Venerable Venerable Erasmus of Kyiv Caves

Erasmus the Recluse (late 11th–12th century) was a monk of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. He is a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church, venerated as a venerable father. His feast days are February 24 (March 8 in leap years, or March 9 in common years) and September 28 (October 11), the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra resting in the Near Caves. Information about Erasmus is provided by the Kiev Pechersk Patericon, written between 1222 and 1226. According to the text, Erasmus was very wealthy and spent all his possessions on church vessels and the ornamentation of many icons. After exhausting his wealth and becoming destitute, he was shunned by others, which led him into despair. He began to believe that he would receive no reward for his spent wealth because he had given it to the church rather than as alms to the poor. Having begun a dissolute life, Erasmus fell gravely ill, remaining mute and blind for eight days. Upon recovering, he told the monks gathered around him that he had experienced a vision: Today the saints Anthony and Theodosius appeared to me and said: "We have prayed to God, and the Lord has granted you time to repent." And then I saw the Holy Theotokos holding her son, Christ our God, in her arms, and all the saints were with her. She said to me: "Erasmus! Because you adorned My Church and glorified it with icons, I will also glorify you in the Kingdom of My Son; the poor, however, are always with you. Only, once you rise from your illness, repent and receive the great angelic habit; on the third day I will take you, purified, to Myself, for you have loved the beauty of My House." Following this, Erasmus confessed his sins to the monastic brotherhood, received the schema, and passed away on the third day. His body was buried in the Near Caves of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.