Venerable Moses the Hungarian of the Kiev Caves

Captivity and Trial of Chastity

By the accounts handed down in his life, Moses was a tall and handsome man, and during his captivity he attracted the attention of a wealthy Polish widow who was taken with him and wished to make him her husband. She ransomed him from captivity despite his refusal, but he firmly rejected her advances, declaring that he would become a monk.

The synaxarion relates that, when he persisted in his refusal, the widow had him severely beaten with iron rods until the ground was soaked with his blood, and ordered that he be struck daily; the accounts further state that he was emasculated for the sake of his purity. According to these accounts an Athonite hieromonk tonsured him as a monk during his captivity. After the death of Boleslav and a rebellion in Poland, the widow perished and Moses was freed.

Monastic Life and Legacy

Having recovered from his wounds, Moses arrived at the Kiev Caves Monastery bearing, in the words of his tradition, the wounds of a martyr; tradition holds that he carried a staff without which he could not walk because of the injuries he had received. There he struggled in asceticism for about ten years until his repose.

He is commemorated among the Fathers of the Kiev Caves, and his relics rest in the Near (Antoniev) Caves of the Kiev Lavra. By tradition his relics were venerated as a source of help against the temptations of the flesh; among those said to have sought his intercession in this struggle was Saint John the Much-Suffering of the Caves.

Family

Moses is numbered among three brothers of Hungarian origin who entered the service of Prince Boris. His brother George died together with Boris in 1015, and his brother Ephraim is venerated as Saint Ephraim of Novy Torg, whose memory is kept on January 28.