Venerable Venerable Prochorus of the Kiev Caves, the Lebednik

CRITICAL: corrected a template artifact in the life-years field — the previous record "11th–17th century" (a nonsensical 6-century span) has been replaced with the correct date of death, February 10, 1107. IMPORTANT DISTINCTION: there exists a SEPARATE, later hegumen of the Kiev Caves Monastery also named Prochorus (1113–1125), to whom a separate card "prokhor_of_kiev" was previously mistakenly dedicated — that card has been unpublished as describing a different, non-glorified person; this card is about the genuinely glorified saint.

Prochorus came to the Kiev Caves Monastery from Smolensk and was tonsured under Hegumen John (abbot 1089–1103). He practiced extreme abstinence: rejecting ordinary bread, he gathered goosefoot weed (lebeda), ground it by hand, and made bread from it and water alone — hence his epithet "the Lebednik."

During a severe famine caused by princely warfare, he miraculously multiplied this bread and freely distributed it to the starving; the bread remained sweet when received as a blessing, but turned bitter, clay-like when taken by theft — a miracle publicly attested by Hegumen John. During an accompanying salt shortage, he likewise turned ash into salt and gave it away freely; Grand Prince Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, pressured by resentful salt merchants, seized the salt by force — it immediately reverted to ash in his storehouses, while salt scattered in the yard remained salt. Svyatopolk repented and made peace with the monastery, and at the saint's death in 1107 personally carried his body to burial. His relics rest incorrupt in the Near Caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra.