable to suffer such hardships." Venerable Anthony said this, not only because he wished to try the youth, but also because he prophetically foresaw that Theodosius would build a large cloister in place of this narrow cave and gather around him a great number of monks. The God-inspired Theodosius answered, with humble sincerity, "You know, most venerable father, that the all-seeing God has brought me to you because He desires my salvation. I will therefore obey you in all things." Then blessed Anthony said to him, "My child, glory be to God, Who has given you strength for such a vocation. This is the place; remain here with me." Theodosius fell once more onto his knees, and Anthony blessed him and ordered the great Nicon, who was an experienced monk and an ordained priest, to bestow the tonsure upon the youth. Nicon led Theodosius away, gave him the tonsure, and invested him with the monastic robe.

From that day on, our father Theodosius submitted himself completely to God and to venerable Anthony. He mortified his body, keeping vigils, singing the praises of God throughout the night in order to hold off the weight of sleep. He also observed abstinence from food with the help of manual work, recalling the words of the psalm I humbled my soul through fasting, and mortified my body through labor and penance." Venerable Anthony and the great Nicon were astonished at his humility and obedience, thinking that such great virtue was remarkable in one so young.

Meanwhile Theodosius' mother, having searched for him in vain in her own city and its vicinity, was weeping bitterly and beating her breast as if he were dead. A proclamation was issued offering a reward to anyone who should see the youth and let his mother know his whereabouts without delay. And so it was that some travellers from Kiev told the woman that four years earlier they had seen the boy in their city, and that he had then expressed the wish to receive the holy tonsure in a monastery. When she heard this, the mother hastened to Kiev, not minding the long journey, so intent was she upon finding her son. She inquired for Theodosius at all the monasteries, and at last she was told that he was living in the cave of venerable Anthony. So she went to the hermitage and introduced herself cleverly by asking to see the staretz. ¹⁰ "Tell the abbot that I beg him to come out and speak to me," she said, "for I have travelled a long distance to see him, to pay my respects to his holiness, and to receive his blessing."

When he was informed of her presence, Anthony emerged from the cave to speak to her, and she knelt before him. Then, as they sat down, she began to talk to him, touching upon a variety of matters. Finally she disclosed the true purpose of her visit. "I beg of you, father," she said, "tell me where my son is. For I am greatly distressed at not knowing whether he is alive." The staretz, who was a simple man, quite unaware of her mischievous intentions, said to her. "Your son is here. Do not grieve, for he is alive." And she asked, "How is it, then, that I do not see him? I have come a long way but to set eyes on my son and then to return home." The staretz answered, "If you wish to see him, retire for the present, and I shall try to persuade him; for as yet he wishes to see no one. Return tomorrow and you shall see your son." The woman obeyed and went away, hoping to see Theodosius on the following day.

Venerable Anthony gave blessed Theodosius a full account of the' occurrence, and the youth was greatly perturbed by the knowledge that he could no longer hide from his mother. The next day the woman returned, and the staretz tried to persuade her son to go out and see her, but he would not. Then the staretz said to her, "I have urged him to see you, but he is unwilling to do so." Thereupon the woman cried angrily, "The staretz has done me an injustice! He has taken my son away from me and hidden him in his cave. Bring him forth, staretz, so that I can look upon him. For I cannot live if I do not see him once more. I will put an end to my life with my own hands at this door." At this Anthony was exceedingly distressed. Returning to the cave, he implored blessed Theodosius to go to his mother.

In order not to disobey the staretz, Theodosius did so. When she saw her son and observed his worn appearance (for his labors and abstinence had produced a great change in his face), she burst into tears and embraced him. Then, somewhat appeased, she seated herself and began to remonstrate with God's servant in the following words: "My son, come home," she said, "and you shall be free to do all that is necessary for your salvation. Do not stay away from me any longer. When I am dead and you have buried me, you may return to this cave if you wish, but as long as I live, I cannot bear to be separated from you." The holy youth replied: "If you wish to see me every day, go to the city and take the holy tonsure in some women's convent; then you may come here to see me, and yet you will be gaining the salvation of your soul. Unless you do this, I say in earnest that you shall never see my face again!"

With these and many other words, the youth tried from day to day to prevail over his mother's determination, but she would not listen to him. After she had left him, the saint would go into the cave and pray fervently for his mother's salvation, asking that her heart might be inclined to obedience. God heard the prayer of His saint, and one day the woman returned and said to her son: "My child, I am ready to do as you have commanded; I shall not go back to my own city, but, if God is willing, I shall enter a women's convent, and, taking the tonsure, I shall spend the rest of my days there. Your teaching has brought me to the realization of the emptiness of this passing world."

When he heard this, the saint rejoiced in spirit and went to inform the great Anthony. The staretz praised God, Who had moved the woman's heart to repentance. He went out to speak to her and instructed her concerning many things for the good of her soul. Moreover, he put her case before the prince's wife and she was permitted to enter the women's convent of St. Nicholas. Here she took the tonsure and the habit, and after having lived many years in the true monastic spirit, she passed away peacefully.

Such is the life of our blessed father Theodosius from his childhood until the day when he entered the cave. His mother related all this to one of the brethren, Theodore by name, who was the cellarer of our father Theodosius. I heard this account from Theodore's own lips, and set it down, in order that all who read may remember his deeds.

From that time on, great numbers of people came to the Caves to receive the father's blessing; by the grace of God, some became monks. Then the great Nicon and another monk, who had belonged to the monastery of Saint Minas ¹¹ and had been a boyar before entering religion, left the Caves with one accord, in order to live apart from the community.

The great Nicon settled on the peninsula of Tmutarakan, ¹² where, in a pleasant place near the city, he founded a monastery; this community increased by the grace of God, living after the pattern of the Caves monastery. Euphrem the Eunuch also left the Caves; he went to Constantinople and retired there to a monastery, where he lived until the time when he was called back and appointed bishop of Pereyaslavl.

Blessed Theodosius was ordained to the priesthood according to the wish of blessed Anthony, and each day he celebrated the divine service with the deepest humility. He was simple, of a gentle and quiet disposition, but full of spiritual wisdom and a pure love for all his brethren. The latter had now reached the number of fifteen.

As for blessed Anthony, who was accustomed to living alone and wished to be undisturbed, he retired to one of the Caves' cells and appointed blessed Barlaam in his place. Later on, Anthony moved to another hill and dug himself a cave which he was never to leave, and in which his venerable body rests even to this day.

Blessed Barlaam built a small church consecrated to Our Lady over the Caves and ordered the brethren to assemble there for prayer. From that time on, the monastery could be seen by people in the surrounding countryside, whereas formerly they had scarcely known of the brethren living in the caves.

