The life of St Prochorus of the Kiev Caves
Church tradition holds that God, seeing how patiently he bore this hardship, turned the plant's natural bitterness sweet on his tongue.
When famine came upon the land, Prochorus gathered his bitter harvest all the more eagerly and gave the bread he made from it freely to the hungry, and those who received it found it tasted like the finest wheat. Later, when Kiev ran short of salt, he collected the ashes swept from the monastery's cells and distributed those instead, and by his prayers the ashes turned to true salt in the hands of the poor. Merchants who had hoped to profit from the shortage complained to Prince Svyatopolk, who confiscated the salt from him, only to find it had reverted to plain ashes once taken from his hands; when Prochorus then blessed the discarded pile for the people to take, it became salt again, a wonder that softened the prince's harsh temper. Prochorus reposed in 1107 and was buried among the Near Caves.
