Venerable Prohor the Herb-Eater

Life

Prohor was a wonderworker of the Caves. He was called the Herb-Eater because for all the time of his living in the Monastery of the Caves he did not taste bread, but fed himself on orach, kneading it in his own way and making some sort of bread from it. When he would give someone some of his orach bread with a blessing, the bread would be sweet as honey; but when someone would steal it from him, it would be bitter as wormwood. At one time when there was no salt in Russia, Prohor distributed ashes to the people as salt. The ashes which he distributed with a blessing became salt; but the ashes which someone took by himself became ordinary ashes. Prince Svyatopolk ordered that all the ashes from Prohor's cell be transferred to his palace, without asking and without the blessing of the monk. But when the ashes were transferred, those who tasted them were convinced that it was ashes and not salt. Then Prohor said to the people who came to him for salt, that they should all go to the prince's palace, and when the prince throws out those ashes from his house, let them take them and carry them as salt. The people did so, and again the ashes were salt. Becoming convinced of this, the prince himself was filled with reverence and love toward Saint Prohor, so that when he died in the year 1107, he laid him in the grave with his own hands next to the great Russian saints Anthony and Theodosius.