Theodore the Silent

Venerable Theodore the Silent was a monk of the Kyiv Caves Lavra in the thirteenth century and is a saint of the Russian Church. His commemoration is on 17 February (2 March by the new calendar) and on 28 August, in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Far Caves.

Almost no information has been preserved about his childhood and youth and about his life in the world, and the other information is very scanty. It is known only that he lived the ascetic life in the Caves monastery in Kyiv in the thirteenth century. Besides the many usual ascetic labours of monks, Theodore was distinguished above all by speaking very little, for which the brotherhood of the monastery gave him the name the Silent. This was for him the way to constant thought of God and the means by which the mind would not be scattered on anything earthly, and the tongue would not sin by a single word. According to the chronicles, such spiritual perfection was pleasing to God, and Father Theodore received from the Lord the gift of working miracles, which he shows even now to all who come and venerate his holy relics with faith.

His incorrupt relics are kept in the Far Caves, beside those of Silouan the Schemamonk and Pamva the Recluse and not far from the underground church of the Annunciation of the Mother of God. Anthropological studies show that he died at forty or forty-⁠five years of age and was 166 to 168 centimetres tall. On his body, as on that of Hilarion the Schemamonk, healed broken ribs were found. He departed to the Lord in the monastery.