Nikon the Dry

Venerable Nikon the Dry was a monk of the Kyiv Caves Lavra in the eleventh century. He was held in captivity by the Cumans (Polovtsians) for more than three years and was freed. He died in 1101. He is commemorated on 11 December.

According to the Serbian source, he was born in Kyiv, of honourable and wealthy parents, and became a monk young at the Caves Lavra. In the time of an invasion, the Serbian source speaks of Tatars, but they are not known in the eleventh century, and the Ukrainian and English sources say Polovtsians. The attack on Kyiv was, according to the Ukrainian source, in 1096. Nikon was taken captive, according to the Serbian source together with Saint Eustratius of the Caves, and led far from the monastery. A wealthy Christian from Kyiv managed to ransom the captives, but Nikon avoided the ransom. Then his rich relatives tried the same, but he refused this too. Then, says the Serbian source, they tormented him harshly for three full years. According to the Ukrainian source, the Polovtsians, receiving no ransom, tormented him, put him on the fire and cut him with knives, and he lost so much blood and grew so thin that he received the name the Dry.

According to the English source, before he was freed Nikon told his master that Jesus would release him from bondage in three days. As a result, the master crippled his legs so that he could no longer walk. According to legend, three days later Nikon was carried unseen by God to Kyiv. Some time later his former master met him in the city, repented of his former ways, was baptized and became a disciple of Nikon. According to the Serbian source, after three years of torment he came out in an extraordinary way from the strictly guarded prison and appeared in the church of the Mother of God at the Caves during the Liturgy.

He spent the rest of his life in unceasing fasting and prayer. The sources differ on his name: the Serbian and English sources tie it to his severe fasting, the Ukrainian one to the wasting of his body by torture. He died in 1101 (according to the Ukrainian source, about that year, at the beginning of the twelfth century), and his relics lie in the Cave of Anthony. His commemoration is on 11 December.