Venerable Erasmus of the Kiev Caves

Life and Spiritual Trial

By tradition Erasmus inherited considerable wealth from his parents and devoted it entirely to adorning churches, giving particular attention to the silver-plating and gilding of icons. His vita records that he donated many icons to the monastery church, which were still pointed out above the altar in later generations.

After he had given everything away and fallen into poverty, the accounts relate that he was troubled by the thought, attributed to the adversary, that he should have distributed his money to the poor rather than spending it on the embellishment of the church. Unable to answer this temptation, he gave way to despondency and lived heedlessly, neglecting his earlier discipline.

Illness, Visions, and Repose

As his life drew toward its end, Erasmus was struck by a grave illness. According to one account the sickness lasted seven days, during which he could neither see nor speak, and on the eighth day he recovered enough to recount what he had seen. He related that the monastery's founders, Saints Anthony and Theodosius, appeared to him with the assurance that they had prayed for him and that the Lord had granted him time for repentance.

He further reported a vision of the Mother of God, who, the synaxarion relates, said to him that because he had adorned her church with icons she would in turn adorn him and exalt him in the Kingdom of her Son. The Prologue of Ohrid preserves a related word of consolation, that the poor are present everywhere whereas her churches are not. Following these visions Erasmus confessed his sins openly, was clothed in the monastic schema, and died three days afterward, in the year 1160. He was buried in the Near Caves of the monastery.

Relics and Veneration

The relics of Erasmus rest among the incorrupt bodies of the venerable fathers in the Near Caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra. Records indicate that his veneration there was established by 1638. He is commemorated individually on February 24 and is also numbered among the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Near Caves, kept on September 28 and on the second Sunday of Great Lent.