Lawrence of Turov

Saint Lawrence of Turov, hierarch (1130s to 1184 or 1194), was bishop of Turov, who spent a great part of his life at the Kyiv Caves Monastery. He was bishop perhaps from 1182, after the death of Saint Cyril of Turov. He is mentioned by Bishop Simon in the "Epistle to Polycarp" (1226, the first text of the Kyiv Caves Paterikon) and in the Hypatian Chronicle. He is commemorated (Old Style) on 29 January, in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Near (Anthony's) Caves, on the third Sunday after Pentecost, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Belarus, in the second week of Great Lent and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kyiv.

Life

He was born, probably, in the town of Turov or near it, of a noble family, boyar or princely according to tradition; his name in the world and his parents are not known. Brought up in the Orthodox faith, the youth renounced vain life and received tonsure with the name Lawrence, perhaps at one of the monasteries of Turov, most probably at the Boris and Gleb monastery. Around 1150, desiring monastic labours and with the abbot's blessing, he went on foot to Kyiv, to the Caves Monastery. There, with the abbot's blessing, he shut himself in a small cell and, as the Paterikon says, "began the monastic life in enclosure", a life of austere struggle, in quiet and abstinence, in which he put out various temptations with tears of prayer. What trials he bore, the Lord alone knows.

By humility, prayer and thought of God he received the gift of healing people of illnesses of body and soul and of casting out demons by prayer; even in his life he was considered a wonderworker. According to the Paterikon, "by the grace of God not only was he himself free from the strikes of the demons, but he received from the all-⁠giving Lord the power to heal wonderfully various wounds and diseases in men and to cast out demons". After healing, before the icon of the Mother of God of the Caves, a man possessed by demons, Lawrence returned again to the Caves Monastery. His deep faith, prayer, piety and devotion to the Church drew the attention of the Metropolitan of Kyiv, who appointed him bishop to the see of Turov, successor of the famous writer and preacher Saint Cyril of Turov (died 1183). His time of governing roughly coincides with the reign of Prince Sviatopolk Yurievich (died 1189), one of the princes of Turov. An icon painters' manual describes him with grey hair, a beard divided like the Theologian's, a cowl on his shoulders, in monastic robe and barefoot.

Repose and veneration

In 1184 Bishop Lawrence gave his soul to the Lord; the day of his repose is not known, but he became a locally venerated saint soon after his death. His commemoration is on 29 January, perhaps the very day of his repose. In the old handwritten synaxaria of the seventeenth century, among the saints resting in the Near (Anthony's) Caves, the first is "Saint Lawrence, bishop of Turov". His incorrupt relics are today in the caves of the Lavra. He was canonized among the venerable ones.