Aquila of the Kiev Caves

Venerable Aquila of the Kiev Caves was a deacon at the Lavra in the fourteenth century and became known as a great faster. He spent a long time as a hermit. He ate no pastries or sweet food, taking vegetables rarely and only in small amounts, and in fasting periods he lived on a single prosphoron.

Those who seek deliverance from the enslavement of the passions of the stomach, and who wish to learn temperance, turn to Aquila in prayer, as the third ode of the canon to the monks of the Far Caves attests.

He is commemorated on 4 January (new style; 17 January on the old calendar), on 28 August, and on the second Sunday of Great Lent.