Venerable Nikon the Dry

Life

As a monk in the Kiev caves he was captured by the Tatars. Three years he spent in captivity, fettered, tortured and mocked. When his kinsmen brought money to ransom him from his master, he refused, saying: Had the Lord willed that I be free, He would not have delivered me into the hands of these lawless ones. Once he told his master that Christ would free him in three days. The Tatar thought that the slave would flee, so he cut the tendons under his knees. But on the third day, truly Nikon was instantly transported by an invisible hand to Kiev. After a certain time that Tatar came to Kiev and recognized in Nikon his former slave, repented and was baptized. And the former master became the obedient follower and disciple of his former slave. Nikon, called the Dry because of the great emaciation of his body, was a great clairvoyant. He reposed peacefully in the Lord on December 11, 1101.