Mark the Grave-⁠digger of the Caves

Venerable Mark the Grave-⁠digger (Mark of the Caves) was a monk of the Kiev Caves Lavra, of the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. He is commemorated on 29 December, together with the brothers Theophilus and John, and on 28 September, in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Near Caves. Information about him is in the oldest part of the Kiev Caves Paterikon (Word 32); the years of birth and death can be established only from indirect data. The record gives his birth around 1050.

According to the source, Mark was tonsured in the Caves Monastery and lived in a cave dug by his own hand in the earth. His duty was to dig graves for deceased monks, whence the nickname Grave-⁠digger. He took no money for his work, and if he received something he gave it all to the poor. The source also tells of several miracles of his, when the burial of a dead man could not be carried out according to all the rules because the grave was not ready: then Mark would urge the soul of the departed to return to the body until he finished digging the grave. The story of John and Theophilus is that of the Paterikon. Mark also took part in the translation of the relics of Theodosius to the Dormition cathedral.

According to the Paterikon, Mark knew in advance the day of his death and told it to his brother Theophilus. Three days after Mark's death Theophilus also died. In the Russian Orthodox tradition Mark was venerated as a wonderworker and healer. It is said that many healings took place at his grave, and a copper cross belonging to the saint had a particular power of healing. It seems that he became a locally venerated saint soon after his death. Veneration throughout the Church began only in the eighteenth century, after the decisions of the Synod of 1762, 1775 and 1784. According to medical and anthropological studies of the 1980s and 1990s, Mark was about 35 to 40 years old at death. His relics rest in the Near Caves. A reliquary cross which, according to tradition, belonged to him is preserved, and his life and monastic labour are reflected in the monumental paintings of the Lavra's churches.