Anthony of the Kyiv Caves is venerated as the father of organized monasticism in Rus'. According to the tradition recorded in the synaxarion, he was born around 983 at Liubech, near Chernigov, and received the name Antipas at his baptism. Drawn to the ascetic life from his youth, he traveled to Mount Athos, where he received the monastic tonsure and lived as a hermit in a cave. His Athonite formation became the model he later sought to transplant to his homeland.
By tradition the abbot of his Athonite monastery sent him back to the region of Kyiv to spread the monastic life there. Finding that the existing monasteries did not match the austerity he had known on Athos, Anthony settled in a cave above the Dnieper near the village of Berestovo, a cave that had earlier been dug by the priest Hilarion, who afterward became Metropolitan of Kyiv. There he lived in solitary asceticism and strict fasting, and disciples gradually gathered around him.
As the brotherhood grew, Anthony did not himself take up formal leadership but appointed Barlaam as the first abbot of the community; when Barlaam departed, Saint Theodosius became igumen. From this settlement of caves grew the Kyiv Caves Lavra, which became a principal center of monasticism, learning, and spiritual life for the lands of Rus' for centuries. Anthony reposed in 1073, by tradition at about ninety years of age; his relics are said to have remained hidden.
