When we speak of how monastic life began in ancient Rus', our thoughts turn first to the Kiev-Caves Lavra and its two pillars - Saints Anthony and Theodosius. We remember Anthony for starting the hermit life, while we know Theodosius for building the community. Yet, rarely do we hear that these two rest upon a solid base: another man, whom both called great - Nikon himself.
"Nikon was a priest and a wise monk in the black habit; he tonsured the blessed Theodosius according to the custom of the holy fathers and clothed him in monastic dress.
And there were then three lights in the cave, driving away the darkness of demons by prayer and fasting: I speak of the venerable Anthony, the blessed Theodosius, and the great Nikon. They dwelt in the cave in prayer to God, and God was with them; for it is said, 'For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." (Kiev Caves Patericon).
How Anthony and Nikon first met we do not know; but we do know that it happened no later than 1058. Most likely, when Anthony came back to Kiev from Athos, monasteries and monks were already there. Even so, the one-time Athonite hermit chose a solitary path for himself here as well. From later records it seems that Nikon, too, looked for a hidden life.
It was this love of quiet and prayer that drew Anthony and Nikon together in the cave above the Dnieper. In time, others began to come to them. Anthony did not give up his hermit way, and he asked Nikon to tonsure the new brothers.
One day this brought Nikon, and with him the whole brotherhood, into trouble. The Kiev Caves Patericon tells the story of Varlaam and Ephraim. One was a boyar's son, the other a courtier to the grand prince himself. Both resolved to become monks. Anthony gave his blessing, and Nikon performed the tonsure for the young nobleman and the courtier. When Grand Prince Iziaslav of Kiev heard of it, he sent for Nikon to answer for what he had done.
Grand Prince Iziaslav of Kiev
The prince said this: “Either persuade them to return to their homes, or you yourself will be shut up in prison, and those who are with you, and I will have your cave filled in.” Nikon answered him in this way: “If, my lord, it pleases you to act so - do it; but it is not right for me to lead astray the warriors of the King of Heaven.”
While they were questioning Nikon at the prince's court, Anthony and the brothers gathered, ready to leave the caves, for they knew the prince's anger would not end well.
But Iziaslav's wife spoke up for the monks. Once, in her own land, monks had been driven out, and many troubles had then fallen on the country. Iziaslav feared God, listened to his wife, and let Nikon and Ephraim, the former courtier, go free. But Varlaam's father would not give way: he dragged his son from the monastery by force and laid waste to it. Yet while shut up in his father's house, Varlaam refused to eat or to dress, and by his stubbornness amazed his father. The man, it seems, did love his son after all and, fearing for his life, let him go back to the monastery.
People of the world often think a man goes to a monastery to run away from reality, which can be harsh and unforgiving. They imagine he swaps it for a dream world where all people are brothers, the abbot is as a true father, and the elders work wonders. Yet the truth is that no reality is greater than the life of the human soul, and priests and monks live right in the very thick of that life. People of many kinds come to them for counsel, help, and comfort, carrying that same reality into the deepest cave and the most hidden cell. To pray for someone's salvation, one has to know the pain of the heart and the trembling of the spirit; and to thank God, one must know true joy as well.
Tmutarakan ruins nowadays
After this clash with the rulers, Nikon chose to leave Kiev and look for solitude in other places. He found it in Tmutarakan - one of the oldest towns on the Taman Peninsula. Not far from the town he founded a monastery in honour of the Mother of God and settled there. For six years he lived in the Black Sea lands. Once more, affairs of state drew him back to Kiev. In 1067, Prince Rostislav was poisoned, and the people of Tmutarakan sent Nikon to ask for a new ruler. Nikon carried their request to the prince in Kiev, and he also called in at his own monastery where his disciple Theodosius was already abbot. Theodosius loved Nikon as a father and begged him not to leave the monastery again. When he had set matters in Tmutarakan in order, Nikon returned to Kiev in 1068.
A short season of calm in politics allowed Nikon to settle in Kiev for five years, but when Prince Iziaslav was forced out, Nikon, who had stood by him, returned once more to Tmutarakan. He kept close ties with that city and its Monastery of the Mother of God until the end of his days.
Even so, Nikon came back to Kiev yet again. After the death of Theodosius, it fell to Nikon to lead the Kiev-Caves Monastery as its abbot, and he held that office for a full ten years.
Politics slips past any fence; nor was the wall of the Kiev-Caves Monastery an exception. By 1068, the brotherhood had grown so large that it began to break into groups. Some were followers of strict, ascetic monasticism, like Anthony. Yet this group also carried a certain coldness towards the prince. Another, with Theodosius, favoured a common life and a good working relationship with the authorities. Nikon, however, kept his distance. Such was his way - a man of thought, a writer and a historian, as we call him now. Back then, the monks called him "the great man of books".
The Kiev-Caves Lavra
All through his years at the Kiev Caves Monastery, he made notes which would later find their way into the "Tale of Bygone Years". So think the scholars A. A. Shakhmatov and D. S. Likhachev, since Nikon's own life fits so closely with the records of what the Kiev and Tmutarakan lands saw in those times. Two clues help trace out Nikon's hand in the "Tale of Bygone Years": the phrase "to this day" and certain Kiev residents known to have lived during the 1060s.
Scholars believe Nikon wrote the chronicle collection in the 1070s. Though Rus' had scribes before him, he was the one who began setting down events by the year, giving exact dates. He described Kiev not only as it looked in his own day, but also as it had been in earlier ages, and he marked where key sites lay. From his notes M. K. Karger, together with other archaeologists, could trace the outline of Kiev in the tenth and eleventh centuries. He brought into his writing details from treaties between Rus' and Byzantium, and added his own thoughts on them.
He checked what other chroniclers wrote, tested the truth of what they said, and looked at different accounts of events. As he edited older records from the late tenth century, he added notes about what happened in his own time - much as today's journalists do. In Nikon's era, Alipius, the first icon painter known to us, came into his prime, and Nestor began his own writing.
We do not know where those princes lie who, one after another, sat upon the throne of Kiev; but the great Nikon abides in the Kiev-Caves monastery "to this day".
Drawn from materials on the website spzh.news
Photographs from the internet
