04 — Founding the Lavra
How the scattered cells dug into the Berestov hillside became an organized monastery: the growth of the brotherhood beyond the cave-warren, the petition to Grand Prince Izyaslav for the hill above, the raising of the first wooden Dormition (Uspensky) church, and the paradoxical role of the founder, who governed the new community chiefly by withdrawing from it. The grand title Lavra belongs to a later age; in St. Anthony’s own lifetime (c. 983–1073) the place was simply the Caves Monastery (Pecherskyi monastyr’), and these files keep to that distinction.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Kievan; father of Russian monasticism)
The two preceding sections followed St. Anthony from his tonsure on Mount Athos and his return to Rus’ into the cave on the Berestov hill, where a handful of men gathered around him for the eremitic life. This section treats the next, decisive turn: the moment at which a cluster of hermits living in adjacent burrows became a monastery in the institutional sense — with a defined site, a church, an abbot, and eventually a written rule. The narrative spine is supplied by the Povest’ vremennykh let (the Primary Chronicle or Tale of Bygone Years), whose entries under the years 1051 and 1074 preserve the earliest connected account of the foundation, and by the later, more elaborate Kiev Caves Paterik, which must be read against the Chronicle with care.
A word on the name is owed at the outset. The Kiev Caves house was raised to the dignity of a lavra — the senior rank of Eastern Orthodox monastery — only centuries after Anthony’s death; the Pechersk monastery is commonly said to have borne the title from 1598, and it is the Kievo-Pecherska Lavra of modern usage. To speak of Anthony “founding the Lavra” is therefore a convenience of hindsight. In his lifetime the foundation was the Caves Monastery, and that is how the sources of his own century describe it. The two files below trace the institution’s birth and the founder’s characteristic recession from its governance.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| From Hermitage to Monastery | The brotherhood’s growth past the cave-cells; the move to the surface; Anthony’s petition to Grand Prince Izyaslav for the hill above the caves; the building of the first wooden Dormition (Uspensky) church and the surface cells; the transition from a loose company of hermits to an organized monastery, as narrated in the PVL s.a. 1051 and 1074. |
| Anthony’s Withdrawal | Anthony’s characteristic stepping back into deeper seclusion: his appointment of Varlaam as the first abbot, his withdrawal to dig a fresh cave (the Near Caves), and the later abbacy of Theodosius, who introduced the Studite cenobitic rule. The founder’s refusal of administration is treated as a theme in its own right — the hermit who governs by departing. |
See Also
- The Gathering of Brethren — the cave community that preceded the surface monastery
- The Two Founders — how tradition came to speak of Anthony and Theodosius together
- The Eremitic vs. Cenobitic Question — the rule that Theodosius brought to the house Anthony founded
- The Primary Chronicle Account — the PVL entries that underlie this section
- St. Theodosius of the Kiev Caves — the co-founder and organizer of the cenobium
- Russian Monasticism — the monastic tradition the Caves house inaugurated
References
- The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text (Povest’ vremennykh let). Trans. and ed. Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953. (Entries s.a. 1051 and 1074 on the foundation of the Caves Monastery.)
- The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery. Trans. Muriel Heppell. Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, English Translations, vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
- Nestor. The Life of Our Holy Father Theodosius, Abbot of the Caves. In The Hagiography of Kievan Rus’, trans. Paul Hollingsworth. Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, English Translations, vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
- Fedotov, G. P. The Russian Religious Mind, vol. 1: Kievan Christianity, the Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946.
- Franklin, Simon, and Jonathan Shepard. The Emergence of Rus 750–1200. London and New York: Longman, 1996.