Sava of the Caves

Venerable Savva of the Caves, called the God-⁠pleasing (Savva Pechersky Bogougodnik), was a monk of the Kiev Caves Monastery in the thirteenth century (according to the Ukrainian source, the twelfth or thirteenth), a wonderworker. He is commemorated (by the new calendar) on the second Sunday of Great Lent, in the Synaxis of all the venerable fathers of the Caves and of all the saints who shone forth in Little Russia; on 7 May (24 April by the old calendar), on the day of the Holy Martyr Sabbas Stratelates, when he has long been commemorated separately; and on 11 October (28 September old style), in the Synaxis of the venerable fathers of the Near Caves.

He laboured in the Near Caves of the Kiev Caves Monastery. Little data has survived about his life and ascetic labours. His life is not described in the Kiev Caves Paterikon of 1661 by Archimandrite Innocent (Gizel). In the book of the Lavra monk Athanasius Kalnofoysky, Teraturgima, printed in 1638, he is mentioned on the map of the Near Caves as the holy monk Savva the wonderworker, and in 1661 and 1703 as Savva the wonderworker. The Ukrainian source says that he came to the monastery at a very tender age, strictly fulfilled all the commandments of Christ and passed to the Lord at the age of 17 to 18. His incorrupt relics are in the Near Caves (of Saint Anthony) of the Lavra; on the schematic map of 2004 of the Near Caves they are marked under number 19. A common troparion and kontakion exist for Venerable Alexis the Recluse and Venerable Savva of the Caves.