Titus the Presbyter of the Kiev Caves
Our Venerable Father Titus the Presbyter, of the Near Caves of Kiev
Venerable · Priest · d. 1190
Commemorated 27 February — The priest-monk of the Near Caves reconciled on his deathbed
Titus (†1190) was a priest-monk of the Near (Antoniev) Caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra, remembered in the Caves Paterikon for a story of enmity overcome too late and forgiveness won at the edge of death. Bound in close friendship with a deacon named Evagrius, he fell with him into a bitter and lasting quarrel, in which the two served at the same altar without speaking, passing the incense and the peace to each other in silence and hatred. When Titus was struck down by a mortal illness he begged forgiveness of Evagrius, who — dragged to the bedside by the brethren — hardened his heart, refused, and fell dead in the very act of refusing, while Titus rose up healed. The tale became one of the Lavra's enduring lessons on the deadliness of unforgiveness. Titus reposed a monk in peace, and his relics rest in the Near Caves.
Titus was a monk, and in time a presbyter — a priest-monk — of the Kiev Caves monastery, the cradle of Russian monasticism, in the twelfth century. His memory is preserved not for a body of ascetic teaching but for a single episode transmitted in the Kiev Caves Paterikon, told there as a warning that the whole ascetic labour is undone by a heart that will not forgive.
Titus, the account runs, was joined in a deep and long friendship with a deacon named Evagrius, so that the brethren marvelled at their unity of soul. But the enemy of concord sowed discord between them, and their love turned to a hatred as great as their friendship had been. They came to loathe the very sight of one another; and — most terrible of all, because they were clergy of the same church — they continued to serve together at the altar unreconciled. When Titus censed the church he would pass by Evagrius without incensing him; when the deacon would not yield, they would pass the sacred things between them in open enmity, refusing the kiss of peace, communicating (the Paterikon says) in a state of unforgiveness that made a mockery of the Mysteries. The elders pleaded with them to be reconciled; they would not.
Then Titus fell gravely ill, and, believing himself to be dying, was pierced with dread for his soul. He sent to Evagrius, imploring his forgiveness. The deacon answered with curses, and swore he would never forgive Titus — "not in this age nor in the age to come." The brethren, hearing this, took Evagrius by force and dragged him to the dying man's bed, that the two might be reconciled. Titus, gathering his last strength, raised himself, bowed to the deacon's feet, and begged pardon. But Evagrius, pitiless, tore himself away and cried out that he would not be reconciled with him either in this life or in the next — and in the very moment of the words he fell down dead. They could neither bend his arms to cross them on his breast nor close his mouth, as though he had died in the grip of his own malice. And in that same instant Titus rose up whole, his sickness gone. Asked what he had seen, he told the brethren that while they were unreconciled he had beheld the angels grieving over him and the demons rejoicing; but when he bowed to ask forgiveness and Evagrius refused, an angel with a fiery spear struck the deacon down, and raised up Titus healed. From that day, the Paterikon says, Titus lived in perfect peace and charity with all, weeping for his former hardness.
He passed the rest of his life in the monastery in humility and repentance, and reposed in 1190. His relics were laid to rest in the Near Caves, where they are venerated among the wonderworking fathers of the Lavra, and his memory is kept on February 27.
Feast and commemoration
Titus is kept on February 27 (church date; Old Calendar civil March 12), a commemoration of the Russian calendar and the calendars that descend from it (the Moscow Patriarchate, the Orthodox Church in America). As a father of the Kiev 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 Fathers of the Kiev Caves (the Second Sunday of Great Lent). His February 27 feast is his own.
Iconography
Titus is depicted as a monk-priest of the Caves in the Russian manner: in the monastic mantiya and epitrachelion of a priest, an aged and bearded figure, holding a cross or a scroll, or in the narrative scene of his reconciliation — the dying priest raised on his bed, the deacon Evagrius falling stricken, and the brethren looking on. No public-domain image of Titus the Presbyter has been identified for storage; the entry notes the icon as wanting.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Titus the Soldier of the Kiev Caves, the former warrior whose relics rest in the Far Caves and who is commemorated on the same day, February 27: a distinct saint of a later age (14th century) and a different part of the Lavra. This Titus is the priest of the Near Caves, †1190; the other was a soldier who became a monk.