Venerable Cornelius of the Pskov Caves

The Hieromartyr-Venerable Cornelius, Hegumen of the Pskov Caves Monastery, was born in 1501 in Pskov to a devout noble family. He was educated and tonsured at the Spaso-Mirozhsky Monastery, renowned for its school of icon painting. In 1529, at age twenty-eight, he became hegumen of the Pskov Caves Monastery, leading it for over forty years; under him the brotherhood grew from 15 to nearly 200 monks. Cornelius greatly enlarged the caves and built several churches, and in 1558–1565, by order of Ivan the Terrible, enclosed the monastery with a stone wall and nine towers. He founded a scriptorium and school, and authored an account of the monastery's history and the Third Pskov Chronicle. According to a widespread but disputed tradition, in 1570 Ivan the Terrible, suspecting disloyalty upon seeing the fortifications, personally struck the hegumen dead at the gates, then, overcome with remorse, carried the body into the monastery himself. The Church glorified Cornelius as a Hieromartyr.