Nicodemus of the Kiev Caves

Venerable Nicodemus of the Caves, also called Nicodemus the Prosphora-⁠baker, was a monk and prosphora-⁠baker of the Kyiv Caves Lavra in the twelfth century and died, it is believed, around 1139. He is honoured among the venerable fathers of the Russian Church.

Almost no information has survived about his childhood and life in the world, and the other news about him is scanty and scattered. It is known only that he lived the ascetic life at the Caves Lavra in the time of Hegumen Pimen (1132 to 1141), who set him to bake prosphora together with the monk Spyridon. Nicodemus was in everything of one mind with Saint Spyridon and, like him, prayed with the same zeal and shared with him the bodily labours: cutting wood, kneading dough and singing psalms. According to the monastery's tradition he worked in the bakery for thirty years.

The tale of Venerable Spyridon and Nicodemus of the Caves was included in the second epistle of the monk Polycarp to the archimandrite of the Lavra, Akindin. The relics of Nicodemus rest in the Near (Anthony's) Caves of the Kyiv Caves Lavra. His commemoration is on 31 October; the Ukrainian source gives it as 11 October and 13 November.