Rufus the Recluse

Venerable Rufus the Recluse (also called Rufus the Obedient) was a monk of the Kyiv Caves Lavra in the fourteenth century and is honoured among the venerable fathers. The Church commemorates him on 21 April (8 April by the old calendar) and on 10 September, in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Far Caves.

He was distinguished by an unceasing desire for spiritual perfection, in fasting, prayer, obedience, ascetic labours and abstinence, which he carried furthest in the seclusion of the cave. A publication of Archbishop Modest says of him that, according to monastic custom, he gave himself to Christ, striving with all his heart to please him by fasting, prayer, obedience, ascetic labours and patience, day by day, desiring to be better. For these labours he received from Christ the joys prepared for the saints, while his body, laid here, awaits the final reward that God has prepared for those who love him.

His relics rest in the Far Caves, beside those of Martyrius the Recluse and Pior the Recluse. In the akathist to all the venerable fathers of the Caves it is said of him that he was an example of abstinence and ascetic labour. In the paintings of the Synaxis of the Saints of the Kyiv Caves Lavra he is usually shown in the right-⁠hand group, in the fifth row, second from the right, in monastic dress, with the cowl on his head, in the line of monks who rest in the Far Caves.