Paul the Obedient

Venerable Paul the Obedient (Paul of the Caves) was a monk and ascetic in the Far Caves of the Kyiv Caves Lavra in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and is a saint of the Russian Church, honoured among the venerable fathers.

Where and when he was born and who his family was is not known. Before entering the monastery he was, according to the Ukrainian source, disobedient. But after he received the monastic habit at the Caves Lavra, he fulfilled without complaint the hardest obediences that the abbot gave him. He was never idle, and when he was not sent on some obedience, he ground grain at the millstone, exhausting his body with this heavy labour and keeping unceasing inner prayer. For his humility and renunciation of worldly things he was called the obedient. He reposed in the monastery.

His incorrupt relics lie in the Far Caves. His commemoration is on 28 August, which is 10 September by the new calendar, in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Far Caves of Kyiv, and on 10 September by the old calendar (23 September by the new), as the day of his repose, the same day as his namesake, Saint Paul, bishop of Nicaea (ninth century). The Ukrainian source says only 10 September, without showing the calendar.