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Saint Antony and Saint Theodosius

St. Antony Pechersky (983 - 1073)  Born at Lubech, Ukraine, he became a hermit but decided he needed to be educated for that life and went to Mount Athos, where he became a hermit attached to the monastery of Esphigmenou.  After several years there, he returned to Ukraine and built a hermitage at Kiev on the Dnieper River.  His wisdom and holiness attracted others seeking the eremitical life, and from these beginnings grew the Caves of Kiev (Kiev-Pecherkaya Laura), the first Ukrainian Monastery established by Ukrainian monks for Ukrainians, on land granted him by Prince Syaslav.  Antony established another monastery at Chernigov but returned to his cave at the Pecherskaya Laura and lived there the rest of his life.  With Theodosius Pechersky, he is considered the father of Ukrainian Monasticism.  July 10.

See also http://www.roca.org/OA/78/78g.htm

St. Theodosius (d. 1074)  The sone of well-to-do parents, he abandoned their easy way of life, despite their opposition, labored in the fields with the serfs, apprenticed himself to a baker, and in about 1032 became a monk at the Caves of Kiev, founded by Antony Pechersky.  Theodosius succeeded Bariaam as abbot and replaced the founding Antony’s concept of monasticism based on the drastic austerities of the Egyptian hermits with the more moderate approach of the Palestinian monks, stressed the need for corporal work as well as prayer and mortifications, urged common sense rather than fanatical austerities and penances in their religious life, recommended that his monks participate in seculare affairs, and emphasized a harmony between the active and the contemplative life.  He expanded the number of buildings at the monastery, established a hospital and a hostel, and with his monks evangelized Kiev.  He took part in secular affairs to help and defend the poor, and bitterly denounced Svyastoslav for driving his brother from the throne of Kiev, comparing him to Cain.  During the four decades of his abbacky, Theodosius developed the Caves of Kiev into a great monastery, which marked the real beginning of Ukrainian monasticism.  His directions to the monks of the Caves of Kiev were to endure for generations.  He died in one of the caves of the original monastery, and was canonized by the bishops of Kiev in 1108.  With Antony Pechersky, he is the founder of Ukrainian monasticism.

See also http://www.roca.org/OA/78/78g.htm



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