I shall now tell of the primitive life of these monks. God alone can measure the suffering they endured because of the narrow space to which they were confined in the eaves; human lips cannot describe it. They lived on rye bread and water. On Sundays and Saturdays they partook of a little boiled grain; sometimes, however, even such fare as this would be lacking, and they were satisfied with a small portion of cooked vegetables. They worked with their hands, weaving cowls and headgear for the brethren and plying other manual trades.

They sold the products of their labor in the town in order to purchase grain, and this was equally divided among the brethren. At night, each monk would grind his share of flour for the baking of loaves. In the early morning, they would sing Matins, then work in the vegetable garden. Afterwards, returning once more to church to praise God, they would sing the Hours and offer holy Mass; then they would eat a small portion of bread, and each brother would return to his occupation. Thus they lived and labored in the spirit of charity.

Our father Theodosius surpassed all the other monks in wisdom and obedience, and he undertook greater labors than the others, for he was strong and healthy in body. He would assist his brethren in carrying water and fire-wood from the nearby forest. At night, while the other monks took their rest, he would remain wakeful, praising God. Moreover, the saint would grind all the grain which had been divided among the monks, and would leave the flour in its proper places. Sometimes at night, mosquitoes and gad-flies would swarm to the mouth of the cave; then Theodosius would go forth, and, stripping himself to the waist, sit in the open, spinning wool and singing the psalms of David. ¹³ His body would be covered with blood drawn by the mosquitoes and flies which devoured it, but our father would sit there quietly until Matins. He entered the church before all the others, and never left his place, singing the divine praises with an untroubled mind. He was also the last to leave the church. Because of all these things, he was revered by the brethren, who loved him as a father, marvelling at his humility and obedience.

After some time, blessed Barlaam was ordered by the prince to leave the cave and was appointed abbot of the Monastery of Saint Demetrius the Martyr. The brethren living in the cave gathered together and informed blessed Anthony that they had named Theodosius abbot of the community. Even in the post of authority, our father Theodosius did not alter his rule or his humble way of life, for he kept in mind the words of our Lord: "Whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister." And so he humbled himself, and was the least of all, serving everyone and offering himself as an example. He was still the first to rise for work or for holy Mass. From that time on, the community grew and prospered, thanks to the prayers of the saint, for it has been said: "The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus."

As the number of the brothers increased, the community flourished in virtues, prayers and devout customs, so that many noblemen came to seek the brethren's blessing and bring them small offerings. In spite of this, our venerable father Theodosius, who was an earthly angel and a heavenly man, ¹⁴ was well aware that their dwelling was poor and crowded, and that the church was too small to contain the brethren. Nevertheless he was without anxiety. Each day he would comfort the monks, instructing them to disregard their bodily needs and reminding them of the words of our Lord: "Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink?" The saint himself kept these words in his mind, and God gave generously all that was required. Finding a clear space near the Caves, which he saw to be suitable for a building, Theodosius was enabled by the Grace of God to undertake the construction of a monastery. First, with the help of God, he built a church consecrated to our Holy and Most Glorious Lady. He encircled the church with a fence, and built a number of cells around it, and in the year 1062 he took his brethren to live in the new monastery. From that time on, the community prospered, and was widely known as the Caves Monastery.

After some time, Theodosius sent one of the brothers to Constantinople to visit Ephrem the Eunuch with the request that the Rule of the Studion Monastery should be copied and sent to Kiev. Ephrern complied with our venerable father's wishes. When he had received the Studite Rule, Theodosius ordered that it should be read to the assembled brethren, and from that time on the monastery was governed according to this rule, which is observed there even to this day.

All those who came to our father Theodosius with the intention of becoming monks were accepted by him, rich and poor, without distinction. He rejected no one, but received all kindly, for he remembered the ordeal which he had undergone in his youth, when he had left his own town and gone from one monastery to another but was admitted by none. Indeed, he well knew the suffering caused to a man who wishes to enter the religious life and is rejected, and that is why he admitted all gladly. However, he did not give the tonsure at once, but told the postulant to wear his ordinary attire until he had become accustomed to the life of the community. Then he would invest him with the monastic robe and test him in various services. Finally, he would give him the tonsure and the mantle. When the monk had been proved as to the purity of his life, he would be allowed to take the holy schema. ¹⁵

Every year during Lent, holy Theodosius would retire to the caves in which, after his death, his venerated body was to rest. He would remain secluded in this cave until the Friday of Passion Week, when he would return to the brethren at Vespers. Standing at the door of the church, he would speak words of instruction and encouragement, saying that he was unworthy of them since they had far surpassed him in fasting and mortification.

Like St. Anthony before him, our blessed father suffered the frequent and savage attacks of evil spirits, which even inflicted wounds on his body. ¹⁶ But God, Who had manifested Himself to Anthony in the course of such trials, infused into Theodosius the strength to conquer these adversaries. We cannot but marvel at the saint's fortitude. He was alone in the darkness of the cave; yet he had no fear of the hordes of demons which he could not see, but remained resolute and courageous, standing erect and calling our Lord Jesus Christ to his aid. And thanks to the power of Christ, he triumphed over the devils, so that they no longer dared come near him, but only sought to delude him at a distance.

When Theodosius rested after evening prayers, he would never lie down, but would seat himself on a chair, and when he had dozed for a while, he would rise to his feet again for night prayers and genuflections. One evening, when our father was resting, a great tumult arose in the caves, caused by a horde of demons. It sounded as if some of them were driving round in a carriage, while others played on tambourines and flutes; all together they made a hubbub that shook the caves to their very foundations. But father Theodosius remained untroubled and unafraid. He arose, made the sign of the cross and began to chant the psalms of David, and at once the noise subsided. But when his prayer was ended, and he had sat down, the voices of innumerable demons were heard once more. Again the saint rose to his feet and began to chant the psalms, and he continued until the demons were silenced. The evil spirits pursued him in this manner for many days and nights, hindering him from sleep, until at last, by the grace of Christ, he had conquered them and could exercise authority over them. From that day on they dared not come near the place where he was praying. However, they made mischief in the bakery where the brethren made their bread, scattering the flour, upsetting the yeast which had been prepared for the loaves, and carrying off many other attacks. When the head-baker informed Theodosius of these occurrences, the saint, confident that he had received from God power over these unclean spirits, locked himself in the bakery one night and remained closeted there, praying until morning. The devils never returned to the bakery, nor did they trouble the bakers further.

