Venerable Leontius the Canonarch of the Kiev Far Caves

Life and Monastic Service

According to the synaxarion, Leontius came to the Kiev Caves monastery while still young and received monastic tonsure there. Having become literate, and being endowed with a fine voice, he was appointed canonarch — the cantor responsible for leading the church singing.

The office of canonarch was a specialized liturgical role: the lead cantor or reader who ensured that the other readers chanted from the correct texts and in the proper tones, preserving the canonical order of the services through correct use of the Typicon, and performing particular musical duties such as intoning the verses of the prokeimenon. The canonarch thus functioned both as a musician and as a guardian of the liturgical order, a role distinct from that of a general cantor.

Leontius reposed at a young age. The tradition of the monastery relates that he was glorified by the Lord for his selfless ascetic labors with the gift of miracles.

Relics & Shrines

The relics of Venerable Leontius repose in the Far Caves of the Kiev Caves monastery — the section associated with Venerable Theodosius, where the relics of a large company of the monastery's saints are kept.

Context and Parallels

Leontius is closely paralleled by Venerable Gerontius, likewise a fourteenth-century canonarch of the Kiev Far Caves whose incorrupt relics also rest there and who is commemorated on April 1 and August 28. The two stand together as young monastic cantors of the same century, both honored for lives spent in the labors of the monastery.

Leontius is to be distinguished from the Martyr Leontius of Tripoli, who is commemorated on the same day, June 18.