Venerable Nikon the Dry, of the Kiev Caves

IMPORTANT CATEGORY CLARIFICATION: despite the torture he endured, Nikon was not executed but died a natural death after his miraculous release — which is why his church title is precisely "venerable," not "venerable martyr."

Venerable Nikon came from a wealthy and noble Kievan family but renounced his inheritance for monasticism at the Kiev Caves Monastery. In 1096, during the invasion of Khan Bonyak, he was taken captive by the Cumans together with other monks (including Venerable Eustratius). His captor, expecting a large ransom, subjected him to years of torture — burning, starvation, exposure, and finally the hamstringing of his legs to prevent escape — over roughly three years of captivity. Nikon refused all attempts by his family to ransom him, saying that if the Lord willed his freedom He would free him without payment. Tradition holds he worked healing miracles for fellow captives.

According to his Life, he was miraculously and repeatedly freed — on one occasion vanishing from under armed guard and instantly appearing inside the monastery's Dormition church during the Divine Liturgy, still in chains, while the guards heard only his singing, "Praise the Lord from the heavens." His former captor, having witnessed one such miracle, converted to Christ and himself became a monk of the same monastery, serving alongside Nikon until his death. He is called "the Dry" because of how emaciated his body became from the repeated tortures. His relics rest incorrupt in the Near Caves.

His feast is kept on December 11/24; also in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Near Caves and the general Synaxis of the Kiev Caves Fathers.