Biography
Gregory the Wonderworker of the Kiev Caves
About Gregory the Wonderworker of the Kiev Caves
Gregory is remembered as a Kiev Caves monk who received tonsure during Theodosius's leadership. The Orthodox Church in America's received life describes his devotion to reading and says that books were his only possessions. Stories of attempted theft show him persuading robbers to change their lives. A further episode relates that Prince Rostislav's servants mocked him while he fetched water from the Dnieper. Gregory reportedly warned them of death by drowning, and the angry prince ordered him drowned instead. The source places his death in 1093 and relates the prince's later drowning during a military retreat. These episodes are preserved as hagiographic tradition, not as an independently documented judicial record or verified prophecy. Gregory is distinct from a later composer of canons who died around 1120. It records the wonderworker's burial in the Near Caves.
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