Moses the Hungarian

Venerable Moses the Hungarian was a monk of Hungarian origin at the Kyiv Caves Lavra, who died in 1043. He is remembered on 26 July and on 28 September, in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Near Caves.

He was born in Transylvania, between 990 and 1000, a Hungarian by birth. The Hungarians were then mostly pagan, but the chieftain Gyula of Transylvania had been baptized at Constantinople, which probably made it possible for Moses to go to Kyiv, to the service of the prince's house. In his youth, together with his brother George, he served Prince Boris. Between 1015 and 1018, already preparing to become a monk, he was in the escort of Predslava, daughter of Grand Prince Vladimir. When Boris was murdered in 1015 on the river Alta, he escaped with his life, while his brother George, who had shielded him with his body, was killed with him; Moses hid with Predslava, sister of Boris. When Kyiv was taken by the Polish king Boleslaw in 1018 he was taken prisoner and led to Poland, from where he could return only in 1025.

In Poland he was bought by a rich widow, who wished to draw him into sin. She freed him from his chains, dressed him in costly clothes and fed him choice food. Moses, seeing the woman's intent, held even tighter to prayer and fasting, choosing dry bread and water, but with purity, rather than choice dishes and wine, but with defilement. He cast off the fine garments and, like Joseph, escaped sin. The widow called him publicly her husband, and her servants urged him to submit. He refused and secretly received monastic tonsure from a passing Athonite hieromonk. King Boleslaw tried to persuade him to marry her and, hearing his refusal, told the woman: “Do with your slave as you wish.” The woman ordered him mutilated. Boleslaw expelled all monks from his country. Later, during an uprising, the widow was cruelly killed, and Moses was able to escape and returned to Kyiv, to Saint Anthony of the Caves.

In the monastery he became known as one with power over the passions of the flesh, and brothers came to him for help in their struggle with temptations. He lived in the monastery about ten years, fell asleep in 1043 and was buried in the Near Caves (of Anthony), where his relics lie today, opposite those of Venerable John the Long-⁠Suffering. According to the study of anthropologists he died at thirty-⁠five to forty years of age.