At night the great Theodosius was wont to make the round of the monks' cells, so that he might learn how each of the brethren spent his time. ¹⁷ When he could hear a monk praying in his cell, he would pause on his way to praise God. But if he should overhear two or three monks gathered together and engaged in conversation, he would tap on the door, and having thus apprised the brethren of his visit, he would withdraw. In the morning, he would call the culprits to his cell. Yet he would be in no haste to rebuke them; instead he would speak indirectly and in parables, waiting to see whether they were filled with divine fervor. If a brother's heart were light and ardent with the love of God, he would quickly bow his head and acknowledge his sin, asking his abbot's forgiveness. But if his heart were burdened with the devices of the Devil, he would listen without confusion to the abbot's admonitions, considering that they had reference to some other monk and holding himself blameless. Then the saint would rebuke him, and having imposed a penance, would let him go. Thus he taught them all to pray attentively, not to converse after evening service, not to go from one cell to another, but to remain each in his own cell. There the brother was to pray according to his ability and to occupy himself with manual work while chanting the psalms of David.

The saintly teacher himself accomplished what he taught to others. And they absorbed his words like earth thirsting for moisture and offered the fruits of their industry to God.

You could see these monks living like angels on earth. The monastery was like a heaven in which the good works of our father Theodosius shone more brightly than the sun. This was manifested in a supernatural manner to the abbot of the nearby monastery of St. Michael the Archangel. One night this religious, Sophronius by name, was returning to his own monastery. It was dark, but Sophronius saw a light diffused over our blessed father's monastery. This light was seen by many other witnesses, who often told of it.

The prince ¹⁸ and his boyars, hearing of the devout life of this community, visited blessed Theodosius, confessed their sins to him, and received great spiritual benefit. Thereupon they offered Theodosius part of their riches for the building of the church and for the accommodations of the monks, and even gave up some of their estates. Pious Prince Isiaslav in particular, who at that time sat on his father's throne, was deeply attached to the holy man and often sent for him; or else, he would himself visit the saint and return provided with spiritual food. From that time on, God granted the monastery an abundance of all good things through the prayers of His saint.

Our father Theodosius forbade the gate-keeper to open the gates to anyone after the noonday meal; no one might enter the monastery until Vespers, for during the afternoon the brethren rested before the night and morning prayers. One day at noon pious Prince Isiaslav came to the monastery with only a few attendants (for when he visited the saint, he was in the habit of dismissing his boyars and going to the monastery with but five or six servants to attend him). On this occasion, having reached the Caves, he dismounted (for he never rode into the monastery yard), and walking up to the gates, ordered the keeper to open them. The keeper replied that the great father had forbidden him to do so before Vespers. The pious prince said to him: "It is I, and to me alone you may open the gates." The keeper, not knowing that it was the prince who stood before him, answered: "I have already told you of our abbot's instructions: if the prince himself were to come here, I might not open the gates. If you wish, you may wait here a little, until Vespers." Then the visitor spoke again: "I am the prince, will you not open the gates for me?" The keeper looked out and recognized the prince; nevertheless he would not open the gates himself, but hurried to make Isiaslav's presence known to the saint.

The prince stood by the gates and waited patiently. Now in this experience he was like the senior Apostle, Peter; for when the latter, freed from prison by the angel, reached the house where the disciples were assembled and knocked at the door, the servant who peeped out and saw him was so filled with joy that she did not open the door, but ran first to inform the others. And this gate-keeper did the same thing.

The saint went to the gate, and seeing the prince, bowed to him. The prince said: "Father, what is this rule of which the keeper has told me, that forbids even the prince to enter?" The saint answered: "This rule, my good Lord, has been made in order that the brethren shall not leave the monastery at noon-time, but shall take the proper rest before the evening prayers. But your devotion to the home of our Lady is good and salutary, and we are well pleased with your coming here."

They entered the church, and when they had prayed, they sat down. The devout prince drank in the honeyed words which flowed from the lips of our reverend father Theodosius and returned home greatly comforted, praising God.

From that day on, the prince's love for Theodosius was even greater, for he looked upon him as one like the saints of old; and he did all that our father Theodosius commanded.

Upon the death of Rostislav, Prince of Tmutarakan, the citizens prevailed on Nicon to go to Prince Sviatoslav ¹⁹ and asked him to let his son take the succession of Rostislav's throne. On his way Nicon visited St. Theodosius; when they met, they fell at each other's feet; then, having embraced each other, they wept, for there had been no meeting between them for many years. St. Theodosius asked Nicon to remain with him as long as he lived. The great Nicon answered: I must first go for a little while to my monastery, in order to settle my affairs; then I shall return without delay." He kept his promise, gave all his possessions to the saint and was gladly subject to him.

Having related all that concerns these two, I shall now speak only of blessed Theodosius and of his good works. He was like a lamp enlightening all the monks. He shone by his humility, his obedience, his labors, all that he did. Each day he devoted himself to manual labor. He often worked in the bakery, side by side with the bakers; with a joyful spirit he would mix the dough and place the loaves in the oven - for, as we have said, he was strong and healthy in body. He would advise, encourage, and comfort anyone who was suffering, and was himself tireless in his undertakings.

One day, it being the eve of Our Lady's Feast, there was no water, and the above-mentioned Theodore, who was at that time cellarer (it was he who told me many things concerning Theodosius), informed the abbot that there was no one to fetch the water from the well. The saint rose at once and undertook the task. One of the brethren, observing this, hurried to inform the other monks, and they came running to assist their abbot. On another occasion, when no wood had been chopped for the kitchen, Theodore the cellarer went to blessed Theodosius and said to him, "Ordersome of these brothers who are idle to get wood ready for the fire." The saint answered, "I am idle, so I will do it." He told the brethren to go into the refectory, and he himself took a hatchet and started to chop wood. When dinner was over, the brethren leaving the refectory saw their venerable abbot still at work. Then each of them took a hatchet, and they chopped a quantity of wood that sufficed for many days. These are examples of our blessed spiritual father Theodosius' zeal.

He was animated by real humility and great gentleness; in everything he imitated Christ, our true God, Who said: "He that will be first among you shall be your servant." Contemplating Christ's humility, he humbled himself, putting himself in the lowest place as an example to the others. He was the first to begin his work; he entered the church before the rest of the community and was the last to leave it. Often, when the great Nicon was busy binding books, the saint would sit at his side and spin the thread needed for Nicon's work. No one ever saw him lying down or bathing. He wore a hair-shirt on his naked body, and over it a coat of coarse material, only to hide the hairshirt. Because of his attire, many foolish persons ridiculed him, and the saint accepted this ridicule joyfully, having always in mind the divine words in which he found comfort: "Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake; be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." Meditating on this, the saint suffered mockery and provocation patiently.

