03 — Abbot of the Caves
How Theodosius came to govern the Kievan Caves community and what he made of it: chosen hegumen around 1062 in succession to Anthony (who withdrew into solitude) and Varlaam (the first appointed superior, moved by Prince Izyaslav to the new monastery of St. Demetrius), he grew the brotherhood from a handful of cave-dwellers to about a hundred monks, led them up out of the underground galleries into a built coenobium of church, refectory, and cells, organized the monastic offices, secured the patronage of the princes, and laid the foundation of the great Dormition cathedral that would be completed after his death.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Kievan; father of Russian cenobitic monasticism)
This section covers the heart of Theodosius’s public work: his abbacy. It is built on the two earliest and best sources for his life — the Life of Theodosius written by the monk Nestor within roughly a generation of his death, and the retrospective notices of the Russian Primary Chronicle — supplemented for the building of the monastery by the later Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery. The two files distinguish carefully between what these sources establish securely (the succession of superiors, the growth of the community, the move above ground, the foundation of the Dormition cathedral under Prince Svyatoslav around 1073 and its consecration in 1089) and what they transmit as hagiography and legend (Nestor’s edifying scenes of the abbot’s labor and humility, and above all the Paterik‘s marvelous cycle of the cathedral’s miraculous founding — the Greek master-builders sent by the Mother of God, the golden measuring-belt, the relics in the foundations). The legends are reported as the sources’ own tradition, never as historical fact (METHODOLOGY §3.5), while the datable facts are stated with their citations and the genuinely contested dates are marked.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Election as Hegumen | The succession by which Theodosius became abbot c. 1062 — Anthony’s withdrawal into solitude, Varlaam’s first superiorship and his transfer by Izyaslav to the monastery of St. Demetrius, and the brethren’s choice of Theodosius on the testimony of his obedience; the growth of the community to about a hundred monks; and Nestor’s portrait of his leadership through manual labor, poor clothing, humility, and a firm hold on the common rule. |
| Building the Monastery | The physical and institutional building-up of the monastery: the move from the cramped caves to buildings above ground, the wooden Dormition church, the refectory, the enlargement of cells, the organization of offices (cellarer and others), Prince Svyatoslav’s grant of land, and the laying of the foundation of the great stone Dormition (Uspensky) cathedral c. 1073 — completed and consecrated after Theodosius’s death — with the Paterik’s legendary account of its founding flagged as legend. |
See Also
- Coming to Anthony — Theodosius’s arrival at the caves and tonsure, the years before the abbacy
- Introducing the Studite Typikon — the cenobitic rule Theodosius gave the now-populous community
- The Shape of Cenobitic Life — the common life into which the brotherhood was ordered
- The Paterik Portrait — Nestor’s Life and the Paterik as the sources behind this section
- Care for the Poor and Prisoners — Theodosius and the princes, including his patron and adversary Svyatoslav
- Canonization and Relics — the caves as relic-galleries after the move above ground
- Russian Monasticism — the tradition of which the Caves abbacy is the fountainhead
- Monasticism — the cenobitic ideal Theodosius gave institutional form
- Russian Orthodox Tradition — the broader tradition the Caves monastery founded
- St. Theodore the Studite — the Constantinopolitan source of the cenobitic rule
- St. Sergius of Radonezh — the later founder who revived the Caves cenobitic model
- St. Vladimir of Kiev — the Kievan Christian foundation within which the monastery rose
- Master Collection README — the full collection on St. Theodosius of the Kiev Caves
References
- Nestor. The Life of Our Holy Father Theodosius, Abbot of the Caves. Trans. in G. P. Fedotov, ed., A Treasury of Russian Spirituality. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1948.
- The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery. Trans. Muriel Heppell. Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, English Translations, Vol. 1. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.
- The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text. Trans. and ed. Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953.
- Fedotov, G. P. The Russian Religious Mind, Vol. 1: Kievan Christianity, the Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946.
- Franklin, Simon, and Jonathan Shepard. The Emergence of Rus 750–1200. London and New York: Longman, 1996.