28. Prominent activists of Kyivan Rus’ culture (Ilarion, Nestor the Chronicler, St.Antony of the Caves)

Ilarion, Metropolitan d before 1054 in Kyiv. Eminent church and literary figure of the 11th century; the first non-Greek metropolitan of Kyiv. Ilarion was a priest in Berestove near Kyiv when in 1051, according to the wish of Yaroslav the Wise, an episcopal sobor elected him metropolitan. He codified the laws governing church life and defended the independence of the Rus’ church from the Byzantine hierarchy. A brilliant preacher and talented writer, Ilarion is credited with four works: ‘Slovo o zakoni i blahodati’ (Sermon on Law and Grace, before 1052), a prayer, a confession of faith, and a short collection of instructions for priests. The first work has been preserved in more than 50 redactions of the 15th and 16th centuries, and had an important influence on Ukrainian and other Slavic literatures.

Nestor the Chronicler (Nestor litopysets), b ca 1056, d ca 27 October 1114 in Kyiv. Famous medieval hagiographer and chronicler; saint in the Ukrainian church. The date of his canonization is uncertain. He entered the Kyivan Cave Monastery at 17 and was a hierodeacon under Hegumen Stefan of Kyiv (1074–8). He participated in the ceremonial disinterment of the relics of Saint Theodosius of the Caves in 1091. The earliest biography of Nestor appeared in the Kyivan Cave Patericon (pub 1661). He was one of the most educated men in late 11th- and early 12th-century Kyivan Rus’, renowned for his knowledge of theology, history, literature, and Greek. Nestor wrote the lives of Saints Borys and Hlib and Saint Theodosius of the Caves in the 1080s, and he supplemented and continued the text of the Rus’ Primary Chronicle (written in 1093), and completed its redaction, known as Povist’ vremennykh lit (The Tale of Bygone Years), ca 1111–13. The original has not been preserved. Most scholars (eg, Dmytro Abramovych, Mykhailo Braichevsky, Dmytro Chyzhevsky, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, D. Likhachev, M. Priselkov, Omeljan Pritsak, Aleksei Shakhmatov, Mykhailo Vozniak) consider Nestor the Hagiographer and Nestor the Chronicler to be one person. Some (eg, Evgenii Golubinsky, P. Kazansky, Aleksei Sobolevsky), however, believe they are different persons.

Saint Anthony of the Caves (Sviatyi Antonii Pecherskyi; secular name: Antyp), b ca 983 in Liubech, Chernihiv region, d 1073 in Kyiv. As a youth he joined the monastery at Mount Athos, where he was tonsured and adopted the religious name Anthony. After many years he returned to Ukraine; reputedly he took up residence in a cave in which Metropolitan Ilarion had lived, near the village of Berestove, on the outskirts of Kyiv. Anthony's deeds and fasting attracted other monks, including Saint Theodosius of the Caves. This monastic community became the nucleus of the Kyivan Cave Monastery, and Anthony emerged as the founder of monasticism in Ukraine. Later, Anthony and the monks built a church and elected the first hegumen, Varlaam. When the monastic community expanded, Anthony, an adherent of hermitism and a strict ascetic, excavated for himself a new cave in an area that came to be called the Near Caves or Anthony's Caves, to distinguish them from the older caves, called the Far Caves or Theodosius's Caves. There he would cure the sick with herbs and reputedly perform miracles. Toward the end of his life Anthony was forced by Prince Iziaslav Yaroslavych to leave Kyiv briefly and settle in Chernihiv, but he soon returned to Kyiv. The cult of Saint Anthony grew in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, and it was probably around this time that he was canonized; his feast is celebrated on 23 July (10 July OS). His life, based on an older life which has not survived, is found in the Kyivan Cave Patericon.