Pior

Venerable Pior the Recluse was a monk of the Kyiv Caves Monastery, in the thirteenth century. It is not known when or where he was born. He is venerated in the Orthodox Church as a venerable saint. His commemoration is kept on the Saturday of Cheesefare, before Great Lent.

He was distinguished by a strict fast and by diligence, and in this he was an example to the other monks. In a collection quoted about him it is said that the venerable Pior the recluse shut himself in a dark cave, not wishing to look upon the temptation and bustle of this world, and that for this he deserved to inherit from Christ the light that never sets. He ended his life in seclusion.

His incorrupt relics are in the Far Caves, beside the relics of Martyrius the Recluse and Rufus the Recluse. On the icons of the Synaxis of the saints of the Caves the saint is shown as a rule in the right group, in the sixth row, in monastic dress, to the right of Anatolius the Recluse, in the line of the monks who rest in the Far Caves. The sources are the Kyiv Caves Paterikon and the pages of a parish website.