One day the great Theodosius visited pious Isiaslav on some matter of business. The prince lived at a great distance from the city. Theodosius remained with him until evening and Isiaslav ordered that the saint should be driven home in his coach, so that our father would be able to take some rest. During the journey the coachman, observing his poor clothes, decided that he must be a beggar, so he said to him: "Look here, monk, you are free every day to do as you please, while I must spend my life in toil. Let me lie down in the coach, and you ride the horse." The saint humbly stepped out and mounted the horse, and the coachman lay down in the coach. Theodosius rode on his way, rejoicing and praising God. When sleep overcame him, he would dismount and go on foot. And when he was weary with walking, he would mount the horse once more. When the sun rose, and the noblemen were on the way to the prince's palace, they recognized the saint from a distance, and they dismounted and bowed to him. The venerable monk then said to the coachman: "My child, it is light. Mount your horse." When the youth saw everyone bowing to the saint, he was filled with dismay and confusion. He rose to his feet and mounted the horse, and Theodosius re-entered the coach. All the boyars whom they met on their way paid their respects to our father, and the coachman's consternation increased. And great indeed was his terror when they arrived at the monastery and all the brethren hastened to greet Theodosius, bowing to the ground. "Who can this man be," the youth wondered, "who is worthy of such a reception?" Theodosius took the coachman by the hand and led him to the refectory and ordered that he should be given as much food and drink as he wished. Then he paid him money and let him go. Venerable Theodosius said nothing of what had occurred on their way, but the coachman himself related all this to the brethren. ²⁰

Our father Theodosius taught the brethren not to be vain about anything but to be humble monks; to regard themselves as of the least importance, not to be proud but to practise obedience towards everyone. "When walking," he said to them, "fold your arms across your breast. When you pass one another, bow humbly, as is proper for a monk. Do not wander from cell to cell, but each of you, pray in your own cell." Thus, and in many other words, he instructed the brethren. If he were informed that a monk was troubled by diabolical illusions, he would call him and test him in every fashion; he would exhort the monk firmly to resist the assaults of the devil, not to yield or weaken, or leave his place in the monastery, but to guard himself with prayer and fasting and appeal more frequently to God for help. He told the brethren that he himself had suffered these attacks in the beginning: "One day," he related, "as I was chanting the ordinary psalms, a black dog suddenly appeared before me and prevented me from making my genuflection. The dog remained for a long time before me, hindering me from prayer, and I was about to strike him when suddenly he vanished. Then I was seized with fear and trembling, so that I should have fled from that place had not God come to my assistance. When I had recollected myself, I began to pray diligently, with many genuflections. All fear left me, and from that time on such apparitions held no terrors for me." He told them many other things to fortify them against evil spirits. And when he let them return to their cells, they went away rejoicing and praising God for having given them such a good master.

The following events were described to me by a brother named Hilarion: "The evil spirits," he said, "played many wicked tricks on me. If I lay down on my couch, a multitude of devils would immediately appear, seize me by the hair, and drag and push me about. And others would pound the wall until it shook, saying: 'Let us crush him under this wall.' And they did this every night." Unable to endure these attacks any longer, Hilarion further related, he had gone to father Theodosius and described the occurrences to him, asking to be moved to another cell. The saint remonstrated with him in this manner: "No, brother, do not leave your cell, for then the devils would boast that they had defeated you and gained a victory; after this, they will persecute you even more, for they have acquired power over you. Fray to God diligently in your cell; when He sees your patience, He will grant you the victory over your enemies, so that they will not dare even to come near you." Hilarion said to Theodosius: I beseech you, father, I cannot live in that cell any longer, with such a crowd of devils inhabiting it." Then the saint made the sign of the cross on him and said: "Go, and stay in your cell; from now on, the evil spirits shall harass you no longer; you shall see no more of them." Hilarion trusted in the blessed father's words; he bowed before him, then returned to his cell. That night he lay down and slept peacefully. The devils thereafter dared not go near that place. Repulsed by the prayers of our father Theodosius, they departed hastily.

Here is another story told me by Hilarion. He was an able copyist of books, and every night he would write in the cell of our father Theodosius, while the saint recited psalms in his gentle voice and occupied himself with weaving or some other task. One evening, as they were working thus side by side, the steward entered and said: "I have no money to purchase food and other necessities for the brethren tomorrow." The saint answered: "It is evening, and tomorrow is still far away. Therefore, have patience and pray: will not God take pity on us and provide for our needs in the way He thinks best?" When he heard this, the steward withdrew. The saint retired and prayed, as he was in the habit of doing, then resumed his task. The steward returned, repeating what he had said before. The saint replied: "I told you, go and pray; tomorrow you shall go to the town and purchase all that the brethren need on credit; later, with the help of God, we shall repay our debt, since God has said: 'Be not solicitous for tomorrow! He will not abandon us."

As the steward went out, there entered a young man in shining armor. He bowed before our father, placed a gold coin on the table, and vanished without uttering a word. The saint picked up the gold coin and, with tears in his eyes, recited a mental prayer. Then he summoned the gate-keeper and asked him whether he had seen anyone enter the monastery that night. The gate-keeper swore that he had locked the gates before sunset and had not opened them since, so that no one could have entered. Then the saint called the steward, and placing the gold coin in his hand, said to him: "Brother Anastasius, now you shall complain no longer of having no money to buy food for the brethren. And tomorrow God will again provide for us." The steward bowed before our father, who went on to say: "Never despair, but be firm in your faith. Entrust your burden to God; He will provide for our needs. And since such is His pleasure, prepare a feast for our brethren." After this God generously sent Theodosius all that was needed for his blessed flock.

Venerable Theodosius prayed every night to obtain all these things, depriving himself of sleep, weeping and making genuflections. The monks had many intimations of this. For example, when it was time to wake him, the brethren would come to ask for his blessing, and on one occasion a certain monk stole up and stood at his door. He heard our father praying and weeping unrestrainedly and beating his head on the ground. The monk withdrew. Later he returned. This time the saint heard him approach, so he interrupted his prayers and pretended to be asleep. And when the monk knocked at his door, saying. "Give me your blessing, father," venerable Theodosius was silent until the call had been repeated three times. Only then, as if he were just awakening, did he answer, "May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you." And this, according to the brethren's testimony, occurred every night.

