Spyridon and Nicodemus the Prosphora-Bakers of the Kiev Caves
The Venerable Spyridon and Nicodemus, Prosphora-bakers of the Kiev Caves
Venerable · d. 12th century
Commemorated 28 September — Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Near Caves, 31 October — Joint memory of the two prosphora-bakers
Spyridon and Nicodemus (12th century) were two monks of the Kiev Caves Monastery who together kept the obedience of baking the prosphora — the bread offered at the Divine Liturgy — for thirty years. Spyridon entered the monastery already advanced in age during the abbacy of Igumen Pimen (1132–1141); unlettered, he had nonetheless learned the whole Psalter by heart and recited it daily as he worked. He was glorified by miracles in his lifetime, most famously when his burning mantle, catching fire from the oven, was quenched without being consumed. Nicodemus shared his labour and his strict ascetic life. Their incorrupt relics rest in the Near Caves of Saint Anthony, where the fingers of Spyridon's right hand are still joined for the sign of the Cross. They are commemorated on October 31.
Spyridon and Nicodemus belong to the great company of ascetics of the Kiev Caves Lavra, the cradle of Russian monasticism, and are known from the Kiev Caves Paterikon and the monastery's synaxaria. Their work was the humble and unceasing service of the altar: for some thirty years the two monks baked the prosphora on which the Liturgy of the monastery was celebrated, turning a menial obedience into a way of unbroken prayer.
Spyridon
Spyridon came to the Caves monastery when he was no longer young, during the years when Pimen was igumen (1132–1141). He was without letters and could not read, yet he had committed the entire Psalter to memory, and as he kneaded and baked he chanted the psalms through, singing the whole Psalter in the course of each day so that his labour and his prayer were one. Even in his lifetime God glorified him. On one occasion the flame of the oven caught his monastic mantle and set it ablaze; the fire was put out, but the mantle was found whole and untouched — a sign of the grace that rested on him.
Nicodemus
Nicodemus laboured at the same obedience alongside Spyridon and, like him, held to a life of great strictness and self-denial. The tradition keeps the two names inseparable, as companions in a single service and a single sanctity.
Relics
The relics of both rest incorrupt in the Near Caves of Saint Anthony at Kiev. The right hand of Saint Spyridon is preserved with its first three fingers joined and the last two folded to the palm — the form of the sign of the Cross — a detail long cited in the Russian Church in the disputes over the manner of crossing oneself.
Feast and commemoration
October 31 (church date; Old Calendar civil November 13) is their proper joint commemoration. As fathers of the Near Caves they are also numbered in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Near (Anthony's) Caves on September 28, and among all the saints of the Caves on the Second Sunday of Great Lent; the OCA calendar further lists them with the Synaxis of the Fathers of the Far Caves on August 28. Their veneration is proper to the Russian Church and the calendars descended from it (Russian, OCA); it does not appear in the Greek or Antiochian universal calendar.
Iconography
Spyridon and Nicodemus are depicted as monks of the Caves — bearded, in monastic mantiya and koukoulion — Spyridon commonly shown with a prosphora or at the baker's oven and holding a scroll, and both appearing among the ranks of the Near Caves fathers in the great synaxis icons and engravings of the Kiev Caves Lavra. No pre-modern or free-licensed image of verified identity has been located for a stored icon.