Pimen the Faster, Abbot

Venerable Pimen the Faster was abbot of the Caves monastery in Kyiv. His relics rest in the Far Caves, and his commemoration is on 8 May (21 May by the new calendar).

The sources say he lived at the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth, but also that he lived in the twelfth century, in the time of the abbots Nikon and John. Archbishop Filaret Gumilevsky writes that he was abbot of the monastery between 1132 and 1141, a date that does not fit the first, so the chronology remains uncertain.

It is said that Pimen had received from God such grace that he ate only once a week, and then little. Nevertheless he carefully performed his obedience in the monastery and never grew weak from labour and fasting. By day he ground flour at the millstones and carried firewood for the brethren on his own back, and he spent the nights in earnest prayer.

Filaret further points out that his life must not be confused with that of Venerable Pimen the Faster of the Near Caves, nor with that of Venerable Pimen the Much-⁠Ailing.