In the monastery lived a monk named Damian who was a priest. He zealously imitated the life and the humility of our blessed father. There were many witnesses to his holiness and obedience. One day, having fallen seriously ill, he was on the brink of death, and he began to pray: "My Lord Jesus Christ, allow me to share the glory of Thy saints, and to be a member of Thy kingdom. And do not separate me, I beseech Thee, my Lord, from my father and master, venerable Theodosius. Let me remain at his side in the world prepared for the just." He was praying in this manner when blessed Theodosius suddenly appeared, standing at his bedside. He leaned on Damian's breast, embraced him affectionately, and said: "My son, I have been sent to inform you that your prayer will be answered. You shall be with the saints in the kingdom of our heavenly Lord. When our Lord Jesus Christ orders me to be transferred from this world and to come to you, we shall not be separated, but shall remain together in the next world." When he had said this, the saint vanished from Damian's sight. Now the priest knew that this had been a vision, for he had not seen Theodosius enter through the door, and he had become invisible right where he stood.

Then Damian sent the brother who was caring for him to fetch Theodosius. When our father entered, Damian asked happily, "Father, shall it be as you promised just now, when you appeared to me?" The saint replied that he did not know of what promise Damian was speaking. Then the priest told him what he had seen and heard. The God-inspired Theodosius, smiling gently and weeping a little, said: "My son, it shall be as was promised by the angel who appeared to you in my image. As for me, how could such a sinner share in the glory prepared for the just?" But Damian rejoiced in the saint's promise. When the brethren gathered around his bed, he took leave of them all, and gave up his soul peacefully when the angels came to bear it away. Then the saint ordered that the bell should be tolled for all the other brethren to assemble, so that Damian's body might be buried with proper respect in the monks' cemetery.

When the brethren increased in number and many postulants came to join them, Theodosius was compelled to enlarge the monastery, building many other cells. With the assistance of his monks, he fenced in the monastery court with his own hands. But one dark night before the fence was completed, robbers entered the premises. They did not approach the cells, but hastened to the church in the belief that it contained many precious articles. From within came the sound of singing, and the robbers, thinking that the brethren were chanting Vespers, withdrew. When they had waited for a time in the woods, they said to each other that the prayers must by this time be ended, so they returned to the church. Once more they heard the sound of chanting; they also saw a strange light in the church and could smell the odor of incense. Now it was angels that were singing, but the robbers thought that the monks were chanting the midnight service, and they withdrew once more, with the firm intention of breaking into the church and plundering it as soon as the service should be over. They approached the church many times in this manner, and each time they heard the singing.

When the hour of Matins came, and the sexton began to summon the monks to prayer, the robbers hid in the wood, saying to each other: "What shall we do? We must have been hearing ghosts. But when all the brethren have gathered in the church, we shall break in, lock the doors, murder the monks and take away their riches." Now this plan was inspired by the enemy, who desired the death of the holy flock; but his design miscarried, and he himself suffered defeat through God's intervention and the prayers of blessed Theodosius.

As the venerable flock gathered about their blessed teacher Theodosius in the church began to chant the holy morning psalms, the cruel robbers, pausing only for a moment, bore down upon the church like a pack of wild beasts. But just at that moment a miraculous event took place. The church rose into the air, out of reach of the attackers. Those who were assembled in the church with the saint were unaware of this, but the robbers fled in panic, vowing that never again would they harm anyone. Their leader went to Theodosius in repentance and described the occurrence to him. The saint thanked God for His protection of the monastery and for the opportunity He had given the thieves to save their souls.

When the boyars visited the monastery, the saint, after having given them spiritual instruction, would offer them a meal from the Caves' victuals, such as boiled grain, bread, and fish. Pious Prince Isiaslav himself often shared these meals. One day when he was in high spirits, the prince said to the saint: "Father, you know that my house is full of all kinds of worldly riches; but I have never eaten better food than this. Often my servants prepare a variety of expensive foods, but their dishes are not so palatable as these. Tell me, father, I beg of you, why is your food so delicious?" Our God-inspired Theodosius, wishing to incline the prince's heart to the love of God, answered: "My good Lord, I shall tell you the reason if you want to know it.

When the brethren of the Caves are about to cook food or bake bread, one of them first of all asks for the abbot's blessing. Then he bows three times before the holy altar and lights a candle from the altar-lamp, and with this he kindles the fire in the oven. When a monk fills the kettle with water, he says to the senior-brother: 'Father, give me your blessing,' and the seniorbrother answers: 'May God bless you, brother.' And so it is with everything that is done in the community. Now take your servants. They quarrel among themselves while they are preparing the food. They complain and lie about each other, and often the stewards beat them. Therefore their work is done in a sinful manner." When he heard this, pious Prince Isiaslav exclaimed: "Indeed, father, it is as you say!"

Our venerable father Theodosius, truly filled with the Holy Ghost, multiplied the talents which God had given him. He drew great numbers of monks to this once desolate land and made his monastery famous; yet he was never willing to put away reserves, for he felt that it was better to be fortified by faith and hope in God than to put one's trust in property. When he visited the cells of the brethren and found food or clothing in a greater quantity than was allowed by the rule, he would cast these into the fire as the devil's portion acquired through disobedience. He would say to the brothers: "It is wrong for us, who are monks and have renounced the world, to collect property in our cells. How can a monk offer God a pure prayer if he has hidden possessions? Are you deaf to the words of Our Lord: 'For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also' and 'Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided'? Therefore, brothers, let us be satisfied with such clothes and food as we receive from the cellarer according to the rule; let us keep nothing in our cell, so that we may pray to God with our whole heart and mind."

In this way Theodosius taught his brothers, giving them many other instructions with tears and in great humility. He never gave way to anger, but was gentle and merciful and charitable towards everyone. If one of the holy flock weakened in his faith and left the monastery, the saint would be deeply grieved and would pray for the return of the lost sheep. And when the brother returned, the saint would joyfully teach him how to resist the wiles of the enemy-not to let him come near but to stand firmly. He said that only a cowardly soul allows itself to be weakened by these contemptible devices. And when he had instructed and comforted the returning brother, Theodosius would send him back to his cell in peace.

A certain brother in the community often left the Caves, and each time he returned, the saint received him, saying that God would not allow him to die outside the monastery. Theodosius prayed with tears for this brother, begging God to be patient with him. One day the vagrant monk returned for still another time and asked our blessed father to take him in. And Theodosius, who was full of true charity, welcomed the brother as he had done on previous occasions. Then the monk brought the few possessions he had and laid them before the venerable father. Theodosius said to him: "If you would become a perfect monk, consider these objects as the fruit of disobedience and throw them into the fire." The monk, who had ardent faith, did as he was told. Thus his property was burned, and from that time on he stayed in the Caves and died there peacefully, according to our father's prediction. Such was the love which the saint bore his flock; he cared for them as the good shepherd tends his sheep, comforted them, instructed and nourished them spiritually, directing them towards divine wisdom and thus guiding them to the kingdom of heaven.

