The life of Anthony and Theodosius of Kiev Caves
Sent back to his own country to carry the monastic life there, he returned to Kiev and settled alone in a cave outside the city at Pechersk, probably around 1051, a date since kept as the founding of what grew into the Kiev Caves monastery. Others gathered around him there, among them Theodosius, born in 1009 and raised in Vasilkov and Kursk, who would in time become the community's third abbot. Wanting more than anything a solitary life himself, Anthony withdrew again once the community was established, naming Barlaam as its first abbot and moving to a separate cave of his own; he reposed in 1073. Theodosius, governing the growing brotherhood from 1062 until his own death in 1074, gave it the shape it would keep for centuries by introducing the monastic rule of Theodore the Studite, a rule that spread in time from the Caves monastery to nearly every other monastery in the Russian Church. Together the two are remembered as the fathers of Russian monasticism itself, their community's discipline and reputation for holiness enough, within Anthony's own lifetime, to draw future bishops such as Leontius of Rostov to be formed there before being sent out across the land.
