Macarius the Faster of the Kiev Caves
Our Venerable Father Macarius the Faster of the Kiev Caves
Venerable · Deacon · d. 12th century
Commemorated 19 January — Principal commemoration
Macarius the Faster (twelfth century) was a monk and deacon of the Kiev Caves Lavra, whose relics rest in the Near (Anthony's) Caves. He is surnamed "the Faster" (Postnik) for the extreme abstinence of his life, and the tradition holds that he was granted the gift of wonders from his early years. Little is recorded of him beyond his name, his order, and his ascetic renown; he is honoured among the fathers of the Near Caves and commemorated on January 19.
Macarius belonged to the great monastic community of the Kiev Caves (the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra), the cradle of Russian monasticism founded by Saints Anthony and Theodosius, in the century after its founders — the twelfth century. He was a deacon of the Lavra, and is remembered above all for the severity of his fasting, whence his surname Postnik, "the Faster." The tradition relates that he had received a gift of grace and of healing from his youth, and that he lived his monastic life in obedience, abstinence, and prayer among the brethren of the caves.
Of the particulars of his life the record is thin — as with many of the more than a hundred fathers of the Kiev Caves, his memory is preserved chiefly in the veneration of his incorrupt relics and in the synaxaria of the Lavra rather than in a full biography. His relics repose in the Near Caves, and he is numbered among their holy fathers.
Feast and commemoration
Macarius the Faster is kept on January 19 (church date; Old Calendar civil February 1) in the Russian calendar and by the OCA. Like the other fathers of the Near Caves, he is also commemorated in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Near Caves (September 28) and in the general Synaxis of all the Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Caves kept on the second Sunday of Great Lent.
Iconography
Macarius is depicted as a monk of the Kiev Caves in the monastic habit, and — as one who reposes in the Near Caves — he appears among the ranked fathers in the composite icons of the "Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Caves." No public-domain image identified with certainty as this Macarius (distinct from his namesakes) was found for storage; the entry is noted as wanting an icon.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Macarius the Deacon of the Far Caves (a distinct father of the Kiev Caves of the thirteenth–fourteenth century, whose relics rest in the Far Caves and who is also remembered on January 19), with whom the similarity of name, order (both deacons), and feast makes confusion easy. This Macarius is the Faster, of the Near Caves, of the twelfth century. He is distinct again from the great desert fathers Macarius the Great and Macarius of Alexandria commemorated on the same day, and from the later Russian saints named Macarius.