So intense was our father Theodosius' charity that if he saw a beggar or a miserable and poorly dressed person, he would weep with compassion as he gave him alms. He built a church dedicated to St. Stephen, with a courtyard on the monastery grounds, and here he gathered together the beggars, the blind, the lame and the sick. He fed them from the monastery kitchen and gave them a tenth of all he had. Moreover, each Saturday, he would send a cartload of bread to the prisoners in jail.

At one time a feud was inspired by the evil one between three princes who were brothers. The two younger rose against their elder brother, pious Isiaslav, and drove him out of the capital. ²¹ When the brothers entered the city, they sent for blessed father Theodosius, asking him to dine with them and to take part in their iniquitous council. Theodosius, who had heard of the unjust treatment accorded to Isiaslav, was inspired by the Holy Ghost to answer in the words of Scripture: I shall not go to the feast of Jezebel or taste the fruit of murder and injustice." Adding many other words of reproach to his reply, the saint sent the messenger back to the princes. They listened to his message without any expression of anger, for they considered our venerable father to be a man of God. Nevertheless they refused to be influenced by him and continued to persecute their brother; Sviatoslav, Prince of Chernigov, ascended the throne of his brother Isiaslav, while the other, Vsevolod, returned to his own princedom of Pereyaslavl. Then our father Theodosius, inspired by the Holy Ghost, began to rebuke Sviatoslav for having usurped his brother's throne and driven him out of his kingdom. Sometimes the saint would reproach Sviatoslav by letter and sometimes by word of mouth, addressing himself to the noblemen who visited the Caves and telling them to repeat his words to Sviatoslav. Eventually he wrote him a long letter, charging him in the following words: "Your brother's blood cries out to God against you, as that of Abel against Cain." He cited the acts of the persecutors and fratricides of antiquity and quoted many parables reflecting the prince's behavior.

When he read this Sviatoslav was enraged. Roaring like a lion, he flung the letter on the ground. The rumor then arose that the saint would be condemned to exile, and the brethren, greatly alarmed, implored our father to desist from his accusations. Many boyars came to the monastery, warning Theodosius of the prince's wrath and begging him to offer no further resistance. They said: "The prince intends to send you into exile." Blessed Theodosius answered: "Brothers, I am filled with joy; for indeed, nothing could be better for me in this life. What have I to fear? the loss of riches or property? separation from country or children? We have brought nothing of the sort into this world. We were born naked, and we must leave this world naked. Therefore, I am prepared for exile and death." From that time on, he began to charge Sviatoslav even more boldly with the hatred he bore his brother, for he earnestly desired exile.

Though the prince was very much provoked against the saint, he nevertheless dared not do him any injury, for he was aware that Theodosius was a highly respected and just man, and he even envied his brother for having so great a religious in his realm. (This was admitted by the prince himself, and later repeated by the monk Paul, former abbot of a nearby monastery.) Our blessed father Theodosius, influenced at last by the solicitations of his brethren and the boyars, and himself convinced that his words were having no effect on the new ruler, ceased to rebuke him, deciding that it would be better to plead with him to bring his brother back. After a few days the prince learned, to his joy, that Theodosius was no longer implacably opposed to him. Since he had for long desired to take counsel with Theodosius concerning spiritual matters, he now sent a messenger asking the saint whether he might visit the Caves. As soon as Theodosius had given his permission, the prince went joyfully to the monastery, accompanied by his boyars.

The great Theodosius, according to his custom, went forth from the church followed by his brethren to meet the prince, and bowed before him in due courtesy. The prince greeted the saint and said to him: "Father, I have not dared to visit you before, for I feared that in your anger you would refuse me admittance." The saint answered: "Good prince, what effect can our anger have upon your power? It is our duty to rebuke you and to say whatever has a bearing upon the salvation of your soul, and it is your duty to listen." After this they entered the church, and having prayed, were seated. The saint began to speak, quoting the holy Scriptures and instructing the prince as to the love which he should have for his brother. But Sviatoslav put all the blame on Isiaslav, and he was therefore reluctant to make peace with him. After a prolonged conversation, the prince returned to his home, thanking God for giving him the opportunity of speaking with such a man. From that time on he often visited the saint to listen to his words, which were sweeter than honey. The great Theodosius also visited Sviatoslav frequently and reminded him of God's justice and of the love he owed his brother.

One day Theodosius entered Sviatoslav's palace and found many musicians assembled, as was the custom, to entertain the prince. Some of them were playing on the lute, others on the organ and other instruments. The saint seated himself at Sviatoslav's side, his eyes fixed on the ground. Then, raising his head, he said to the prince: "Will this be your lot in the next world?" The prince, moved by these words, wept a little and ordered the musicians to stop playing. From that day on, each time the saint entered while they were playing, Sviatoslav told them to be still. ²²

Often, when informed of our father's arrival, the prince would go eagerly to meet him at the door, and they would enter the palace side by side. One day, when he was in high spirits, Sviatoslav said to Theodosius: "If I were told that my own father had risen from the dead, truly I should not rejoice as much as I do when you visit me. Nor should I be as much afraid of him as I am of your holiness." The saint answered: "If you are as much afraid of me as you say, then fulfill my wish. Put your brother back on the throne that his good father gave him." The prince, having no answer for this, said nothing. The enemy had filled him with such resentment towards his brother that he would not even hear of him. But venerable Theodosius prayed night and day for the pious Isiaslav. He gave instructions that his name should be mentioned in the litanies as prince of Kiev and the senior of the brothers: but as for Sviatoslav, he forbade his name to be remembered in the monastery. Only later, owing to the brethren's entreaties, did he permit Sviatoslav's name to be restored in the prayers of the church, and then it might be mentioned only after that of Isiaslav.

Observing this feud between the princes, the great Nicon retired with two other monks to the aforementioned peninsula, where he founded a monastery. Although blessed Theodosius urged him not to leave, but to abide with him as long as he lived, Nicon would not be persuaded.

Many people found fault with Theodosius, but he accepted their reproaches joyfully; often he suffered rebukes and vexations from his own disciples, but he prayed to God for all. Moreover, he was not disturbed when ignorant folk ridiculed him because of his poor clothes, but rejoiced and praised God. Because of his dress, many people failed to recognize him as the abbot but rather mistook him for one of the cooks. One day, as he was on his way to the workers who were building the church, he met a poor widow who had been ill-treated by a judge. She said: "Monk, where is your abbot?" Theodosius answered: "What do you want of him? He is a sinner." The woman said: "I do not know whether he is a sinner, but I do know that he has rescued many people from sorrow and misery. Therefore, I too have come to look for him, so that he may help me." The saint, when he learned of her plight, took pity on her and said: "Woman, return to your home. When I see the abbot, I shall tell him about you, and he will help you." And when the woman had obediently departed, the saint went to the judge, spoke in her defense and saved her from the injustice which was impending.

Theodosius often intervened with the judges and the princes, and he alleviated many a misfortune, because no one dared to disobey him, his justice and holiness were so well known. He was respected, not because of fine clothes or rich estates, but for his radiant life and purity of spirit, and for his teachings, fired with the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. To him the goatskin and the hair-shirt were more precious than a king's purple robe, and he was proud to wear them.

When Theodosius had reached the end of his life, he learned beforehand from God the day he would go to rest (for death is repose for the just). He ordered all the brothers who were working in the fields, or were absent for some other reason, to be called back to the Caves. When they were gathered together, he instructed the bailiffs, the stewards and the servants to fulfill their tasks with industry and fear of God, in obedience and charity. Weeping, he gave instructions to them all concerning their salvation and the way of life that was pleasing to God -fasting, attendance in church and reverent behavior on its premises, brotherly love and obedience. He told them to love and obey not only their seniors, but also their equals. When he had said these things, he let them go.

After that his illness became more acute, and a burning fever drained all strength from his limbs. He lay down on his couch and said: "Thy will be done. Whatever God wills shall be done to me. But I pray Thee, O my Lord, have mercy on my soul, that it may not encounter the malice of Thy enemies, but that Thy angels may receive it and lead it through the trials of the darkness after death towards the light of Thy mercy." After this he was silent.

There was great sorrowing among the brethren. For three days, he could not speak or even raise his eyes; and many believed he was dead, although there were faint indications that his soul was still within him. But on the third day he raised himself, and when all the brethren had gathered, he said to them: "My brothers and fathers, I know that my time is drawing to an end, for it was revealed to me by God during my Lenten retreat in the cave. As for you, consult with each other, whom you wish me to appoint abbot as my successor." When they heard this, the brethren were once more plunged into grief. Withdrawing from his presence, they held a consultation and nominated Stephen, the choirmaster, as their future abbot. The next day blessed Theodosius called the brethren to his bedside and asked them: "What have you decided, my children? Whom do you think worthy of being your abbot?" The brethren told him Stephen, ²³ and our father blessed him and ordered him to be abbot. And he told all the brethren to obey Stephen and dismissed them. But before he let them go, he foretold the day of his death, saying: "On Saturday, as the run rises, my soul will be separated from my body." Then calling back Stephen alone to his bedside, he advised him with regard to the care of the flock. Stephen stayed by the saint and nursed him, for our father was now severely ill.

On Saturday at dawn, the saint sent for all the brethren and embraced each of them in turn. They wept and groaned at the thought that they were to be separated from such a pastor and teacher. The saint said to them: "My beloved children and brethren, I embrace you because I am leaving you to go to our Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the abbot you have chosen. Obey him as your spiritual father; fear him and fulfill all his commissions. God, who has created all things by His will and in His wisdom, will bless you and protect you against the enemy's devices and all misfortune, and will preserve your faith in all its firmness, unity and love until your last breath. Moreover, He will grant you the grace to work for Him without sinning and to form one spirit of love and obedience. Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. May God be with you. I entreat you all to bury me in the clothes which I am now wearing and to lay me in the cave where I spent the days of Lent. Do not wash my miserable body. Let no one see me; you alone bury me in the place I have chosen."

And as the brethren wept, he spoke again, to comfort them: "I promise you, brothers and fathers, that though I am leaving you in body, my spirit shall always be with you. Those of you who die in the monastery or at some other place where they are sent by the abbot, I shall answer for before God, even if they sin. But as for a man who leaves the Caves of his own free will, I shall have no concern with him. You know my daring before God. If you see all the goods of this monastery multiplied, you will know that I am close to our divine Lord. And if you see poverty and decrease of good, you will know that I am far from God and dare not ask Him for anything." ²⁴

After these words Theodosius sent all the brethren away, not allowing a single one to remain with him. But one of the brethren who had been his servant made a chink in the door and looked through it. The saint had risen and was kneeling, his face pressed to the floor, praying with tears for God's mercy upon his soul and calling all the saints to his aid, in particular our Blessed Lady. He appealed through her to our Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of his flock and his monastery. Then he went back to his couch, and when he had rested for a while, he raised his eyes, and with a radiant face spoke in a strange voice: "Blessed be God! If it is so, I need have no more fear, but may leave this world joyfully."

He said this, apparently having had a vision. Then, having straightened his habit, stretched out his limbs and crossed his hands on his breast, he gave up his holy soul to God and was united with the holy fathers.

Our blessed father Theodosius died in 6582 (1074) on Saturday, the third day of May, as he had predicted.

Beloved, what did we bring into this world, or what have we to take out of it? Did we not leave the world and worldly things according to the commandment of Christ, Who said, "Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple"; and again, "If anyone love me, he will keep my word"? Love of God is expressed not in words but in actions. For He said: "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you." And "In this," He said, "is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit, and become my disciples."

Is it not of itself astonishing, beloved, that God can be glorified by works of ours - and what love He pours out upon us, wretches that we are: "As the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you... Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends"; and, "You are my friends." What then should we, miserable men, be like? Does not our heart burn, hearing these words? ... What good did we do to Him, that he has chosen us and rescued us from this transient life? For have not we all gone astray and became useless in His work, following our lusts? Yet He did not despise us in such an evil condition; he did not abhor our nature, but having taken the form of a slave, became like us. And all this He did that we may be saved...

Sergius is undoubtedly the most popular and beloved of the saints of Russia and is considered her patron. He became the patron of the principality of Moscow in the fifteenth century, when it began to conquer and unite under its rule the whole of Great Russia, and the extension of his cult soon after his death (1392), is partially explained by the services which he had rendered as a counsellor and adviser (and not in spiritual matters alone) to the Russian princes and as the faithful supporter of Moscow's princely line.

St. Sergius' spirituality gives the most perfect expression to the Russian kenotic ideal, but in him is found a mystical deepening of the spirituality for which St. Theodosius had established the pattern. St. Sergius was one of the most prominent exponents of a new form of Russian monasticism. All the cloisters of the pre-Mongolian era of which there is a record were situated in towns, or in the outskirts of towns, and were in close relation with the world for which they provided spiritual and cultural centers. The Tartar invasion (1237-40) laid waste to most of the old communities and produced great disorders in the religious and moral life of Russian society. Only in the fourteenth century did the nation begin gradually to recover from the spiritual inertia resulting from the continual devastations of the invaders, but now the leaders of the great monastic revival were hermits, who had taken refuge in the virgin forests of northern Russia, where they lived a life of prayer and contemplation. At first there were the huts and chapels of solitary men of prayer, but disciples soon gathered about, and eventually communities which throve economically and spiritually arose in the wilderness. Nevertheless the new spirit of silence and contemplation did not die out but penetrated deeper into the wilderness as sanctuaries more remote from society were sought by contemplatives desiring to live in solitude.

For St. Sergius years of solitary prayer in which he underwent severe spiritual conflicts with the forces of evil and the temptations of the flesh preceded the founding of the famous monastery of the Holy Trinity. The career of S Sergius as monk and abbot has many features in common with that of Theodosius, and in some respects is closely parallel to it. Like that of St. Theodosius his asceticism emphasizes labor, self-deprivation, and patience rather than painful corporal penances. There is the coarse and patched clothing, the lack of exterior authority, and the self-humiliation in the presence of subordinates and persons of humble condition. Sergius seems even to have surpassed his spiritual ancestor in the practice of kenotic humility, judging by several incidents recorded of him. First there is his manual labor; he cultivates the soil of the wilderness, works as a carpenter, building first cells and then the chapel, and at the height of his national fame he is still employed in tending the kitchen garden. Although of noble origin, he is not to be distinguished from a peasant in his life as a religious. His meekness likewise is even more astonishing than that of the Kievan saint: he, the abbot, is engaged by one of his monks to build a cell and is recompensed for his services by a few mildewed loaves. And when he encounters disobedience on the part of his own brother, he leaves the monastery for a period of four years rather than enforce his authority. Like Theodosius he receives a rule for the cenobitical life from Greece and tries to establish it in the monastery, but he is even less capable than Theodosius of preserving order through severe discipline.

Yet in his interior life, in the quality of his prayer, Sergius belongs to another epoch than does Theodosius; he is the first Russian saint in whom mysticism is observed. That he was a mystic is a matter of inference: his biographer, Epiphanius, famous among his contemporaries for the elegance of his style, evidences no knowledge or understanding of this kind of prayer, which had but lately shown itself in Russia, but the visions of the saint which he describes are of a mystical character. Sergius is the earliest saint in Russian hagiography to be favored by heavenly visions in his contemplation; such graces were likewise conferred on a few of his disciples belonging to the same contemplative school. The best known is the vision of Our Lady; others are those of light and fire, often in connection with the Holy Eucharist: Sergius is assisted in the celebration of the Mass by an angel, and fire descends into the chalice after the consecration. Fire also darts forth from his hands when he blesses one of his disciples, the mystic Isaac.

St. Sergius dedicated his monastery to the Holy Trinity-- a rather unusual dedication at that time; he was himself believed to have been dedicated to the Holy Trinity before his birth. Considering the primitive stage which theological thought had reached in medieval Russia, this was in the nature of mystical revelation. He was moreover contemporary with the exponents of the great movement of Greek mysticism known as Hesychasm. Intercourse between Moscow and Constantinople was not then infrequent: Sergius himself received a letter from the Patriarch; one of his disciples had been at Mount Athos for a time, and some of the manuscripts in the latter's handwriting, which include ascetical and mystical treatises by writers of the Hesychast school (Simeon the New Theologian, Gregory of Sinai, and others), are preserved. All these factors, added to the characteristic love of solitude and the celestial visions, make it extremely probable that Sergius practised mystical prayer.

But Sergius' mysticism did not cause him to decline the responsibility of service to the world. In the best tradition of Theodosius he comforted, healed, protected the oppressed. He found nothing abhorrent in political activity, but whereas Theodosius had found it necessary only to insist upon justice in political relations, the demands upon a churchman in Sergius' day entailed other and more dangerous functions. In Theodosius' time the state had been strong enough to defend itself from aggression by secular arms, but Sergius saw Russia prostrate under a foreign yoke. A national movement of resistance under the leadership of Moscow now arose, and Sergius had to give his blessing to Prince Demetrius of Moscow for open military resistance. The first Russian victory over the Tartars (in the battle of Kulikovo, 1380) raised Sergius to the eminence of a national hero, a builder of Muscovy. This was not the only instance of his intervention in the political sphere; sometimes he took part in diplomatic parleys, reconciling enemies, or even threatening the recalcitrant with the ecclesiastical interdict. In this capacity he acted, most probably, in obedience to the great statesman Metropolitan Alexis of Moscow, who was for several decades a regent in the government of the state.

Modern historians may well differ in their evaluation of the political function which these churchmen exercised: the greatness of the future Muscovite state was its fruit. In the days of St. Sergius that close union of Church and State in Russia, which is one of the chief characteristics of Russia's subsequent life as a nation, had its origin. In its development this ecclesiastical policy stands in drastic contradiction to the kenotic ideals of ancient times. St. Sergius, yielding to new historical forces, could see only the blessings attendant upon a strong union of Church and State, not the potentiality for evil likewise inherent in such a government.

By Epiphanius the Wise ¹

Our holy father Sergius was born ² of noble, orthodox, devout parents. His father was named Cyril and his mother Mary. They found favour with God; they were honourable in the sight of God and man, and abounded in those virtues which are well-pleasing unto God.

Cyril had three sons, Stephen, Bartholomew and Peter, whom he brought up in strict piety and purity. Stephen and Peter quickly learnt to read and write, but the second boy did not so easily learn to write, and worked slowly and inattentively; his master taught him with care but the boy could not put his mind to his studies, nor understand, nor do the same as his companions who were studying with him. As a result he suffered from the many reproaches of his parents, and still more from the punishments of his teacher and the ridicule of his companions. The boy often prayed to God in secret and with many tears: "O Lord, give me understanding of this learning. Teach me, Lord, enlighten and instruct me." His reverence for God prompted him to pray that he might receive knowledge from God and not from men.

One day his father sent him to seek for a lost foal. On his way he met a monk, a venerable elder, a stranger, a priest, with the appearance of an angel. This stranger was standing beneath an oak tree, praying devoutly and with much shedding of tears. The boy, seeing him, humbly made a low obeisance, and awaited the end of his prayers.

The venerable m